But not here. The industrial area all around me was silent, the south-wall gate locked ever since the four-thirty count came all-clear. The shops and factories were emptied of men, except for a single fire guard in each, dozing, reading a magazine, or listening to some disk jockey. So there was no need to guard this area, and now the industrial-area walls were unmanned. Twenty-five minutes ago the big third-watch sergeant had patrolled the area, flashlight bobbing as he walked. I didn’t think anyone would be back here again tonight.
* * *
—
Now, the first watch should be on; it was time to move, and I stepped out from the crates. In my hand as I walked along beside the crates was the yard-long miniature spade, the Army trenching tool Ben had brought in his pack.
I began digging in the narrow rectangle of bare ground between the end of the furniture factory and the great wall which paralleled it a dozen feet to the north, the wall Ben had climbed over. I worked in the corner formed by the north and east walls of the area, directly below the underside of the floor of the corner wall tower. The tower was wider by some feet than the narrow wall it sat on, and projected out over me by a yard or more. The little corner I worked in was well lighted by wall lights; anyone coming around a corner of the factory could see me, and I could only hope no one would. I didn’t think anyone would; there was no reason to.
I dug steadily, fast, and quietly, and the spade, new and sharp, bit easily into the brown, clayey soil. Still, it took over three hours; I had to carry each spadeful away from the trench I was digging, and scatter it wide. But I never stopped, and my hands, calloused from the wood and tools I worked with each day in the factory, accepted the work easily. By three o’clock in the morning I had dug a neat rectangle over six feet long, nearly a yard wide, and maybe a yard deep. The last few inches of earth I stacked along the back edge of the trench. Now I walked along the east side of the factory to a small side door I’d unlocked myself just before work ended that afternoon. Then, holding the door open a few inches, I watched and listened. But the inmate fire guard was clear up front in the office; I could see the back of his head over the top of an upholstered office chair. Beside the door, just inside the building, I silently lifted a sheet of three-quarter-inch, yard-wide plywood I’d placed there this afternoon, and set it outside the door. Then I returned for a two-and-a-half-foot length of the same wood I’d sawed off, working quite openly, this morning. Near the upper end of this shorter length, I’d bored a half-dollar-sized hole.
Setting the door latch on locking position this time, I closed it behind me, then carried my two boards to the trench. There, the two boards butted together end to end, I forced them into the slightly smaller dimensions of the trench, walking around their edges, jouncing my weight on them. When they covered the trench, forced below ground level for a few inches, I took from my pocket the length of pipe Ben had brought in his pack, and looked at it. He’d done a good job; fastened over one end of the pipe, and held on with tightly wrapped wire, was a circle of fine screening painted a dull brown. I forced the other end of the pipe into the half-dollar-sized hole I’d bored in the short length of plywood, and left it there. Then I pulled the dirt stacked along the back edge of the trench onto the boards with my shovel, heaping it up a little. I trampled the dirt flat, level with and matching the ground around it—also packed hard by the feet that trampled it every day. Now I forced the rest of the pipe length down into its hole till the circlet of screening seemed to lie on the ground. Crumbling a little clot of earth with my fingers I let it sift down onto the screening until it was covered, and now there was absolutely no visible hint of the six foot by three, yard-deep space that I’d made under the ground.
Kneeling at one end of it, I forced my fingers down into the earth, found the board edge, and lifted. It was heavy under its layer of earth, but I lifted the front edge some inches, watching the dirt on its top. A few loose nuggets of earth rolled off, but most of it, tramped solid, stayed: and when I dropped the board it fell into place again, and again the earth over my trench seemed undisturbed. I walked back to my crates, got my canvas bundle, returned to the trench, and again lifted the shorter of the two boards buried under their layers of dirt, this time wedging it open with the little spade. I shoved the bundle far into the trench, and to one side of it; then, holding the board open, I kicked the shovel in after it, and let the board drop into place once again. Dusting my hands, I stood staring down at the barren ground before me; it looked just as it had before I’d begun digging, and I glanced at my watch. It was three-forty-six in the morning, and I walked back to the stack of crates, crawled into mine, and lay down, quite certain I could sleep.
