Cell 2455, Death Row

by Caryl Chessman

  • 25 •

  The Pull of the Orbit

  The waitress looked at me as though she thought I was out of my mind and wanted to know where I’d been. Why? I asked. “Well, for gosh sakes, Mister, this is meatless Tuesday. There’s a war on.”

  I grinned. “You’re telling me? I’ve been in it. And now I’m starved. So I’ll make you a deal. If you let me have my ham and eggs today, I promise I won’t eat any meat tomorrow. How about it?”

  “Well,” said the waitress, pouting thoughtfully, “I guess that would be all right.”

  I cleaned my plate, drank three cups of steaming black coffee, and felt much better. Then I selected a package of cigarettes from the off brands available and handed the waitress the five-dollar bill. She started making change.

  “All I want back is a dime. The rest is yours.”

  She protested, “But you got two dollars and forty cents change coming.”

  “The customer is always right,” I reminded her. “Now give me my dime and let me get back to the wars.”

  She did, saying, “You sure don’t look like no soldier to me.”

  “I don’t feel like one either,” I replied, and hobbled out. I took the streetcar to an outlying district and then walked—staggered—a block and a half to a house where I was positive I would find a friend and sanctuary. But the friend was gone—to a war job in another state. Ironically, he had left only the day before. And his absence left me on a delightful spot: flat broke, shot up, sick, badly wanted, and on the streets without transportation. Where could I go? The police would be watching, checking all known friends.

  I hobbled along, racking my brains for an original idea. The day was hot, blazing hot. My head pounded, spun. I staggered on—to nowhere. Thinking became too great an effort. I knew I had a problem, but I couldn’t recall what it was. A matter of shooting ducks. Or Fuhrers. I came to a park. And benches and a drinking fountain. I drank until I felt bloated, then sprawled onto a bench in the shade. Two chubby, golden-haired little girls playing nearby in a sandbox ran over and studied me solemnly.

  “You’re a funny man,” one of them told me.

  I agreed—I was a funny man. After a while the funny man’s head cleared; he sat in the shade all afternoon and watched children laugh and play. Then he stood up and hobbled off, grimacing with pain. He had to go slowly. It was dark by the time he had covered the two miles to the home of an elderly lady who had taught his Sunday-school class years before. He found her at home. She invited him in, fed him. She knew he belonged in prison; he was AWOL, he admitted. He spoke vaguely, but derisively, of funny men who set out to slay dragons, of bold plans gone astray. He borrowed a couple of dollars. As soon as he left, she called the police. The funny man got away. . . .

  A long night finally passed. I had breakfast at a drive-in. A girl I had known in my childhood, and whom I’ll call Gina, was my last hope; she lived close by. I had to make it there. Somehow I did, hobbling up to the door of the small, vine-hidden bungalow and knocking. Sleep in her eyes, a housecoat wrapped casually around her, Gina opened the door. She blinked. “You!”

  “Me,” I agreed. I stepped inside, closed the door and grinned in the manner of the small boy who has paid a visit to the jam jar with calamitous results.

  Gina’s startled eyes swept over me. “Good Lord,” she exclaimed, “you look like the wrath of God!”

  My grin broadened. “In a way, I guess that’s just what I am.”

  “I read about your departure in the papers and I had a hunch you might pay me a visit.”

  “I only hope the gendarmes don’t have the same hunch. They haven’t been around, have they?”

  “No, but I saw Judy and your mother and dad yesterday.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I came to see you. I want you to tell them that I’m all right and not to worry. Will you do that?”

  “Of course, I will. But you don’t look all right.”

  “Don’t tell Judy or my folks that. Besides, I’ll be all right after I take a bath and shave and plug up a couple of holes.”

  “Why did you run away?”

  “I had amnesia,” I said with a straight face. “I fell out of an observation tower and struck my head. The first thing I remember after that is when I found myself running through an orange orchard.”

  “Then, when you came to your senses, why didn’t you turn around and run right back?”

