Cell 2455, Death Row

by Caryl Chessman

  The end was near. My worlds, the revealed and some of the hidden ones, were about to collide. My bold dreams would soon go up in a puff of smoke—gunsmoke. Sensing this, I checked out of school a few days before the end of the semester. The next day the Duke doublecrossed me. However, I virtually invited this doublecross. My business relations with the Duke, who was becoming a big wheel in the local rackets, had been truly lucrative, but we were far from palsy-walsy. The Duke knew I had acquired a pile of money and that I was ever anxious to increase the size of that pile. In a moment of apparent magnanimity, he offered to cut me in on a deal which would permit me to double whatever I was willing to invest. I asked for details. All I had to do, I was told, was go to a certain place, purchase a certain something, return to Hollywood, park in a certain parking lot, walk away, leaving what I had purchased in my car, and then return in a specified time and find a certain amount of money in the glove compartment. “Of course,” said the Duke, “there’s a helluva risk involved. Me, I don’t want no personal connection with the deal. Too dangerous.” I snapped at the bait, investing almost every dime I possessed.

  From the start, I ran into trouble—all kinds of trouble. And all kinds of human vultures, hyenas, jackals. It was a dirty, tough piece of business. I didn’t like it, but once I started I saw it through. I got back to Hollywood. I made a phone call. Then I waited the half hour I’d been instructed before I returned to my car. I looked in the glove compartment. There was the money, a large bundle of it—operation money, bill money, R.C.A.F. money. And when I looked up there were three mean-looking jokers with equally mean-looking guns. They took the money and a gun from my shoulder holster and walked off without so much as saying thanks. I jerked out the little .25 automatic I kept hidden in the car and emptied it at them, into them, but futilely. They got away.

  In a rage, I drove to the apartment at top speed. I grabbed and loaded the two largest calibered revolvers I could find in our former arsenal and went hunting for the Duke. I finally ran across one of his stooges. This individual swore he had no idea where I could find his double-crossing boss until I had massaged his head with a pistol butt for the third time. Then, suddenly, his memory returned. I took him along with me. We walked in on the Duke and a bodyguard, taking them both by surprise. I disarmed the bodyguard and made him and the stooge get down on their hands and knees against the wall.

  Without saying a word, I began to give my friend a vicious pistol whipping. All the while he kept pleading with me to tell him what this was all about and begging me not to beat him any more. I beat him bloodily insensible before I quit. Then I kicked him back to consciousness. I took what money I found in his wallet. I told him, speaking softly, “You made a mistake, Duke. You used me as long as I was useful and then you tried to doublecross me. But it isn’t going to work. I get my money back or you don’t leave this room alive.”

  The Duke swore he had had nothing to do with my being hijacked. I whacked him some more for fibbing. He wasn’t a very pretty sight when I got through with him. “Do I get my money back or don’t I, Duke? I’m giving you a minute to make up your mind.”

  The Duke lay on the floor, bleeding, moaning. Thirty seconds passed. I cocked the gun in my right hand. “All right,” the Duke whispered, “you get the money. How much do you want?”

  “Only what your boys took me for.” I named the figure and then let him put through a phone call to make arrangements for one of his runners to come with the money on the double. When he hung up I said, “That’s using your head, Duke.”

  “You made a mistake, Chess,” the Duke said, dabbing at his bloody face with a handkerchief. “You shouldn’t have done this to me.”

  “You made a mistake too, Duke. You shouldn’t have tried that doublecross.”

  Then I got the least bit careless and my carelessness almost cost me my life. The Duke’s bodyguard and his stooge jumped me when I gave them permission to do what they could for their too-smart boss. The bodyguard, a muscular ape, almost broke my arm with a sap. The stooge threw a chair. When the fight started the Duke made a run for it. He got away. The bodyguard got hold of his gun and we broke a couple of caps at each other. Somebody yelled cops. I ducked out a back way and took off. All night long I looked vainly for the Duke. He was one lucky gangster I didn’t find him. Every place I stopped at I left word that I wanted my money or his life.