* * *
—
Arnie and I traded places in the crates just before eight o’clock the next morning. I was awakened, stiff and tired from dreaming, by the incredible sound—a sort of rusty squeal, like a huge wheel turning on an ungreased axle—of the hundreds of sparrows who nested in the girders of the cell block roof. In the first colorless light of day I lay in Arnie’s bunk watching them flash past the cell door, and out through the bars of the great cell-block windows, opened at the tops for ventilation. Later I heard the cell block wake; first, a cough, then from somewhere a quiet murmur of conversation. Presently water ran in a basin, more men coughed, and the volume of conversation swelled. I heard a toilet flush, heard a curse, heard an unidentifiable sound; far off down the block someone began singing. More water ran, men coughed, hawked, and spat; some shouted, calling to other men. A shaft of sunlight slanted down into the block through one of the tall windows, and presently Arnie’s cellmate—first his legs, then his upper body—slid down from his bunk.
We dressed, one at a time, and when the locking bar rose, he pushed open the door, and was gone. I followed a few moments later, and taking the same route as yesterday, lined up in the great mess hall for breakfast. I had it, then—hot cereal, toast, bacon, and coffee—with three identically dressed strangers, and I ate it with good appetite. The danger to me now was as real as yesterday’s, but I could no longer believe that. I felt confident, actually cocky about the incredible thing I had done, and in the industrial area, just before eight, I traded places with Arnie—watching the guards, I felt, as expertly as he had on the day before. We each asked and answered a few brief questions; then he was gone, and I lay back in the crate.
* * *
—
I gathered up my rope coil at twelve-thirty that night and climbed as soundlessly as possible out of the crate. Then I climbed the wall as before, lying on its top watching the road below me and resting for several moments; then I climbed down, yanked my rope, and began climbing the dark hill. Beside the county road on the other side, I waited half an hour, maybe, lying in the weeds. Then a car rounded a bend, moving slowly, its lights switching from bright to dim, bright to dim, and I stood up, and whistled. The car stopped, I ran out, yanked open the door, and tossed my rope and hook to the floor; then I slid into the front seat beside Ruth, and the car started up immediately. After a moment, her eyes on the winding road. Ruth said, “You all right, Ben?”
“Sure, I’m fine,” I said. “So’s Arnie.” She didn’t answer, and I turned to look at her, and in the faint light from the dashboard I saw she was crying.
On Highway 101, Ruth turned north toward the U.S. 40 junction far ahead. After I had told her all that happened, and answered all her questions, I climbed into the back seat, and lay down under the car blanket. Ruth turned the radio on low, and pretty soon I went to sleep, the car moving steadily on through the night toward the Sierra Nevadas, Donner Pass at the summit seven thousand feet up, and Reno on the other side.
* * *
—
Friday morning, dressing in my cell, I knew Ben had made it out of the industrial area last night; if he hadn’t, they’d have come for me during the night. At unlock I walked out of the cell thinking, the last time!, and I thought it all day
at the factory, and at noon leaving the mess hall. By four o’clock, quitting time, my hands were shaking, I was so scared and excited. This was the time, during the next three or four minutes—and if they caught me now trying to escape, they’d know why, and throw me into an isolation cell under direct guard till Halek arrived in the morning to point me out. Then it would be the Row for certain.
Outside the factory, I walked back along the east wall of the building, so scared it was hard to breathe, but I made myself saunter, looking casual and unhurried, toward the big wall at the rear of the area. I was directly under the eye of the wall guard in the corner tower under which I’d stood digging last night but he wouldn’t be giving me any special attention yet. I could be walking this way to meet a friend, before we left the area for the cell blocks and the four-thirty count, or for any of a lot of other harmless reasons. For the moment I was simply one of several hundred men filling the industrial area at quitting time.