  “Because prison officials have suspicious minds and I don’t think they’d believe a story like that.”

  “Frankly, I don’t believe it either.”

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  “Well, what are you going to do now?”

  “Gina, my sweet, I am now going to do something bold and dramatic.”

  Gina managed a frown. “If you ask me, I think you should do something sensible and prosaic.”

  I protested, “But that wouldn’t be any fun.”

  “Having your kind of fun will get you killed.”

  “It could,” I admitted.

  I bathed, shaved with a razor which Gina resurrected from some quarter, and “plugged” up the holes. Both wounds were infected; they had an ugly look and obviously needed medical attention in the worst possible way. The iodine I applied with great liberality burned, like fires of Hell. Grimacing, I hopped about the bathroom and cursed softly but with rare eloquence, convinced the iodine was eating its way through my leg and foot. After an eternity the burning subsided. Then I dressed and combed my hair. I found Gina in the kitchen.

  “Well,” she said, “you look like a new man.” She had made up her face and her smile was dazzling.

  “And you, Gina, look like a very beautiful woman.”

  This goddess of my childhood flushed with pleasure. I sat opposite from her and had coffee and a cigarette while she ate a late breakfast. The warm mid-morning sun came streaming in through the east windows of the kitchen. I found myself relaxing more and more, feeling comfortable and even domestic (and these assuredly were sensations, however transient, which should have been wholly alien to the grinning, driven psychopathic hunter obsessed widi acting out a fantastic dream).

  Lightly we talked—of what once had been when the world and Caryl Chessman were young—of all that had occurred since. Now, once again, our padis had crossed, and still the spirit of Gina was a tonic. She still loved life for its own sake, widi a passionate fervor, and, her beauty had not faded. An audientic Bohemian, Gina was also a circumspect one. And so, when talk returned to the present and me, she was greatly concerned. I had risked too much and the danger was surely too great.

  “Gina,” I assured her, “there’s never any need for worry about me. I live a charmed life.”

  “Oh, I know, Caryl. I know diat you are more dian able to look out foi yourself. But I was dunking of your modier and fadier and Judy. For their sakes, don’t you believe you should consider giving yourself up?”

  The constant, terrible pull of the orbit; there it was. And there was the verbal dirust I needed. “Gina,” I said, with exaggerated harshness, “I didn’t come to you for advice. I came for help.” I stood up. I lit another cigarette.

  Gina looked stricken and I relented. Our eyes met.

  “I’m sorry, Gina,” I said quietly. “Please forgive me. You see, I just can’t give myself up and I guess that makes me a hopeless case. But that is still no reason for us to quarrel, now is it?”

  “No,” she agreed. “You’re right.”

  “And I’m forgiven?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good.”

  I had a favor I wanted to ask. “I expect some important papers to come into my possession within two or three days. It may become inadvisable for me to hold on to them personally. I may find it expedient to mail them to you or have them delivered to you. So if you receive a package with a return address on . . . let’s say Wabash Street, you’re to keep it for me and, for God’s sake, don’t look inside or let anyone else know about the package. I’ll
pick it up later. O.K.?”

  It was. I borrowed ten dollars. A sick dizziness engulfed me. I floundered and Gina helped me to a chair. She got me something to drink. Then I stood up unsteadily and insisted I felt fine. That was the blackest lie I have ever told. But I had to get moving and keep moving, relentlessly, or quit. Vaguely I remember bidding Gina adieu and hobbling off.

  I caught the bus for Hollywood. Next stop make-believe land. Or was I already there? .

  It strikes you as an odd thing when you stop and think about it. All the police in creation can be doing their utmost to find a certain guy without having any luck at all and then you can find him in practically nothing flat.

