Life or Death

by Michael Robotham

  Food arrives. Moss feels his stomach cramp and his mouth fill with saliva. Another hour passes. Longer. People leave. It’s Moss’s turn. Using short mincing steps, he shuffles into the room, keeping his eyes lowered. Chief Warden Sparkes is dressed in a dark suit that already looks crushed where he’s been sitting down. He’s a tall man with a mane of silver hair, a long thin nose, and he walks like he’s balancing a book on his head. He signals for the officers to step back and they take up positions on either side of the door.

  Along one wall is a table covered with plates of half-eaten food: deep-fried soft shell crab, spare ribs, fried chicken, mashed potato and salad. The grilled cobs of corn have black skillet marks and are glistening with butter. The warden picks up a spare rib and sucks the meat from the bone, wiping his fingers with a moist towelette.

  ‘What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Moss Jeremiah Webster.’

  ‘What sort of name is Moss?’

  ‘Well, suh, my momma couldn’t spell Moses on my birth certificate.’

  One of the guards laughs. The warden pinches the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Are you hungry, Mr Webster? Grab a plate.’

  Moss glances at the feast, his stomach rumbling. ‘Are you fixing on executing me, suh?’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘Meal like that could be a man’s last.’

  ‘Nobody is going to execute you … not on a Friday.’

  The chief warden laughs, but Moss doesn’t think the joke is very funny. He hasn’t moved.

  Maybe the food is poisoned. Warden’s eating it. Maybe he knows which bits to eat. Hell, I don’t care!

  Shuffling forward, Moss begins heaping food onto a plastic plate, piling it high with ribs, crab claws and mashed potato, trying to perch a cob of corn on the top. He eats with both hands, leaning over the plate, the juices smearing his cheeks and dribbling down his chin. Meanwhile, Warden Sparkes picks up another spare rib and takes a seat opposite, looking vaguely repulsed.

  ‘Extortion, fraud, drug dealing – you were caught with two million dollars’ worth of marijuana.’

  ‘It was only weed.’

  ‘Then you beat a man to death in prison.’

  Moss doesn’t answer.

  ‘Did he deserve it?’

  ‘Thought so at the time.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I’d do a lot of things different.’

  ‘How long has it been?’

  ‘Fifteen years.’

  Moss has eaten too quickly. A piece of the meat is lodged halfway down his throat. He thumps his fist on his chest, making his cuffs rattle. The warden offers him something to drink. Moss swallows a full can of soft drink, fearing they might take it away. He wipes his mouth. Belches. Eats again.

  Warden Sparkes has sucked the spare rib clean. He leans forward and plants the bone into Moss’s mashed potato where it sticks upright like naked flagpole.

  ‘Let’s start at the beginning. You are friends with Audie Palmer, is that correct?’

  ‘I know him.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Yesterday evening at chow time.’

  ‘You sat with him.’

  ‘Yes, suh.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘Usual stuff.’

  The warden waits, his eyes expressionless. Moss can feel the butter from the griddled corn coating his tongue.

  ‘Roaches.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We were discussing how to get rid of roaches. I was telling Audie to use AmerFresh toothpaste and put it in the cracks in the wall. Roaches don’t like toothpaste. Don’t ask me why, they just don’t.’

  ‘Cockroaches.’

  Moss talks between mouthfuls, eating around his mashed potato. ‘I heard a story about a woman who had a cockroach crawl into her ear while she was sleeping. It had babies that burrowed right into her brain. They found her dead one day with roaches coming out her nose. We fight a war against them. Some niggas will tell you to use shaving cream, but that shit don’t last through the night. AmerFresh is best.’

  Warden Sparkes eyeballs him. ‘We have no pest-control problems in my prison.’

  ‘I don’t know if the roaches got that memo, suh.’

  ‘We fumigate twice a year.’

  Moss knows all about the pest-control measures. The guards show up, order prisoners to lie down on their racks, while their cells are sprayed with some toxic-smelling chemical that makes everyone feel poorly, but has zero effect on the roaches.