I walked slowly, conserving the steps between me and the wall ahead, and I was getting nervous and worried, when suddenly I heard it—a shout, loud and prolonged from behind me, around the corner at the front of the factory out of my sight. It was repeated right away—Yaay! Yuh-hoo!—and I knew what was happening. Two twenty-year-olds were horsing around in front of the factory in a direct line of sight over the factory rooftop for the guard in the tower a few steps in front of me. Ben had brought a hundred and fifty dollars in fives and tens into the prison with him in his canvas bundle, and I’d offered it to the two kids this morning in the block, right after unlock. I had Al with me, and gave him the money to hold while they watched, to pay over when they delivered. They knew him, and knew he would pay. They’d squawked about the price. They wanted a hundred apiece, and I didn’t blame them; they knew they were creating a diversion for something, of course, and that whatever I was up to, they’d be in for some tough questioning and punishment. It was worth a hundred, but seventy-five apiece was all I had, and when they were sure of that, they took it.
Now they were earning their money—one of them shouted again, and I knew one was standing on the other’s shoulders, balanced precariously, holding onto the other’s hair, grinning wildly, and shouting at the top of his lungs, horsing around the way the young kids here do, in spite of everything. Yaay! Yuh-hoo! the shout came again, and now for the first time I flicked my eyes upward to the tower just ahead.
* * *
—
The guard, almost directly above me now, was staring off in the direction of the shout, and I took one more step forward, and I was directly under the projecting floor of the wall tower, out of the guard’s sight. By the time he turned his attention from the skylarking prisoners, he’d assume I’d gone on and turned the corner ahead to the west. There was no one else in this part of the area back here; it was quitting time, and everyone was heading for the wall gate at the front of the area.
* * *
—
This was the moment. I shoved both hands, fingers working, into the dirt I’d dug last night, found the board edge about where I’d expected, and lifted. Instantly sitting down hard, I shoved both legs into the opening. Then, holding the board open above me, I wriggled into the cavity, then let the board drop hard, and lay panting in the velvet-black darkness. It had taken me three or four seconds, no more, to disappear, literally, from the face of the earth, and I could only wonder what my hiding place looked like from outside. I could only hope that no sliver or edge of board showed above ground. But I felt that it must look all right: I’d heard no earth slide from its surface.
I’m in a grave. I thought suddenly, and a panicky feeling that I was smothering swept through me. But I’d anticipated that, and began sliding my hands carefully through the air just over my chest, and my thumb bumped the end of the pipe just past my chin. I slid down a little till my mouth touched the end of the pipe. Bunching the canvas bundle up under my head, I adjusted the height of my head and now I lay comfortably, the pipe end in my mouth. I took a deep breath, and blew hard, then did it again. Bending my knees, I moved down in the trench till one eye slid under the pipe end, and through the tiny mesh half a foot above. I saw blue sky; the dust had blown clear; I knew I could breathe now, and the panic subsided.
I found the shape of the flashlight in the canvas pack, worked it out, flicked on the light, and as best I could looked at the shallow depression in which I lay. I could see the curve of blue shirt over my chest, and its row of fasteners, and beyond that the black tips of my shoes. Just overhead, and extending on past my feet, I saw the white pine undersurface of the plywood, and my other hand lying on my chest, and the blurred end of the pipe, too close to my eyes to see clearly, I snapped off my light, and fitted my mouth over the pipe end again. Tonight the four-thirty count wouldn’t come all clear, the red light would go on, and the guard in the wall tower twenty-odd feet over my head would begin to curse, knowing that now he’d have to pray on duty, that the walls in this and every other area of the prison would stay manned now, day and night, till the missing man was found or escaped. Within the next minutes, the prison would be alive with prowling guards, off-duty men called in to help search every place they could imagine a man hiding. I had to hope that they couldn’t imagine this one. I lay breathing through my pipe, and waiting. Minutes passed and when the siren actually sounded—first a moan, muffled through the earth over my head, then the sound climbing rapidly higher, higher, and still higher to a piercing painful wail—I couldn’t help it, I shivered a little; now I was a hunted man. And yet, at the very same time, it was a thrill, it was a kick. I was terribly frightened, yet terribly excited, and now I knew why men have hidden out just for the simple hell of it. You’re nobody in prison; just a pair of blue pants and a blue shirt, doing what you’re told. But once you’re missing at Quentin—boy, you’re somebody then!
