Charley looked at him like a vexed schoolmaster and said How much the better for you, sir, if you’d simply been reasonable.
I told Shouse to round up the gate keys, then gave Red the nod and he heaved open the corridor door and we all rushed out through the alcove and into the lobby, waving our guns and yelling for everybody to stay right where they were.
A handful of clerks were scattered at various desks and cubicles behind a long counter and they gawked at us like we’d risen from the grave. I said to keep their mouths shut and they’d be fine. There were two enormous claps of thunder back to back and the rain smacked hard against the windows.
Russell went around yanking out telephone lines while Charley and Red ran behind the counter and went from office to office, rounding up about another eight or nine people. We wouldn’t know it till the next day when we read about it in the papers, but among those we had in our hands was the warden himself, whom none of us had ever seen and who had the good sense not to identify himself. The alarms hadn’t sounded yet and I figured the hacks were either still unaware of what was happening or they knew but were busy locking down the inmates before setting off the sirens. As we’d come to find out, another reason they held off so long with the alarm was they thought we’d taken the warden hostage.
Jenkins patted down the men and took their money, and he found a .32 five-shooter on a guy who said he was a parole officer from South Bend. I pointed to the only two women among the workers and told them they were coming with us. I wanted hostages the hacks could easily recognize as civilians. Charley gently took them aside, saying This way, ladies, if you will. The thunder was steadily booming now.
I felt a sudden rush of cool air and turned to see Walt, Okie Jack, Burns, and Fox going out the front door. That wasn’t part of the plan—we were supposed to stay together—but before I could say anything, they were outside and the door closed behind them.
I said for Jenkins to put the other employees in the main gate corridor with Stevens and the hacks. He started ushering them over there, saying Let’s go, you Hoosiers, get a move on.
Lagging behind the others was a white-haired guy with a bad limp and a look of disgust. Punks, he said, looking right at Jenkins, nothing but punks.
Jenkins jabbed him in the side with the .32 and told him to shut his yap and get in the corridor. The old man had more nerve than was good for him—he slapped at the gun, saying Don’t point that thing at me, punk.
The gunshot was like an electric blast through the room and everybody jumped and the old man fell down and curled up in a ball, holding his side and saying Jesus, oh Jesus. The younger woman let out a little shriek and the other one told her to hush up for God’s sake.
Goddamnit, Jenkins hollered at the old guy, look what you made me do!
I shoved him aside and bent over the old man. He wasn’t hit bad, just a deep tear through the flesh along the ribs. But it was hurting him plenty and he was really cursing us for bastards now.
Hell, he’s all right, Red said. He took hold of him under the arms and the old man groaned and swore even louder as Red dragged him over to the hallway door and let the other employees pull the old-timer in with them. Red said anybody who opened the door inside the next half hour would get a bullet in the head, then he shut the door on them.
I took the older of the two women by the arm and headed for the front door. Charley had hold of the young one, who said Please don’t hurt me. Charley told her to fear not, she was among gentlemen.
The visitor lot was out in front and we hoped there’d be at least one car there. If there wasn’t, we’d have to hustle out to the highway and hijack the first vehicle that came along.
A car was pulling away as we got outside. Looking back at us through the rear window of the sedan were Fox and Burns, with some guy in a hat sitting between them. Walt was driving and Okie Jack was up in the front seat with him. A guy in civilian clothes stood in the driveway watching them go. He said he was a prisoner being transferred from another county by the high sheriff himself, but when they pulled up in front of the building they got surrounded by a bunch of convicts with guns. They made him get out of the car and took the sheriff with them.
The bastards left us, Shouse said.
We’ll jack one off the road, I said. Let’s go.
I tugged the woman up close beside me and started hotfooting it across the parking lot and toward the highway, the others close behind.
The new transfer yelled What about me, and Charley yelled back I hereby pardon you, laddybuck—try to be a better person.
The woman complained she couldn’t keep up and I said she’d better. The gun bull in the corner tower was looking down at us through the blowing rain. He held a telephone receiver to his ear with one hand and was jabbing his finger at us with the other, as if the guy he was talking to on the phone could see what he was pointing to.
There was a filling station where the prison road joined the highway and its neon sign shone a hazy orange. We were almost to the junction when the prison sirens started wailing. I heard a pistol shot and I looked over my shoulder as Russell fired two more rounds at the nearest tower. The bull ducked out of sight—as if anybody could’ve hit him with a handgun from that distance. Russ spun around and came running, giggling like a kid.
The woman was stumbling bad now and sucking air hard. Then down she went and I let her go. Behind me, huffing like a bellows, Fat Charley stopped running and kissed the younger woman’s hand and said something I didn’t catch, but I heard Russell yell Come on, Romeo, move it.
The highway lay empty in both directions as we ran across it but there was a brand-new Ford Phaeton at the station pumps. The attendant saw us coming and left the hose nozzle in the tank and ran away around the corner of the building. The man and two women in the car stared out at us like terrified paralytics. I told them to get out, and Red yanked the hose from the tank. The guy behind the wheel and the woman by the front passenger door were quick to scramble out of the car, but the old lady in the backseat said she most certainly would not get out into the rain and we had no right to take her son’s car and blah-blah-blah.