  ‘What happened after chow time?’ asks Sparkes.

  ‘I went back to my cell.’

  ‘Did you see Palmer?’

  ‘He was reading.’

  ‘Reading?’

  ‘A book,’ says Moss, in case any further explanation were needed.

  ‘What sort of book?’

  ‘A thick one without any pictures.’

  Sparkes doesn’t see any humour in the situation. ‘Did you know Palmer was due to be released today?’

  ‘Yes, suh.’

  ‘Why would a man escape the night before he was due to be released?’

  Moss wipes grease from his lips. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘You must have some inkling. The man spent ten years inside. One more day and he’s a free man, but instead he makes himself a fugitive. When he’s caught he’ll be tried and sentenced. He’ll get another twenty years.’

  Moss doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say.

  ‘Are you hearing me, son?’

  ‘Yes, suh.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you weren’t close to Audie Palmer. Don’t tell me that for a second. This ain’t my first rodeo and I know when someone is crow-hopping me.’

  Moss blinks at him.

  ‘You shared the next cell to Palmer for – what – seven years? He must have said something to you.’

  ‘No, suh, honest to God, not a word.’

  Moss has reflux. He burps. The chief warden is still talking. ‘My job is to keep prisoners incarcerated until such time as the federal government says they’re eligible for release. Mr Palmer wasn’t eligible for release until today, but he decided to go early. Why?’

  Moss’s shoulders rise and fall.

  ‘Speculate.’

  ‘I don’t know what that word means, suh.’

  ‘Give me your opinion.’

  ‘You want my opinion? I’d say that Audie Palmer was dumber than shit on a biscuit for doing what he did.’

  Moss pauses and looks at the uneaten food on his plate. Warden Sparkes takes a photograph from his coat pocket and puts it on the table. It’s a picture of Audie Palmer with his puppy-dog eyes and floppy fringe, as wholesome as a glass of milk.

  ‘What do you know about the Dreyfus County armoured truck robbery?’

  ‘Just what I read.’

  ‘Audie Palmer must have mentioned it.’

  ‘No, suh.’

  ‘And you didn’t ask?’

  ‘Sure, I did. Everybody asked. Every guard. Every nigga. Every visitor. Family. Friends. Every sonbitch in this place wanted to know what happened to the money.’

  Moss didn’t have to lie. He doubted if there was a man or beast incarcerated in Texas who didn’t know the story of the robbery – not just because of the missing money, but because four people died that day. One escaped. One got caught.

  ‘And what did Palmer say?’

  ‘Not a damn thing.’

  Warden Sparkes fills his cheeks with air like he’s blowing up a balloon and then releases it slowly.

  ‘Is that why you helped that boy escape? Did he promise you some of the money?’

  ‘I didn’t help nobody escape.’

  ‘Are you cocking your leg and pissing on me, son?’

  ‘No, suh.’

  ‘So you want me to believe that your best friend escaped from prison without saying a word to you?’

  Moss nods, his eyes searching empty air above the warden’s head.

  �
�Did Audie Palmer have a girlfriend?’

  ‘He used to talk about a girl in his sleep, but I think she was long gone.’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘He has a mother and a sister.’

  ‘We all have a mother.’

  ‘She writes him regular.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  Moss shrugs. He isn’t revealing anything that the warden couldn’t find in Audie’s file. Both men know that nothing important is going to come out of the interview.

  Sparkes stands and paces, his shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor. Moss has to twist his head from side to side to keep him in view.

  ‘I want you to listen carefully, Mr Webster. You had some discipline problems when you first arrived, but they were just kinks and you ironed them out. You won privileges. Gained them the hard way. That’s why I know your conscience is bothering you, which is why you’re going to tell me where he’s gone.’

  Moss looks at him blankly. The warden stops pacing and braces both his hands on the table.

