Vincent Zandri - The Innocent

Pelton’s office was dimly lit from the green-shaded banker’s lamp positioned in the center of his mahogany desk. But here’s the strange part. When he finally looked up at me, his eyes went wide, as though my less than sudden appearance had taken him completely by surprise. He added further to the act by dropping his pen and sitting back in his chair, locking both hands like a headrest behind his gray-haired head. He looked out the window into the early morning darkness.

“Did you get any coffee, Keeper?” His voice was so soft and understated, I barely caught his words. He focused his glance beyond me and directed Tommy to get me that cup of coffee.

“How’ve you been making out these past few months?” he asked. “Since Fran passed away, I mean.”

I nodded, as though saying, Fine, the world is my freakin’ oyster. But I didn’t like Pelton calling me Keeper any more than I liked entering into any courteous small talk with him, especially about Fran. If it had been twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have minded. Twenty years ago, I might have welcomed the small talk. But that was then and since then, we had both changed and gone our separate ways, formed our own alliances and surrendered to our own ambitions. So now I minded.

“They never did find the man who killed her, did they?” Pelton pressed.

“You know full well they never found him,” I said.

Tommy came back into the room and placed a china saucer and cup on the far end of Pelton’s desk. No Styrofoam cups in this right-wing office. Before the big man backed off, he placed a finely polished silver spoon on the saucer.

“How’s Rhonda?” I said, not able to resist the temptation. “Word’s out she’s on the wagon.”

Pelton pretended to think about it for a second or two. Then he let out a fake laugh.

“Keeper,” he said, “now you know full well she isn’t.”

“So you drag me here at four-thirty in the morning to discuss our separate domestic and family affairs.”

“No, Keeper,” Pelton said, shaking his cranium from shoulder to shoulder. “This has nothing whatsoever to do with your immediate family. This is all about your extended prison family. So perhaps I should get right to the point and dispense with any further niceties.”

“Please do. I’d like to get a shave before work.”

Pelton’s face went noticeably taut.

“Tommy,” he said, waving his right arm in the air like a pointer, “send in Mr. Warren, would you, please?”

I heard the door to the office open and then a man walked in and stood between me and Pelton’s desk. It was John “Jake” Warren.

“Keeper, Jake,” Pelton said. “I’m sure you two know one another.”

I didn’t get up, nor did I bother with a handshake. Warren had worked for the commission for almost as long as I had. Now he was Pelton’s second in command, the man directly responsible for security in and out of state prisons. Ironically he made more money than Pelton, the commissioner’s salary not having been raised in more than a decade. But then, Warren didn’t need the money, his family owning and operating a good-size machine works in a small Mohawk River town just north of the Albany city limits. Recently Warren had announced his candidacy for state senate on the Republican ticket. An escape, no matter who was responsible, could only hurt his chances for election, since it clearly represented a breakdown in the system that he oversaw. Warren took a seat behind Pelton’s desk. Clearly he hadn’t been asked to be here in the interest of discussing politics.

“Keeper,” Wash Pelton said, “why don’t you tell Jake and I just what plans you’ve established for getting this man Vasquez back.”

I took a quick glance around the room, because it suddenly dawned on me that Pelton could be taping this conversation. In that case, I had to answer carefully.

“Taking it by the book,” I said. “All the procedural stuff. General lockdown, no authorized field trips of any kind, tightened security, better food.”

“But you’re not answering my question,” Pelton went on. “Haven’t you taken any action to get Mr. Vasquez back?”

“I’m not sure I understand?”

“In other words, Keeper,” Pelton said, once again looking out his window, “your position in this matter is purely passive.”

“What can I possibly do? There’s an investigation team on it now. Schillinger from Stormville PD is handling it. FBI’s been alerted.”

“Yes,” Pelton said, “I know.”

The room fell quiet for a moment.

And then Pelton said, “Keeper, do you recall Deputy Commissioner Warren having called you about the possibility that Eduard Vasquez might escape?”

“No,” I said, my eyes on Warren, getting a good look at his dark blue Brooks Brothers single-breasted suit. “All I’ve been getting from the commission are calls for names to scratch from my guard roster.”

Warren pushed his horn-rimmed glasses farther up on the crown of his nose. Then he crossed his legs.

“Are you sure?” Pelton pushed. I noticed that his voice was getting deeper, more inquisitive, slower than normal- trying his best to convince me of something that hadn’t happened at all.

“Yes,” I said, sitting up straight in my chair, gripping the armrests with my fists. “No one ever called me about Vasquez. Only about names.”

Outside the window, the full moon was plainly visible over the west bank of the Hudson River as it reflected off its surface. In just a little while, it would be the sun’s turn to reflect as it rose over the Berkshire Mountains to the east.

“Well,” Pelton said, touching his thin lips with the back of his pen, “you’d better get your story straight.”

I looked into his eyes. “Whadaya mean get my story straight?”

“Mr. Warren seems to recall having contacted you.”

The light of the full moon cast a pale luminescence over everything in the large room, including Pelton’s red face. Somewhere, a church bell sounded, one lonely chime after the other, and stopped after only five chimes.

“No,” I insisted, “I don’t recall getting a call from Mr. Warren. I don’t think I could forget a thing like that.” I tried to make eye contact with Warren. But he sat behind Pelton’s chair, legs crossed, eyes gazing down at the floor. Pelton got up and went to the window.

“I know Warren spoke with you,” he said.

“Listen, Wash,” I said, blood boiling inside my head, “I don’t care if you are my superior, but I’ve just been kidnapped from my home.”

“Kidnapped,” he smirked. “We’re being dramatic.”

“Yes, bloody-well kidnapped and brought here to answer questions about an escape I had no way of anticipating. Now you want me to agree to phone calls that never occurred. What the hell’s going on?” Now Pelton was looking out the window into the full moon.

“Temper, Keeper,” he said. “I thought we were all on the same team here.”

“Okay, Wash,” I said, my voice lowered a decibel or two, “I’ll tell you what. When I get back to work in a little while I can ask Val about any phone calls that might have been placed. She keeps excellent records. She’ll know if Warren called.”

The room fell quiet for a minute.

And then Wash said, “Keeper, I’m sure by now you have a pretty good idea about what’s going on here.”

I nodded. “You want me to take the blame for the Vasquez escape.”

“I didn’t say that exactly.”

“You want me to take the blame so that you can save your precious posteriors…so that you can stay up here in this white tower and so Warren here can get his state senate seat. Am I right?”

“I like my job,” Pelton said, “if that’s what you mean. Jake here, he has his aspirations also.”