Put a Lid on It

by Donald E. Westlake

  “Go ahead,” Meehan said.

  “I'm not interested in the past,” Jeffords said.

  Was this another conundrum? Jail, courts, holding cells, the past was all they were ever about, because the future is already determined and set. Everybody knew Francis Xavier Meehan's future; they just had to tidy up his past before they could send him on to it.

  While Meehan tried to work out what this was all about, Jeffords turned his notepad to another blank page, wrote in it fast, then turned it and the pen toward Meehan, who leaned closer to read

  If you might want to help me,

  I might want to help you

  YES

  NO

  Meehan studied this ballot, while Jeffords said, “If you could see your way clear to help the federal authorities on this hijacking case—”

  Surprised, doubly surprised, Meehan looked up to see Jeffords' head shaking back and forth like a metronome while he talked: Ignore the words coming out of this mouth.

  “—I think I might be able to help you in a variety of ways, particularly choice of penal institution, that sort of thing.”

  Meehan picked up the pen. “I'm really sorry, Mr. Jeffords,” he said, “I just can't.” He voted YES, a big X inside the box.

  “Well, that's a shame,” Jeffords said. “It was worth a try. Goodbye, Mr. Meehan.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Jeffords.”

  3

  THAT WAS THE afternoon 9 South had library privileges, three to five. Meehan had checked out the library when he'd first been tossed in here, but didn't think much of it, though everybody else loved the place, went there every chance they got.

  Essentially, the inmates' part of the library was two rooms, the first a fairly big rectangle with two long library tables and some chairs, the walls lined with bookcases, the shelves full of fairly recent fiction and non-fiction, hardcover and paperback. There were no stacks, just the wall shelves, because stacks would give you a place to hide, exchange contraband, shiv an associate. That first room was where Meehan went, twice, to see what they had that might be of interest. Both times, he checked something out, only to realize he'd already read it.

  The room beyond the normal library was the law library, which was smaller, with a wall-mounted shelf containing four electric typewriters on one side and a counter with a volunteer lawyer behind it on the other. Every typewriter always had an inmate banging away, with every range from two fingers to nine, while two or three behind him waited their turn. Behind the lawyer, out of sight back there, was another room—or maybe rooms—full of law books. The volunteer lawyer was there to answer questions, discuss situations, go back to find the relevant law books, Virgil the inmate through the narrow byways of the law.

  This is where the inmates came to work on their cases. That's what they called it, they were working on their cases. Stick around in there long enough, you could come out with a pretty good grounding in tort law, which some of them did. But, since they were mostly assholes, it rarely helped. Still, working on their cases kept them out of trouble and made the volunteer lawyer—young, idealistic, from some seventh-rate diploma mill—feel useful in life.

  Meehan didn't work on his case. He knew what his case was, and he knew working on it wouldn't make it any prettier. And he'd given up on the reading section of the library, as being too skimpy for his needs. So he was one of the few residents of 9 South present in his cell when the two guards came along, with that usual expression on their face—it's only the vow I made to the Blessed Virgin Mary keeps me from kicking your nose out the back of your head—and one of them said, “Meehan?”

  “That's me,” Meehan agreed.

  “Pack your shit,” the guard said. The other guard was there mostly, Meehan figured, to make sure the first guard kept his vow.

  Meehan said, “Pack? Whadaya mean?”

  “It means what you leave behind you leave behind,” the guard told him. “What you take with you is still yours. Do it now, Meehan.”

  There wasn't much. He had a cheap blue nylon ditty bag, his toilet kit, socks and T-shirts and shorts, a couple shirts and pants he didn't put any wear on in here because everybody was in brown or orange jumpsuits (his was brown), the notebook he didn't write in—ten thousand rules—a couple paperbacks that were personal property (Under the Volcano and Lord Jim, neither of which he could get into, which was why they were still with him, and which he figured was his fault, not the writers'), and a pair of simple black laceless deck shoes for when he had an exercise turn in the yard on the roof, shoes generally called winos because that's who wears them.