  Friday night an unctuous emissary of his phoned. Would I forget the whole thing if I got the money I believed I had coming? Yes, I would. All right, I’d get it. When? It would be mailed to me, not later than Monday. Why not today? Because the Duke was in a pretty bad way. He had been put to bed in a private sanatarium. His doctor had given him a strong sedative and wouldn’t allow him to discuss business affairs with anyone, and it was the Duke who would have to approve release of the money.

  I said, warningly, “If this is some kind of stall or run around, I guarantee you . . .”

  The emissary interrupted. “We’re on the up and up. These kind of beefs are bad for business. We don’t want trouble. We . . .”

  Then I interrupted. “O.K., O.K. You’re all just a lot of honest businessmen who want to do right. Fine. And all I want’s my money and when I get it that’s the last you hear of me unless you people decide you want to play some more. So now you’ve got until next Monday night to phone and tell me the money’s in the mail. If I don’t get it by then I promise you I’ll try to run every last one of you scummy animals out of town.”

  I hung up. My promise wasn’t an empty one and I didn’t throw out that weight just because I liked to play tough. It was the only language these big shot “businessmen” understood. They would push you around unless they were convinced you couldn’t be pushed and that you would start shooting if they tried to push. I had the reputation for being a wild, crazy kid with a gun, and I wanted them to think I was willing to live up to that reputation.

  The first thing we needed was money, so we went after it. We robbed seven or eight places of business in quick succession. Liquor stores. Markets. Gas stations. We did very well using this approach to the monetary problem until a prowl car happened to drive up on us in flagrante delicto. Bullets began to fly almost immediately. Tuffy, obstinately refusing to leave until he obtained the money, didn’t return to the car for a good fifteen seconds after I had honked the horn in warning. That gave John Law an excellent opportunity to move into firing position. And John showed us he wasn’t one to pass any bets. Nevertheless, we got under way unscathed, with John panting eagerly in hot pursuit. A solitary bullet slammed harmlessly into the car.

  “I think I can shake ‘em,” I said. “If I can’t, knock out the back window and we’ll blow the bastards back where they came from.”

  I rammed the Ford into corner after corner and was succeeding in giving our quick-triggered pursuers the slip when, on a sliding turn, apparently from too much stress, a right front tire blew. The Ford banged into the curb, I heard something snap and the steering wheel shuddered and jerked violently.

  What happened next belonged in a nightmare. Suspecting the worst, I spun the wheel. It turned and the Ford didn’t. Of its own accord, the Ford straightened out after a fashion and, since my foot still rested heavily on the accelerator, picked up speed. We were wobbling and bouncing along in what most appropriately can be described as a remarkable rendition of a vehicular kootch dance. In the process we grazed several parked cars. And all the while I was turning the steering wheel in one direction while the Ford proceeded in another.

  We came suddenly to a cross street and the unbelievable occurred. Strictly of its own volition, the Ford made a perfect right-hand turn —but not out of the goodness of its black, vengeful heart. Indeed, no! For after making the turn the Ford aimed itself with diabolic accuracy—and, I am convinced, with malice aforethought—at a thick, squat palm tree. Doing at least fifty, we rammed the palm tree head on.

  All three of us were involuntarily ejected from the Ford in a highly unconventional and ext
remely rapid fashion. I never have been quite sure about the precise routes taken by Tuffy and Little Andy. I missed going through the windshield when I caromed off the steering wheel and other unknown objects, and flew out an open window on the driver’s side of the car. I then plowed, face first, into a front lawn and eventually came to a leisurely stop.

  There was a burst of gunfire. Tuffy jerked me to my feet. One of the cops in the prowl car had let go at us as they bore down on us. We ran (I staggered) to a back yard. I remember seeing a fence. It shimmered and swam before my eyes. I felt myself start to float.

  “You guys get going,” I muttered. “I can’t make it.”

  They both wanted to stay. I shouted, “Goddamit, get going or we’ll all get killed!”