  ‘Explain something to me, Mr Webster. This code of silence that operates among people like you, what do you think it achieves? You live like animals, you think like animals, you behave like animals. Cunning. Violent. Selfish. You steal from each other. You kill each other. You fuck each other. You form gangs. What’s the point of having a code?’

  ‘It’s the second thing that unites us,’ says Moss, telling himself to hold his tongue even as he ignores his own advice.

  ‘What’s the first thing?’ asks the warden.

  ‘Hating people like you.’

  The chief warden upends the table, sending plates of food clattering to the floor. Gravy and mashed potato slide down the wall. The guards wait for the signal. Moss is hauled to his feet and pushed out the door. He has to shuffle quickly to stop himself falling. They half carry him down two flights of stairs and through a half-dozen doors that have to be unlocked from the other side. He’s not going back to his cell. They’re taking him to the Special Housing Unit. Solitary. The Hole.

  Another key slides into a lock. The hinges barely squeak. Two new guards take custody. Moss is ordered to strip down. Shoes. Pants. Shirt.

  ‘Why you in here, asshole?’

  Moss doesn’t answer.

  ‘He aided an escape,’ says the other guard.

  ‘I did no such thing, suh.’

  The first guard motions to Moss’s wedding ring. ‘Take it off.’

  Moss blinks at him. ‘The regulations say I can keep it.’

  ‘Take it off or I’ll break your fingers.’

  ‘It’s all that I got.’

  Moss closes his fist. The guard hits him twice with the baton. Help is summoned. They hold Moss down and continue to hit him, the blows sounding oddly muted and his swelling face wearing a strange look of astonishment. Falling under the blows, he grunts and gargles blood as a boot presses his head to the floor where he can smell the layers of polish and sweat. His stomach lurches, but the ribs and mashed potatoes stay down.

  When it’s over they toss him in a small cage of woven steel mesh. Lying on the concrete, not moving, Moss makes a wet noise in his throat and wipes blood from his nose, rubbing it between his fingertips where it feels like oil. He wonders what lesson he’s supposed to be learning.

  Then he thinks of Audie Palmer and the missing seven million dollars. He hopes Audie has gone for the money. He hopes he spends the rest of his life sipping pina coladas in Cancun or cocktails in Monte Carlo. Screw the bastards! The best revenge is to live well.

  3

  Just before dawn the stars seem brighter and Audie can pick out the constellations. Some he can name: Orion and Cassiopeia and Ursa Major. Others are so distant they’re bringing light from millions of years ago, as though history were reaching across time and space to shine upon the present.

  There are people who believe their fates are written in the stars, and if that’s true then Audie must have been born under a bad sign. He’s not a believer in fate or destiny or karma. Nor does he think that everything happens for a reason and that luck evens itself out over a lifetime, falling a little here and there like it comes from a passing raincloud. In his own heart he knows that death could find him at any moment and that life is about getting the next footstep right.

  Untying the laundry bag, he takes out a change of clothes: jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that he stole from one of the guards who left a gym bag in his unlocked car. He pulls on socks and laces his feet into his wet boots.

  After burying his prison clothes, he waits until the eastern horizon is edged in orange before he begins walking. A creek crosses a narrow gravel wash, feeding the reservoir. Mist clings to the lower ground and two herons stand in the shallow water, looking like lawn ornaments. The mud banks are pockmarked with holes made by nesting swallows that flit back and forth, barely brushing the surface of the water. Audie follows the creek until he comes to a dusty farm track and a single-lane bridge. He sticks to the road, listening for vehicles and watching for clouds of dust.

  The sun comes up, red and shimmering above a line of stunted trees. Four hours later, water is a memory and the blazing orb is like a welder’s flame against the back of his neck. Dust cakes every wrinkle and hollow of his skin and he’s alone on the road.