  Packing these worldly goods, Meehan said, “I'm packing. Okay if I know where I'm going?”

  “Otisville,” the guard said. He didn't care.

  Otisville. Meehan made a face, but didn't say anything. What would he expect from these guys, sympathy?

  Otisville was another more rural federal detention center in this state. Since the criminal justice system around New York City always gets such a heavy workout, the MCC here frequently overflowed, like a cesspool, and then some of the contents had to be drained off to Otisville, one hundred miles upstate in the Shawangunk Mountains, the middle of boonie nowhere. A Department of Corrections bus, which looked like a schoolbus except it was dark blue and had mesh cages over all the windows, ran up to Otisville every evening, back down every morning, four hours out of your day on the bus. Except not until his trial; for now, they'd just ship him off to Otisville and leave him there. But then, at trial time, as though it wasn't tough enough to be on trial in a federal court, they'd throw in this commute, just to help you keep on your toes.

  Meehan packed everything into his ditty bag, put on the zippered cotton jacket he'd worn when they'd picked him up, and left his little cell for the last time. Out in the star chamber, Johnson sat at a plastic table, cheating at solitaire. Looking up, eying the guards, he said, “Hey. Where you going?”

  “Otisville.”

  Johnson made a face. “Fuck me,” he said.

  “Yeah, well.” Meehan saw no point in mentioning his suspicions of Johnson.

  He and the guards went out to the elevators and rode down to 2, for his check-out, which consisted of impersonal clerks, a lot of paperwork, and a moment where, under everybody's indifferent eye, he changed out of their brown jumpsuit into his own gray work shirt and black chino pants.

  At the end came the shackles. The shackles was a loose chain around the waist, with a short chain linking it to handcuffs and a longer chain linking it to ankle cuffs. Dressed like that, you shuffled, with your hands at your belt.

  Another elevator took the three of them down to the loading dock and departure area, with a big broad opening onto St. George Place, the narrow one-way street at the back of the MCC. The Otisville bus was there, a dozen guys on line, shuffling forward with their hands at their belts, going through the cumbersome motions of climbing up into a bus with shackles on, looking like elephants climbing into a treehouse.

  Meehan turned in that direction, the ditty bag bouncing against the front of his thighs, both hands holding the handle. He just had time to notice that all those guys were still in their orange or brown jumpsuits when the guard on that side of him gave him a poke on the shoulder and pointed. “That way.”

  What way? What other way was there? There was never anything but one way.

  But why had they put him in civvies? Meehan looked where the guard pointed, and a small anonymous black sedan was there, within the loading area but pointed out, exhaust puffing from its tail pipe.

  The devil you know. Meehan looked over his shoulder at what looked now like the safety of the Otisville bus, but shuffled the other way instead, toward the black sedan, trailed by the guards.

  They approached the sedan from its right side, and as they got near, the front door on this side opened and a very tall skinny guy in a dark suit and tie and black topcoat got out. Not quite looking at Meehan, he opened the rear door, and Meehan understood that was where he was supposed to g
o. He shuffled to the car, paused to figure out how to get into the back seat, and the tall skinny guy took the ditty bag from his hands, saying, “Allow me,” still not exactly looking at Meehan.

  “Thanks.”

  Meehan bent down, to judge his approach, and was not completely surprised to see Jeffords in there, smiling a welcome at him from the far side of the back seat.

  4

  ONCE MEEHAN MANAGED to get his shackled feet into the car and flat on the floor, the tall skinny guy shut his door and carried himself and Meehan's ditty bag to the front seat, where he put the bag on the floor next to his own feet, then shut his door. A solid clunk sounded inside the door beside Meehan, and, he realized, the same sound came from all the other doors as well. “So we're child-proof now,” he said, and Jeffords chuckled.

  They were four in the car, the other being the driver; what Meehan could see of him was meaty shoulders in dark wool, flat ears, fat rolls on the back of the neck, and a Dick Tracy hat squared off on his head. He lifted that head to look at Jeffords in the mirror and say, “All set?”