  Clutching my gun, I turned and began to stumble in what I thought was the direction of the cops. I wobbled. My head spun. I couldn’t track. I hardly knew up from down. A gun roared; then another. (One of the cops, I was later to learn, had blown Little Andy’s gun out of his hand in true wild West style.) I fired back in the direction of the flashes. “Come on, you dirty bastards,” I screamed hoarsely, “let’s play!”

  I lurched forward and the whole world turned blacker. I stumbled sideways, against a wall of a house right at a point where a chimney jutted out. I began to sink to the ground. The whole universe was spinning crazily.

  Down the driveway came a cop, gun in hand, advancing cautiously. He passed not three feet from me and I couldn’t even raise the hand that held my gun. My arms just wouldn’t work. Even Hate couldn’t make them work. The cop should have seen me. He didn’t!

  “They got away!” a voice shouted. Both cops ran back to their prowl car and sped off. I grinned. I was down on my knees and still sinking. “Pray, Chessman!” I said, and then flopped over, awkwardly. Still I didn’t pass out. A tiny part of my mind remained conscious.

  I stuck my tongue out, tasting the wet grass between the cement. Perhaps a minute passed. I managed to get to my feet on the third try.

  Concussion is like being on a cheap binge, with something special added. You’re high in more ways than one and you’re not sure whether all those roaring noises are originating outside or inside your head.

  A three-foot fence separated the yard I was in from the adjoining one. I walked into it full speed ahead, jackknifed, and let the law of gravity deposit me in a heap on the other side. I crossed a street. I made my way incautiously and erratically through several more back yards. Two or three (or four?) blocks from where I’d started I came to a school and entered its play yard through an unlocked gate, in search of a drinking fountain. I found one. Just as I did, I heard gunfire, vicious bursts of it, and ran in the direction from which I thought it had come. I collided with the high wire fence surrounding the school grounds, tried to climb the fence and couldn’t. I wept with frustration, certain there was no time to go back to the gate. Tuffy and Little Andy needed help right then. I was sure of that.

  But they already were beyond immediate help. They had got away clean but they’d made a mistake, almost a fatal one. Little Andy had a useless hand; a cop’s bullet had ripped through it. Tuffy was holding a match, cupping it to Andy’s cigarette, when a prowl car whizzed around a corner. Flashlight in one hand, gun in the other, a cop jumped from the car and ordered both of them to put up their hands. Tuffy didn’t comply. He reached for his gun. The cop unloaded his revolver into him at point-blank range. Tuffy went down, still clawing for his gun. He managed to get it out only to have the cop step on his hand, then kick the gun away. Tuffy tried to get up and fight—fight bullets with his bare hands. He got to his knees before he collapsed and was handcuffed. The cops also handcuffed Little Andy, who had tried to help Tuffy, and shoved him into the back seat of the police car.

  Waiting for the ambulance, Tuffy lay where he had fallen, ringed by a crowd of curious which had quickly gathered. It was reasonable to conclude he was dying. The cop asked him if there was anything he wanted to say. “Yeah,” Tuffy said, “how about a drink of water and a cigarette?”

  A woman in the crowd said, “Don’t give the dirty rat nothin’.”

  Tuffy grinned. The cop gave him a cigarette, lit it for him and Tuffy said, “Thanks.” Then the cop said he didn’t think Tuffy should drink anything because the water might not be good for him, what with his belly full of holes.

  And I stood at the school fence and wept and pounded the wire and cursed. Some sixth sense told me what had happened. I promised myself that if Tuffy and Little Andy lived, I would get them out. I would storm Hell itself to get them. They were my friends and that explained everything. But then I remembered and I sneered at myself; here I was promising I would get them out and I couldn’t even climb a fence.

  I was on the wrong side of the fence! “You’re on the wrong side of the fence.” How many times had I been told that? Now here I was, literally on the wrong side of the fence, half goofy with concussion.

