Westlake, Donald E - Novel 35

by Help, I am Being Held Prisoner (v1. 1)

  “Did it really?”

  “No, that’s just the joke. The first half. Here’s the second half. Knock knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Andy.”

  “Andy? Andy who?”

  “And he did it again.” I grinned at her. “The butler always does it,” I said.

  “You don’t do it any more?”

  I spread my hands out on the grass; the black dirt was cool beneath the green leaves. “I feel as though Andy drew that whole thing right out of me,” I said. “When I saw those flowers through the warden’s window, it was like nectar, it was warmth running through me. I was my own sun, shining on those flowers.”

  “That was just relief.”

  “No, it was more than that. I was changed, like dough turning into bread.”

  “You won’t change back?”

  “Into dough? Can’t be done.” Nodding, tossing pebbles into the stream, watching the sun-glints scatter, I said, “What I’m going to do, when my sentence is up I’m going to stick around this area. Get a job, settle down, be Harry Kent forever.”

  Marian laughed at me. “Do you know, Harry,” she said, “prison has rehabilitated you!”

  And so it had.