  “Ready to roll,” Jeffords told him.

  The driver put the sedan in gear and drove out to St. George Place, where there was never any traffic, because it was a one-way street, it was one block long, and it went from nowhere to nowhere under the enclosed third-floor walkway that led from the MCC over to the courts. The driver steered them back into the world of streets that went somewhere, then directly onto the Brooklyn Bridge; so long, Manhattan Correctional Center, and so long, Manhattan.

  Meehan had assumed Jeffords would say something, this being his party, but they were across the bridge and onto the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, Long Island-bound, and Jeffords still did nothing but gaze kind of dreamily out at twilight New York City, October of the year, Manhattan very dramatic from here, so Meehan finally cleared his throat and rattled his chains and said, “Uh, Mr. Jeffords.”

  Jeffords turned mild eyes his way. “Yes?”

  Meehan rattled his chains again. “We're doing sixty,” he pointed out, “and the doors are double-locked. Do I have to have these things on?”

  Jeffords seemed surprised the shackles were still there. “No, of course not,” he said. “Jimmy,” he called to the skinny guy up front, “give me the key to these things.”

  Jimmy turned halfway around, showing Meehan his beaky nose. “What things?”

  “These, these chains things.”

  “Shackles,” Meehan prompted.

  “Shackles,” Jeffords agreed. “Meehan doesn't need them now, give me the key.”

  “I don't have the key,” Jimmy said.

  Jeffords was aghast. “You don't have the key?”

  “No,” Jimmy said. “Why would I have the key?”

  Jeffords frowned at one of the driver's neck rolls. “Buster? Do you have the key, to these cuff things?”

  “I haven't carried cuff keys in eight years,” the driver said, confirming Meehan's suspicion the guy was an ex-cop. Not a cop? An ex-cop? And Jeffords not a lawyer. He wondered what Jimmy wasn't.

  Smart. Jimmy said, “Should I radio?”

  Jeffords hated that idea. “What? Radio who? You don't radio in the New York City area, it's like a party line around here.”

  Jimmy said, “Maybe when you get to Norfolk—”

  “Norfolk!” Everything Jimmy said appalled Jeffords. “We can't leave this man in chains all the way to Norfolk!”

  Norfolk, Meehan thought. Isn't that in Virginia? What the hell am I gonna do in Norfolk?

  “Buster,” Jeffords said, leaning forward, speaking earnestly to Buster's neck rolls, “we've gotta go back.”

  Jimmy said, “Pat, you sure?” He still hadn't made direct eye contact with Meehan.

  Buster said, “The plane—”

  “It isn't a goddam scheduled flight,” Jeffords snapped, “and yes, Jimmy, I'm sure. We're asking for this man's cooperation. We can't keep him chained up like a, a, a Doberman pinscher! Buster, turn us around, we'll drive back, wait for me out front on Park Row. I'll go in and get the key.”

  “You're the boss,” Buster said, not as though he thought that was such a good thing.

  “There's an exit up ahead,” Jeffords said.

  “I see it,” Buster said.

  Meehan was beginning to lose faith in these people.

  5

  THEY HAD TO unclunk the doors when they got to the main entrance to the MCC, in the gathering gloom of twilight. “Keep an eye on him,” Jeffords advised, and climbed out of the car to trot over to and through the grim entrance, with its anti-suicide-truck row of round concrete posts along the sidewalk out front like parts of some low-tech board game, and the mirrored windows on the second floor, so you never knew who or what was watching.

  Well, Jimmy was watching, keeping the eye on Meehan that Jeffords had ordered, but he didn't look comfortable about it, and he managed to do it while still avoiding eye contact. Meehan ignored him to look out at his former home, his fixed abode for the last eleven days.

  The MCC was the Bastille writ small, the runt of the same litter, tall, dark, concrete, with rounded corners rather than sharp edges. It had a closed-in look, like the kind of maniac that listens to voices in his teeth a lot. When the French decided to give freedom a shot, they tore their Bastille down; when the Americans opted for freedom, they put up the MCC. Go figure.