  I called myself some unflattering names. Tuffy had never belonged in this business in the first place. I’d brought him in. Then, sensibly, he’d been ready to call it quits and I’d talked him into accompanying us on that last senseless shoplifting tour. “Hell,” I’d said, “come on along for the ride.” Unwittingly I’d sealed his fate. And you couldn’t explain to the cops or a judge that Tuffy really wasn’t at fault. Tuffy wouldn’t want you to try. He’d insist on riding the beef with you. The same was true of Little Andy. They didn’t offer any excuses for themselves and they didn’t want anybody offering any for them.

  Well, I had to act and quickly. Tim’s place wouldn’t be safe any longer, not as soon as they started tying us together, and that was something the cops would succeed in doing in a hurry. I pocketed the gun and washed the blood and mud from my face and hair at the drinking fountain.

  I staggered from the school yard. I dodged prowl cars. My head cleared a little and I spotted a parked car. I formulated a plan when I saw its tail-light wink.

  I jerked open the door on the driver’s side and displayed the gun. Two youngsters, around sixteen, were seated inside. “Start the car,” I told the one behind the wheel.

  “I can’t,” he said, and explained why: no car keys. The car belonged to his parents. His parents were inside that house, visiting the other boy’s parents.

  I marched the two boys down the driveway ahead of me and into the house. Two couples were playing bridge, intently bidding their hands. “Go sit down on that divan,” I told the boys. Then I said, “Pardon the interruption.” When the foursome looked up, understandably startled at being suddenly confronted by a gun-wielding, bloody-faced intruder, I tried to put them at ease. “Please sit still. There’s no need for alarm. No one is going to get hurt.” I watched their reactions as I wiped the blood away from my left eye; the cut above the eye was bleeding again. My words seemed to be having a relaxing effect on the two couples. That was good. Maybe they would cooperate. Maybe there would be no trouble. “Who owns the Chevvy coupe out front?” I asked.

  One of the men at the card table said he did.

  “I want it. Throw me the keys.” I held out my left hand.

  The man stood up, hesitated. He looked at me, not belligerently but with something bothering him.

  “Well?”

  “I use the car in my work,” he told me. “There are some maps and other papers in it I would hate to lose. May I get them?”

  The request was reasonable enough. “Sure. Sure you can get them. But no tricks.” I told the others, “The rest of you stay seated,” and they nodded they would. I apologized for my intrusion and then marched the owner out to his Chevvy. He removed the maps and papers he wanted.

  “Long as you’re out here, start it up for me, will you?”

  He started the Chevvy, then got out. I got in.

  He said, “Take good care of it, won’t you?”

  “Mister,” I assured him, “I’ll treat your car like a brother. And as soon as you get back in the house you phone the cops and report this.
They’ll see that you get your car back almost before you know it’s gone. Of course don’t blame me if they get all excited and shoot it full of holes. I really hope, for your sake, that doesn’t happen.”

  I drove off, leaving the owner of the Chevrolet standing at the curb, holding his maps and papers and wondering, I imagine, what strange sort of bird it was who had clouted his car. Sure, it would be a shame if the cops used his shiny new car for target practice, now wouldn’t it?

  Again I wiped the blood away from my left eye and thought about the box score for the day.

  And not a dime to show for it, only a concussion and various contusions, abrasions and complications. The money we’d taken had been scattered from hell to breakfast when the Ford rammed the palm tree.

  Crime doesn’t pay. You’re on the wrong side of the fence. Sonny boy, keep on like you’re going and you’ll wind up in the gas chamber.

  Or the morgue.

  No R.C.A.F.

  Just the usual dime-novel ending.

  I wanted a cigarette and cigarettes were obtainable if the contents of dreams weren’t. I wanted a cigarette and I didn’t have one, so I jerked the Chevvy into the curb in front of a supermarket that was still open. I entered the store on rubber legs.

  “Coupla packs of Camels,” I told the clerk, who eyed me strangely.

  “Little accident,” I said. The clerk handed me the two packs of cigarettes and I reached into a pocket of my pants for change. None. Irritating. Embarrassing. So I opened my coat and exposed the gun. “Robbery,” I said. “Hand me the bills as though you’re making change.”