Vincent Zandri - The Innocent

I laid out the Remington 1187s on the kitchen table and loaded the weapons with five two-and-three-quarter eight-shot all-purpose magnum loads. I handed one of the shotguns, barrel up, to Cassandra.

“You know how to use this thing?”

She pulled back the chamber device on the semiautomatic and popped the release. The cabin was filled with the sharp, solid, metallic sound of a round being chambered.

“Eddy Vasquez was my lover,” she said, depressing the safety latch on the trigger as if that was answer enough. Then she went into the great room and pulled up the floor-board panel. She climbed down and leaned the shotgun against the wall beside the ladder. When she climbed back out of the hole, she said, “Maybe you’d better make that call now.”

“It’s the only thing left to do,” I agreed.

Using the old rotary phone in the kitchen, I dialed the number for Tony Angelino’s private line at his office inside Albany’s Council 84. The time was four-fifteen.

He answered after the first ring, not bothering with a formal hello. “Go,” is all he said in his raspy baritone.

It took me a little less than fifteen seconds to give him precise directions from Albany to Ironville and the cabin.

“Sounds like my L.A. Guinea Pig contingent came through,” Tony said.

“Pelton and Schillinger are definitely coming?” I probed.

“Pelton was happy you came to your senses. Said he’ll figure out a way to back you up, if you’ll only give him back that video.”

“They ask about copies? What if they think we made copies?”

“I told them it was a chance they’d have to take, paisan. I told them all you wanted was your name back, and your job, and that it would not be in your best interest to further piss them off. That you wanted to work with them now, not work against them. Capisce?”

“And Cassandra?”

“Told them you sent her on her way. That she’s probably in Mexico by now.”

“No cops,” I said.

“No cops,” Tony said.

“And you’re sure they bought it, Tone?”

“Sure as I’ll ever be,” he said.

“I’ll be in touch,” I said.

I drank two more beers over the next two hours. I could have drunk more. In any case, the adrenaline or the fear or both seemed to burn the alcohol away as fast as I put it in. Cassandra drank nothing. She seemed calm, casually sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace in her black jeans and turtleneck, the fire having been allowed to die completely for the first time since we’d arrived. For now, the cabin interior was lit with the dim light that came from the brass table lamp on top of the three-tiered bookshelf abutting the stone fireplace. We said very little. Not even small talk. I paced the cabin floor and said nothing.

Nothing seemed like the easier alternative.

BLOOD RUNS FROM THE base of Wash Pelton’s neck, down the front of his yellow inmate jumper. It hits me then: Why bother holding a shiv to a man’s neck if you already have the barrel of a.38 service revolver pressed up against his head?

In the four days since the rebel inmates took control of D-Block and D-Yard, they have not fired a single round. The murdered COs were cut open with shivs, not blown away by bullets.

Beatings and shivings, but not bullets.

The situation is simple, but deadly. The rebel inmates have firearms, but they don’t have bullets.

As the afternoon of the fourth day wears on, the rebel inmates make their demands once more. Demands for food, money, medical supplies, helicopters, weapons, freedom, and, of course, bullets. Lots of bullets. With fists raised high and bandannas wrapped around their heads and sunglasses covering their bloodshot eyes, they scream insane orders over government-issue bullhorns from the center of Times Square to the state troopers who line the west wall, sighting us in with their.270 caliber standard-issue sniping rifles. Their firearms are loaded and locked.

No question about that. The question, on the other hand, is this: Do the troopers have orders to take out three corrections officers in the interest of saving the lives of two dozen others?

AT EXACTLY ONE MINUTE past eight o’clock on a warm Saturday night in May, just five days after convicted cop-killer Eduard Vasquez escaped from Green Haven Maximum Security Prison-and just two days after his assassination- two egg-shaped headlights broke through the darkness of the north country. What I guessed was a state-owned, four-door Ford Taurus rolled slowly along the east-west Ironville road until the driver turned off and pulled into the driveway that led to the cabin.

I moved away from the picture window and turned toward Cassandra.

“You know what to do,” I said, keeping my eyes planted on the headlights, remembering her pregnant condition.

“Yes,” spoke a voice in the darkness, “I know what to do.”

The white light from Cassandra’s four-battery flashlight sliced through the thick darkness like a laser beam. From where I stood, I heard her lifting the wood panel off the floor. I heard her steps when she climbed down the ladder. I heard her replace the panel.

What happened next was up to me.

And luck.

I pulled the.45 out from behind my back, pulled back the slide and felt the good solid feel of racking a live round. Using my thumb, I clicked on the safety and stuffed the piece, barrel first, behind my belt buckle. I jogged into the back bedroom and picked up the twelve-gauge Remington with the flashlight I had duct-taped to the barrel. I opened the bedroom window and climbed out, hind end first, so that I was sitting on the windowsill with my legs still in the room. Then I stood on the sill and heaved myself up onto the roof.

I shimmied up onto the wood shakes, crawled on my chest and stomach, propelled myself with my legs, arms, and hands, feeling the brittle wood shakes crack underneath my weight. I slid up to the apex of the A-frame and looked down on the driveway. From this position, I watched the headlights cut through the blackness of the early evening. The car moved slowly up the hard-packed dirt road, sweeping up pebbles and stones against the underside of the carriage until the driver turned into the driveway and stopped.

The headlights from the car shined on the front of the cabin but not in my eyes. From my position on the roof I was able to see Tommy Walsh squeeze his massive body out from behind the steering column. And I was able to see Wash Pelton get out of the passenger side. And I saw Marty Schillinger crawl out of the backseat.

“What the heck is going on here?” Pelton said. “Keeper Marconi, you here?”

His strained voice echoed against Old Iron Top and then drifted out over the grassy fields opposite the Ironville road. When Pelton took three or four steps forward I was able to see that he wore a black business suit tailored to fit his soft, middle-aged body. He wore a bright red tie that showed well in the light that came from the headlamps on the Taurus. He looked out of place in the middle of the Adirondack forest. Unfortunately for him, the tie would make a good target if I needed one.

Tommy pulled out his service pistol and assumed a sharpshooter’s stance-legs spread, feet flat, knees cocked, arms out straight, two hands supporting the Glock’s grip. Like the turret on a tank, he shifted his aim from left to right to left again. He seemed more suited to the occasion, with his work boots and jeans and jean jacket with the sleeves cut off.

“Keeper Marconi,” Pelton shouted again, this time with his hands cupped up around his mouth like a megaphone.

I felt the old wood shakes snapping and breaking underneath me.

Tommy pivoted, waving the Glock in the direction of the east-west road, as if suspecting an ambush.