  Past midday, he climbs a rise, trying to get his bearings. It looks like he’s crossing a dead world that some ancient civilization has left behind. The trees are huddled along the old watercourses like herded beasts, and heat shimmers off a flatland that is threaded with motorbike tracks and turkey trails. His khaki pants are hanging low and there are hoops of sweat beneath his arms. Twice he has to hide from passing trucks, slipping and sliding down loose rocks and shale, crouching behind brush or boulders. Stopping to rest, he sits on a flat rock and remembers the time his daddy chased him around the yard because he caught him stealing milk money from people’s doorsteps.

  ‘Who put you up to it?’ he demanded to know, twisting Audie’s ear.

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Tell me the truth or I’ll do worse.’

  Audie said nothing. He took his punishment like a man, rubbing the welts on his thighs and seeing the disappointment in his daddy’s eyes. His older brother Carl watched from the house.

  ‘You did good,’ Carl said afterwards, ‘but you shoulda hid the money.’

  Audie climbs back onto the road and continues walking. During the afternoon he crosses a sealed road with four lanes and follows it from a distance, taking cover when traffic blows past. In another mile he comes to a dirt track curving north. In the distance, along the rutted road, there are mud tanks and pumps. A derrick is silhouetted against the sky with a flame burning from the apex, creating a shimmer in the air. At night it must be visible for miles, standing atop a mini-city of lights like a fledgling colony on a distant planet.

  Studying the derrick, Audie fails to see an old man watching him. Stocky and brown, he’s wearing coveralls and a wide-brimmed hat. He’s standing next to a boom gate with a painted pole and a weighted end. Nearby is a shelter with three walls and a roof. A Dodge pickup is parked beneath a lone tree.

  The old man has a pockmarked face, flat forehead and wide-set eyes. A shotgun rests in the crook of his arm.

  Audie tries to smile. Dust cracks on his face.

  ‘Howdy?’

  The old man nods uncertainly.

  ‘Wondered if you might spare me some water?’ says Audie. ‘I’m parched.’

  Resting the shotgun on his shoulder, the man steps to the side of the shed and opens the top of the water barrel. He points to a metal ladle hanging on a nail. Audie dips it into the barrel, breaking the still surface, and almost inhales the first mouthful, bringing water up through his nose. He coughs. Drinks again. It’s cooler than he expects.

  The old man takes out a crumpled packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his coveralls and lights one of them, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs, as though seeking to replace any fresh air.

  ‘Wha
t are you doing out here?’

  ‘Had a row with my girlfriend. Bitch drove off and left me. I figured she’d come back – but she didn’t.’

  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t be calling her names if you want her to come back.’

  ‘Maybe,’ says Audie, ladling water over his head.

  ‘Where did she dump you?’

  ‘We were camping.’

  ‘By the reservoir.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That’s fifteen miles from here.’

  ‘I walked every one of them.’

  A tanker rumbles along the track. The old man leans on the weighted end of the boom gate, making it lift skywards. Waves are exchanged. The truck drives on. The dust cloud settles.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ asks Audie.

  ‘Guarding the place.’

  ‘What are you guarding?’

  ‘It’s a drilling operation. Lots of expensive equipment.’

  Audie holds out his hand and introduces himself, using his middle name, Spencer, because the police are less likely to have released it. The old man doesn’t ask for anything more. They shake.

  ‘I am Ernesto Rodriguez. People call me Ernie because it makes me sound less like a spick.’ He laughs. Another truck is approaching.

  ‘You think one of these drivers might give me a ride?’ asks Audie.

  ‘Where you heading?’

  ‘Anywhere I can catch a bus or a train.’

  ‘What about your girl?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s coming back.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘I grew up in Dallas, but I’ve been out west for a while.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Bit of everything.’

  ‘So you heading anywhere and you do a bit of everything.’

  ‘That’s about it.’

  Ernie gazes south across flatlands that are scratched by ravines and dotted with rocky outcrops. A fence runs away from them and seems to dip off the edge of the earth.

  ‘I can give you a ride as far as Freer,’ he says, ‘but I don’t finish for another hour or so.’