  It was that way with an escaped convict and professional burglar whom I will call Al Collins. An aging Raffles, Collins was then about as badly wanted as it was possible to get. His looting of two hundred odd fashionable homes in the Beverly Hills and Bel Air sections of southern California had won him the sobriquet of the Phantom Burglar and ultimate capture and sentencing to San Quentin. A few weeks earlier he had escaped from a prison road camp and I had a hunch he had returned to his old stamping grounds. A couple of phone calls and bar visits confirmed that he indeed had. I was instructed to be at a certain bar at a specified time that evening if I wanted to get in touch with him.

  When he saw me, Al let out a whoop. He acted as though he had found a long-lost brother. In a way he had, for I was one of the brethren, if a decidedly shot-up and down-at-the-heels one. This troubled him not at all. “We’ll have you all straightened out in no time,” he said, and then he practically ran me into the bar and had me gulping a drink and acknowledging introductions.

  “Look, Joy Boy,” I protested, “I’m in no condition for this sort of thing. I need sleep and a doctor.”

  But this genial, burglarious friend laughingly insisted that I first needed a drink, and then another. He joked all the while with the bartender and two or three sleek, unattached females. It was hard to believe that such an inoffensively extroverted guy could be a Phantom Burglar—and one of the most wanted criminals in this part of the country.

  Just as he had said he would, Al got me “straightened out in no time.” That night (or morning) he got me a hotel room, registering me as Jonathan Edward Carlson, and gave me a loaded revolver. In the forenoon he took me to a doctor who did not ask questions and then to a clothier. After lunch we returned to his apartment and fed his landlady a likely story. She rented me a tiny, sunny apartment on the ground floor that was perfect for my purposes. Al saw to it that the apartment was furnished as I wanted it. And within twenty-four hours I had a draft card and other identification.

  I was Jonathan Edward Carlson.

  Within forty-eight hours I was able to get around without too much difficulty. The doctor had checked the infection and my wounds were on the mend. On the shot foot I wore a light slipper, which made walking less painful. The second night after meeting him, I went on the prowl with Al. We acquired some cash, more guns, an almost new Packard convertible and several thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry, which Al promptly turned over to his fence. A day later the fence had a proposition for us. Why waste time prowling for ice in such a haphazard fashion? he asked preliminarily. Why not knock over those who dealt in it? He had something special and something big in mind. We listened attentively. The proposition was almost too attractive. Al was enthusiastic. We would clean up here and then beat it for the East.

  “Look, Al,” I told him, “I didn’t take off from Chino just to steal and have a good time. I got other plans, and don’t ask me to explain.”

  He didn’t, although his bony face then wore an expression of utter bafflement. “Hell,” he said, “you must be crazy.”

  That, as I remarked, was not an original idea.

  My “other plans” were rapidly shaping up. Unquestionably, Al had saved my life and, without knowing it, had put me back in the Fuhrer-hunting business. I then possessed everything required to make the next move—the right sort of front, money, guns, transportation and a connection to buy all the black-market gas I wanted, using loose gas stamps Al had acquired by the gross. So it was time to set some wheels within wheels in motion.

  I visited the library where Renny had instructed me I would find those documents which had sent me leaping eagerly for the moon, and, unobserved, I snatched them from their novel hiding place, concealing them under my shirt and coat.

  Perched behind her desk, checking some books against a list, the middle-aged librarian looked up as I was leaving, smiled pleasantly, failed to note my sudden increase in girth, and asked, “Did you find what you wanted?”

  “Indeed I did, ma’m,” I assured her.

  I drove to Griffith Park, parked, and was jubilant when I examined the papers. They were exactly what Renny had said they would be. Well, now it was up to me. Here was my chance of a lifetime and I mustn’t flub it. By God, I wouldn’t! I’d turn defeat into victory yet! I swung the Packard back onto Los Feliz, crossed Riverside Drive and pulled into a drive-in. I ordered, and while waiting to be served, used a public telephone. When a cultured voice answered, I asked to speak to—let’s call him—Mr. Christopher. The voice wanted to know who was speaking and I said to tell Mr. Christopher that Detective S. Holmes was phoning and wanted to speak to him about a burglary that had occurred at his home two years back. I was asked to hold the line.