Charley opened the back door and said, Madam, we are desperate men and I implore you to be reasonable. Remove yourself or I will drag you out by the heels. He was wild-eyed and heaving for breath. The old girl quickly slid across the seat and got out by the other door.
And then we were barreling down the highway, the six of us packed in the Phaeton and stinking it up with sweat and mud, laughing like hell. I wiped at the fogged windshield, peering past the slapping wipers at the rainy road ahead as the M City sirens faded behind us.
The rain was coming down even harder now. I couldn’t see thirty feet in front of us but I kept a heavy foot on the accelerator. The Phaeton was one of the new V-8s and it flew through the gloom. Then the road made a sudden curve and the wheels lost their grip and we skidded off onto the soggy shoulder and went fishtailing through shrubs and past trees close enough to spit on and wham we clipped one and the left front fender started flapping and banging like crazy. Without ever taking my foot off the gas I managed to get us back up on the road and the fender fell off with a clang and we roared full speed ahead.
Russell hollered Wa-hoooo!
Red said, Listen Pete, if you ever wanna borrow my car the answer’s no.
I thought I was doing well for a guy who hadn’t been behind the wheel in nine years.
Shouse was sitting up front between me and Russell, and he scanned the dial on the crackling radio for news of the break. We’d been on the road for maybe half an hour and there still wasn’t anything on the air about us. We didn’t see a cop until we whizzed through some burg none of us caught the name of. Maybe it was our speed or maybe the missing fender that caught their attention, but a police car going in the opposite direction made a U-turn behind us and turned on its flasher. Our luck was running good, though, and when I sped past a stop sign at the city limit, the cop did too—and a truck smashed
into him broadside. In the rearview mirror I saw a silver explosion of glass spray off the cop car and it went whirling into a ditch with its doors flapping. The truck veered off the road with steam billowing from under the hood panels.
We cheered like the home team scored a touchdown. Russell said Man, I’d pay good money to see that again.
In another twenty minutes the radio was full of excited blabbing about us, much of it close to hysterical. They were calling it the biggest prison escape in Indiana history. Some reports claimed that fifteen convicts had escaped, some said as many as twenty-five. One said three getaway cars had been waiting for us. We were said to be armed and extremely dangerous, and citizens were warned to stay in their homes and keep their doors and windows locked. A state policeman told a reporter that a posse of five hundred men, both cops and vigilantes, was being organized. He said roadblocks were going up on all the highways in this part of the state and he promised they’d have us in custody, dead or alive, within forty-eight hours.
We knew they would set up blocks on the main routes but it was impossible for them to bar the back roads. I turned off the highway and went zigzagging from one farm lane to another. We kept bearing southward, the windshield wipers steadily slapping and Shouse working the radio as we moved through the broadcast ranges.
The rain kept falling and the roads got muddier. Most of the farms we passed were well removed from each other, and around midafternoon I turned in at the entrance gate of one of them and headed for the house. We pulled up in front of the porch and some old guy in overalls came out and stood there looking at us with a barking yellow Lab at his side. If he’d been holding a weapon it might’ve gone bad for him, but it so happened he hadn’t heard the news. He recognized the convict issue as soon as Russell got out of the car, though, you could see it in his face. Russ told him to hold the dog off if he didn’t want it shot, and the old guy grabbed the Lab by the scruff and spoke to it and calmed it down. They all went inside while I parked the car out of sight around back.
The farmer’s name was Warren. He was short and wiry but had big rough hands and his face looked hard as oak wood. He put the dog in another room and said there was nobody on the place but him and his wife and the hired man out at the barn. Russell went out and brought the hand into the house and I told them who we were and promised them no harm if they cooperated. I said all we wanted was something to eat and a place to rest until dark when it would be easier to avoid the roadblocks between us and Fort Wayne—which of course wasn’t where we were going, but it never hurts to plant a phony lead for the cops. I apologized to the woman for muddying her carpet and the bad smell we’d brought into her home. They were cool, those farm folk. They held their fear well and they didn’t ask a lot of questions.
We took turns keeping a lookout from the front window. The woman made coffee and cooked pancakes and scrambled eggs. Shouse asked Warren if he had any beer or booze or cigarette makings. The old man said alcohol and tobacco were terrible evils and he wouldn’t allow them on his property. Shouse said he didn’t give a shit what the farmer didn’t allow. I told him to watch his language in front of Mrs. Warren. I sent Russell and the hand out to siphon gasoline from the farmer’s truck and put it in the Phaeton, and while he was at it Russ punctured two of the farmer’s tires, just to play it safe.
There was no telephone but they had a radio and we tuned in the news. The speaker hissed and popped with bad-weather static but we were able to make out that the cops had received sightings of us in South Bend, Rensselaer, Lafayette, as far away as Columbia City. Which meant they had no idea where we were. They still weren’t exactly sure how many of us were on the loose, but because of the sheriff’s prisoner we left behind and the couple whose car we jacked, they knew we’d split into at least two groups and that one group had taken the sheriff as hostage. But that was about all they knew.
