Shirley Murphy - The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

“Does it bother you,” Misto said softly, “that you killed him?”

“He tried to kill me,” Lee said gruffly.

“Does it bother you?”

“Maybe,” Lee growled. “What difference? If I hadn’t done him, I’d be dead.”

Misto lashed his tail against the blanket. Lee felt him curl up as if prepared for sleep. Maybe Lee slept, too, he wasn’t sure. The wail of a Klaxon brought them both up rigid, the cat standing hard and alert beside Lee. The body had been found. The cellblocks would be locked down, double security set in place. Fear chilled him at thoughts of the search. Before the guards reached his cell he rose, took three more aspirin, and lay down again, listening to the clang of barred doors as the search began.

W HEN THE PRISONteam reached Lee’s cell, he stood in the middle of the small space, sucking in his gut when the guard patted him down. He willed the man not to feel the bandage under the heavy T-shirt. The guard jerked off his bedcovers, flipped and examined his mattress, inspected his damp shoes and wet shirt. “You fall in the dishwater, Fontana?”

“The guy works beside me,” Lee said, “sloppy as hell.” He waited, hiding his nervousness until the man finished his nosy prying and left, giving Lee a last appraising look. Alone again, Lee crawled back under the covers. That was when the devil returned, descending as if Delone’s death had kept him near. Again the cat stiffened, the air grew icy, and Lucifer’s grainy voice struck through Lee.

“That guard,” Satan said, “he could have made you strip down, Fontana. He would have if I’d nudged him a little. Or,” the devil said, “think of this. When you killed Delone, I could have led a guard in there at that moment, led him into the masonry room to find you standing over the body.

“I took pity on you, Fontana. Now, you can return the courtesy.”

“Go to hell.”

“I have a mission for you.”

“I don’t want to hear it. Get someone else for your lackey.” Lee rolled over, turning his back, gritting his teeth against the pain.

The wraith shifted again so it faced Lee. “I want you to gain Morgan Blake’s full confidence, I want him to completely depend on you.”

Lee stared at the heavy shadow. “What do you want with Blake?”

“I want him to trust you in all matters, to follow you unquestioningly. In return, I will let up on you, Fontana. I will make your life easier. Blake is already your friend, you are special to him because of his child. Now he must seek your wisdom in whatever he undertakes. It should be easy enough to manipulate him in this way.”

“Why? What do you mean to do?”

“Blake thinks you can help him, Fontana. And you can help. When you do so, my pressure on you will ease. The wound will heal, the pain will be gone. So easy to do, to gain Blake’s absolute confidence no matter what you might ask him to do . . . A fine bargain,” the devil said. “Think about it, Fontana . . .” And the voice faded, the shadow faded, the dark wraith was gone. Lee was left only with questions.

I N THE NEXTdays, as prison authorities investigated Delone’s murder, Lee’s wound continued to throb; everything he did, even eating a meal, left him chilled and weak. He didn’t change his work routine, he took painkillers, went to the kitchen as usual and pulled his shift. The pain came bad when he carried the heavy trays. The third afternoon near the end of shift, as he hoisted a stack of trays, cold sweat beaded his face, and he saw Bronski watching him. Bronski stepped over and took the trays from him. “Go sit on the steps, Fontana. I’ll take care of these.” It was the only indication he ever had that Bronski knew how Delone died.

By the time security dropped back to normal, Lee’s wound had begun to heal. Gimpy passed by the back door of the kitchen twice, slipping Lee more aspirin, iodine, some sulfa powder, and fresh bandages, turning away quickly as Lee slipped the package under his shirt. Lee and Gimpy went back a long way, and Lee was mighty thankful for his friendship. He had no idea that, within only a few days, he would abandon Gimpy, that the Atlanta pen would be the last time he would ever see the old safecracker.

20

L EE HAD STARTEDdown toward the big yard, meaning to sit quietly in the thin morning sun and try to ease his hurting side, when he saw something that stirred a shock of challenge—but sent a jolt of fear through him, too. He was heading down the hillside steps when he noticed something different about the thirty-foot wall towering over him. The way the sunlight fell, he glimpsed a hint of shadow running up the concrete, the faintest blemish. Not a cloud shadow, it was too thin and straight. Some imperfection in the wall? He paused to look, leaning casually on the metal rail.

In the yard below, half a dozen younger inmates were jogging the track. Two men were playing handball against the wall itself, and beyond them three convicts were throwing a baseball, the figures dwarfed by the giant wall. He looked carefully at the thin line but when he started down the stairs for a closer view it disappeared, was lost in the way the light fell.

He moved on down, trying to recapture the shadow, but not until he reached the lowest step did he see it again. A thin vertical line running from the ground straight up thirty feet to the top. When Lee moved, the line disappeared. He moved back a step, and there it was. He propped his foot on the lower rail, looking. It must be an interlocking joint, though he couldn’t find another like it. This was the only flaw he could see along the bare expanse between the near tower and the distant one, away at the far corner. Could this be a defect when the forms were up? So faint a blemish that when the forms were removed it was missed, had been left uncorrected with no last-minute touch of the trowel to smooth it away? His gaze was over halfway up, following the line, when he saw something else.

Some six inches on either side of the line he could see a small round indentation, the faintest dimple picked out by the slanting sun. Following the line itself, he found two more dots, and two above those, blemishes so indistinct that his slightest move made them vanish.

He noted where the line struck at the base of the wall in relation to the curve of the jogging track. Taking his time, he moved on down the stairs, across the yard and the jogging track. He sat down against the wall just at the joint, casually watching the joggers and ballplayers. No one paid him any attention. When he ran his hand behind him he could feel the joint. When he felt up and down, he found the lowest small dimple. He scraped it with his thumb, then pressed it hard and felt the heavy paint break away. He pushed his finger into the hole. A snug fit, but so deep he couldn’t touch the end.

If all the dimples were this deep, a man had only to figure out how to use them. He found the chip that had fallen behind him, and took a good look. Layer after layer of dried paint hinted at the venerable age of the wall. He visualized it being built. First, a metal interstructure, then the plywood or metal forms both inside and out to receive the wet cement. The line had to be a joint between two sheets of the form. The forms themselves, angled in from the thicker base, would have had supports to keep the cement from collapsing as it dried.

There had to be other lines and other groups of holes. Or did there? Maybe the other holes had all been carefully filled, the lines smoothed away and plastered over. How could this one joint have been overlooked? Maybe this was where two workers met at quitting time? Maybe they had applied one coat of spackle, and the next day they moved on, forgetting to finish this joint? Soon it was painted over by other, uncaring workmen? Leaning back against the wall, he looked up its great height to where it rounded at the top.