* * *
—
Ruth and I had breakfast at the Riverside Hotel, in that coffee, sandwich, and breakfast place just off the gambling casino on the street floor. She’d packed a bag with my electric razor and a change of clothes for me, including a tan sport shirt and my tan slacks, my clothes and things had arrived from L.A. I’d changed clothes in the back of the car on the floor, and when we stopped for gas just outside Reno, I had shaved quickly in the filling-station washroom.
Ruth wore a sleeveless cotton dress, white with a little pattern of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, one of those dresses with a kind of flaring skirt. She had a faint golden tan, and looked very summery and nice, as we walked out of the hotel. The streets were already fairly crowded with summer tourists, and we joined them, walking up Virginia toward Second Street.
The first pawn shop we came to had a couple of customers in it, and we passed it by. But the next one, half a block on, was empty except for the proprietor, a middle-aged man leaning on the counter reading a newspaper. Ruth walked on, to saunter along looking in windows, waiting for me, and I went into the pawn shop, and bought a .32 Colt revolver with a blue barrel and a scored grip. It cost thirty-five dollars, and took less than two minutes with no questions asked; as I walked out, the gun shoved into my pants pocket, the proprietor was reading his paper again, and maybe three minutes later we were on our way out of Reno, heading for the mountains again.
I drove, feeling rested now, feeling good, and during the six-hour drive back we talked a lot. Ruth’s an intelligent girl, an interesting person, and we talked about everything and anything except the prison, which was a relief. In Sacramento we left the car near the big park around the State buildings, and walked to the business district for lunch. Then we found a big toy store and hobby shop and bought a wood-carving set, a big elaborate one with a lot of razor-sharp little knives and chisels, and an assortment of soft pine blocks. It was a nice day, pretty warm, but summery and pleasant, and for the first time in a long while, it seemed, I was enjoying myself; I felt happy, and it was good to be alive again. As we crosse
d the park toward the car, along a wide graveled path. Ruth pointed to a big oval-shaped bed of red flowers, and said, “What kind of flowers are those?”
“Those?” I said. “They’re hemophilias.”
“Really?” She nodded; it must have sounded vaguely familiar to her.
“Yeah. You don’t know much about plants, do you?”
“Not much.” She smiled at me, sauntering along the path in her summer dress, her arm under mine.
“Well, the ones next to them,” I said, “are tularemias; they’re fairly rare. And the ones by the iron fence are Hepplewhites. Next to the night-blooming hollyhocks.”
“All right,” she said, in amused rebuke, and I laughed, and squeezed her arm under mine, feeling good.
But at four o’clock, after we reached home, the whole mood, the good time we’d had driving home over the mountains, was suddenly gone. I looked at my watch as we walked into the house, and said. “He’s hiding out right now; the hunt will begin any minute.”
Ruth nodded, standing there in the living room, looking at me. Then, her voice very low and quiet, she said, “Ben, do you think he’ll make it?”
I was silent for a moment, staring down at the floor; then I looked up again. “He’s in midstream right now,” I said, “neither out nor in, and I feel almost superstitious about even talking about it.” Then, seeing the anguish in her eyes, I added softly, “But yes, I think he’ll make it. Certainly he will.”
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 33