We washed up at the kitchen sink and made short work of the food, and the woman brewed more coffee. I had Warren and his hired man fetch us some of their clothes. Russ and I were too tall for either man’s shirt or pants and Charley was way too round, but the others guys were able to make do and were glad to be shed of their prison grays.
The rain brought an early darkness. As we got ready to go I told the farmer I was sorry we didn’t have any money to pay him for the food and clothes, and he said never mind. I said that was generous of him and then told him to give me all the money he had in the house. He’d been doing his best not to antagonize us, but now his eyes went narrow and his jaw set tight and I thought he was going to draw the line at being robbed under his own roof.
William, his wife said softly. Her eyes pled with him. He let out a long breath and emptied his pockets on the table. I told the hired man to pull his pockets out too. It came to about six dollars, much of it in silver. Russell went through the wife’s handbag and found another two bucks. Shouse put a finger in the farmer’s face and said he knew damn well there was more money in the house and he better get it from his hidey-hole or else. I pushed him away and said we had all we needed. I apologized to Warren and his missus once again, and then we left.
The rain hadn’t slackened at all and the roads were really deep with mud now, and I was forced to hold our speed down. We got mired once and some of the guys had to get out and push the car free, but we didn’t come across a single roadblock on any of those backcountry routes.
It was getting late when we cut back over onto a main road a few miles north of Kokomo. Our original plan had been to go straight to one of the hideouts John was supposed to have set up—but then came the lockdown and cancellation of the visiting day when Pearl was going to tell me where the hideouts were.
We spotted a telephone booth alongside a filling station and I pulled up beside it. I tried calling Pearl at home but her phone rang and rang with no answer. So I called the cathouse. The woman I talked to said Pearl wasn’t in, she’d been gone all day, no telling where or how long before she got back. I said to tell her that Handsome called and she could get in touch with me through Shorty—the code name Pearl and I used for Mary.
Then we headed for Indianapolis.
Sometime around midnight we rolled slowly into Mary’s neighborhood. I parked the car in the shadows of the dripping trees across the street from her place. It was actually her mother and stepdaddy’s apartment, where she’d been living with them and her sister Margo ever since Kinder had gone in the slam.
The rain had eased up, but it was still drizzling and the night had turned chillier. The sky was densely black and the streetlamps at either end of the block had hazy halos. I adjusted the pistol in my waistband under my untucked shirt and told the guys to sit tight, then went across the street and up the stoop of the apartment house. It was a two-story building with three upper and three lower apartments and a common front porch downstairs. None of the front windows was showing light.
Her place was a lower corner unit. The screen door was unlatched and I opened it and rapped on the inner door and waited a minute and then knocked again and a light came on inside. A moment later the deadbolt turned and the door opened a few inches and a guy in skivvies peeked out and said Who’re you and what you want?
I recognized him from Mary’s description—Jocko, the latest stepdaddy. I said I was a pal of Earl’s and had an important message from him for Mary.
Christ, he said, you one of them that busted out? That chicken-shit Earl send you? Well I got enough cop troubles of my own, you tell him, so he better—
Mary’s voice cut in: Who is it, Jocko? Is it Earl?
Jocko tried to close the door on me but I had my foot between it and the jamb. I heard Mary say to get out of the way. He said he didn’t need this kind of trouble. Move, she said.
The door swung open and there she was, holding her robe closed at her neck and gaping at me, her hair disheveled. Behind her stood a woman and girl, both of them as short as Mary. It was my first look at her mother and little sister, who was no kid anymore but a good-looking yo
ung woman. Jocko cursed and left the room.
Mary peered around me into the darkness and said Earl?
He was too sick, I said.
The mother put a hand to her mouth and Margo held her close. Mary stared at me a moment like she was angry, and then her face softened and she sighed and said Oh God, I knew it.
She came out and closed the door and tugged me aside a little ways—then she threw herself against me and went up high on her toes so she could lock her arms around my neck. She said something I didn’t catch because her words were muffled against my chest. I stroked her hair and her hip and felt my dick stir, which struck me as a little perverse under the circumstances.
She stepped back and wiped at her eyes and asked what happened, what I was doing there. Pearl had told her the break wouldn’t be until Sunday. When she heard the news on the radio she didn’t know what to think.
We could talk about everything soon enough, I said, but the most important thing right now was a place for me and the guys to lay low. Where was Pearl? Had she said where the hideouts were?
All Pearl had told her was that a friend of John’s named Copeland was arranging for hideouts, but she hadn’t said where.
I said I had to come up with someplace quick, the guys were waiting on me.
I couldn’t see her face very well in the shadows but I felt her staring hard at me. I know a place, she said. Let me get dressed.
She went inside and closed the door and I waited in the dark. I heard the others all talking at once. I couldn’t make out most of what they were saying but I heard her mother screech that she forbid her to go with me. A few minutes later she was back, wearing a long coat over a short dress. The only one still in the living room was Margo, and she wiggled her fingers goodbye at us.
Handsome Harry Page 11