  Then, “Hello, Christopher speaking. Now what is this nonsense about a burglary? And who is this?”

  “A friend,” I said, “who wants to do you a favor. I happened to run across some papers today that I believe came from your home when it was burglarized a couple of years ago.”

  “Who told you my home was burglarized?”

  “The burglar.”

  Christopher’s voice became wary. “And you say you’re a detective?”

  “That’s what I said but it was somewhat less than the truth.”

  “Meaning you’re not?”

  “I definitely am not.”

  “Then who are you?”

  “I told you, a friend.”

  “How do I know thai?”

  “For the best reason there is: because I have the papers and because I haven’t turned them over to the police or the F.B.I, and don’t intend to. Because I want to give them back.”

  “And you will expect, I presume, an ... ah ... reward, shall we say.”

  I let my voice bristle with indignation. “Look, Christopher, let’s get one thing straight. This isn’t a shakedown. I don’t want a goddamed dime for your papers. I want your help.”

  “In what way?”

  “In getting out of the country temporarily, for one thing. It just so happens that I recently escaped from prison and the thought of going back doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “How can I be sure this isn’t some trick?”

  “Look, I don’t want to argue. I’ll tell you my name and I’ll call you back in twenty-four hours. In the meantime, vou can check and find out if I’m on the level or not My name’s Chessman—C-h-e-s-s-m-a-n—Caryl Chessman. Goodbye.”

  I returned to the Packard and ate. And thought. Holding those papers was like holding history itself in my hand. They were a strange, terrible kind of Power, and that Power, recklessly handled, as it had to be, could easily blow me to an anonymous Hell, less easily into History’s book. Certainly the pedestrian approach was out of the question. With the stakes so incredibly high, only a bold gambler stood any chance of winning. Well, that was fair enough. I was in the mood to outbluff the Devil himself.

  As I aimed the nose of the Packard back out onto Los Feliz, I had a hunch: Gabriella was safe and had returned to her swank Hollywood apartment. Fifteen minutes later I was knocking on the door of that apartment. When Gabriella herself answered, I barged in uninvited, elated at finding her and immensely entertained by her open-mouthed reaction to the sudden appearance of what, in her obviously tipsy condition, she apparently was convinced was a ghost’s ghost. A brainy, imaginative female
for all her allure, Gabriella had often laughingly insisted that I must surely be reincarnate that long-dead happy rascal and melancholy poet she knew I admired so much, Francois Villon.

  Now she fixed me with a stern look of distaste and said flatly, “Francois, you’re not real—go away!”

  “The hell I’m not real!” I replied, and to prove it bussed this attractive doubter with unfeigned enthusiasm.

  Whereupon, my reality established, we had a thoroughly noisy reunion. The fussy but well-heeled male friend Gabriella had been entertaining left in a decided huff. We laughed him on his way. Then we compared notes. Her escape from the big men with guns had been as miraculous as mine. Our fellow conspirator, Jay, had not been so fortunate. He direly needed help in the way of money and a lawyer and shortly, at considerable risk, I saw to it that he got both. Having brought each other up to date, Gabriella and I plotted the future with a considerable assist from her bottle of Scotch.

  Gabriella dressed and we took a ride. Brazenly, I returned to within sight of Chino and retrieved the papers I had hidden there. Then I paid a visit to the private residence of a very wise and kindly old man connected with the California prison system. With Gabriella standing guard, this old gentleman and myself had a long and earnest talk. Next, Gabriella and I reconnoitered Christopher’s walled and guarded hill home. After midnight I returned Gabriella to her apartment, picked up Al and we went out on the prowl, having something of a hectic time of it for the remainder of the night. Sneaking through the enclosed back yard of a fashionable San Marino home, two huge dogs came dashing at us, snarling.

  “Stand still!” Al whispered, sharply.