  Jeffords came trotting out of the building and toward the car, looking as though the structure hadn't harmed him very much in the three or four minutes he'd been inside. When he slid into the car, though, Meehan could see he was a bit ruffled, as though he'd had a conversation inside there that hadn't been completely pleasant. Trying to sound cheerful and confident, he said, “Okay, Buster, all set now,” and as Buster silently sent them off into traffic, reheaded for the Brooklyn Bridge, Jeffords flashed the flat steel key and said, “Just a sec, now.”

  It took more than a sec, since Jeffords had clearly never had dealings with shackles before, but it didn't take long, and they were barely on the bridge before Meehan was rubbing his chafed wrists and moving his feet around just for the fun of it, saying, “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

  “Mr. Meehan,” Jeffords said, “as I think you've already figured out, my job earlier today was to check you out, see if you were the man we want. That you're here shows my belief that you are the man we want. You just go on behaving like the intelligent guy I know you are, and you'll never see another shackle all your born days.”

  “That sounds good,” Meehan said. “Of course, I don't know what you mean by the man you want. The man you want for what?”

  Jeffords leaned a little closer, which Meehan didn't like, and murmured, “Not everybody in this car is cleared for this.”

  Since Meehan had no idea what “this” was, he assumed he was one of those in the car not cleared for it, so he decided to leave that alone, and say instead, “You were talking before about Norfolk. Going to Norfolk.”

  “That's right,” Jeffords said, as though glad Meehan had reminded him of something important. “Now, on the plane,” he said, “we should be the only passengers.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But it's a contributor's plane,” Jeffords explained, “so you never know. So if there is somebody else there, or somebody in the crew says something to you, just go along with it.”

  “Sure,” Meehan said.

  “I doubt anybody will talk to you at all,” Jeffords said. “But if anybody asks, you're an Internet technician.”

  It would be hard for Meehan to imagine anything further from himself than an Internet technician. He said, “What if they want to know what that means?”

  Jeffords laughed. “Nobody wants to expose their ignorance,” he said. “Just say you're working on the streaming technology on the Internet.”

  “The streaming technology on the Internet,” Meehan echoed.

  Up front, Jimmy showed his beaky profile again, saying, “Pat, do you really think he can bring that off?”
r />   “I'm sure he can,” Jeffords said.

  Turning a bit farther, Jimmy almost but not quite made eye contact, his glance brushing across Meehan's cheek as he said, with what sounded a bit like petulance, “Of course, I'm not to know what we want him for—”

  “All in good time, Jimmy,” Jeffords assured him. “I know you, as much as anybody, understand the need for security here.”

  “I'm not asking,” Jimmy said, and faced front, and Meehan caught Buster looking at him in the interior rearview mirror, a tight little smile on his bulldog face. Buster didn't need to know the details either; he already knew all he needed to know about Francis Xavier Meehan.

  He did, too. Meehan looked away from those ex-cop eyes and out his window, to watch industrial Queens race by.

  Contributor's plane. What the hell was a contributor's plane?

  6

  A CORPORATE JET.

  Buster led them along unknown back alleys at JFK International airport, big planes hunched in the distance like dozing wasps, then angled around a chain-link fence to stop next to a sleek smallish jet that looked like a mini-Concorde. It was all white, and had only numbers on it, no names. The door in its side had been opened down to become the entrance stairs.

  All four got out of the car, though two wouldn't be flying today, but everybody wanted to help watch Meehan. Jeffords, meeting him around the hood of the car, smiled cheerfully and gestured at the waiting plane. “You first.”

  “I know,” Meehan said.

  The interior was all carpet in different shades of ecru and beige and tan, floor and walls alike. There were eight low broad overstuffed beige armchairs in this mellow-lit tube, four on each side, each with its own portholish window and its own side table. And in the first chairs, to right and left, were people.

  The more interesting one was the woman on the right, a big-chested ash blonde of not yet thirty with very red lipstick and a very short pink skirt. Eleven days in the slammer can be a long time, sometimes.