Billy Rags

by Ted Lewis

  Tobin keeps coming to see me with the same dialogue.

  “I know who they are, Billy. That’s not important. I want to know who was carrying the shooter.”

  “If you know who they are why not pull them in and ask them. Or are you afraid they might turn out to be on Wally’s firm?”

  “It’s the shooter man I want, Billy.”

  “What shooter man?”

  Then one time he comes a different tack.

  “You know how much you’re likely to cop for this time, don’t you, Billy. With your form. It’s going to be the big one this time.”

  “It really should have acted as a deterrent, shouldn’t it?”

  “Be as funny as you like. It won’t change a thing. You’re going down heavy. Of course you may not have to. You give me the hero with the shooter and I might be able to fix the court.”

  “Oh yes. I can just see it. I give you the name and straightaway wallop the judge knows sod all about the odd few years he’s supposed to be knocking off me.”

  “Wouldn’t be like that, Billy. Not at all like that. We could work it so you gave us the name in court, so we’d both know we’re safe.”

  “Why only the shooter man? Why not the rest as well?”

  “Doesn’t matter. The shooter man will give us the others, won’t he? He’d want some time off, too.”

  “And my time. What would I get off?”

  “Half.”

  “Half. You’re joking.”

  “I could get you down to, say, eight. Good behaviour, you’d be out in six at the most.”

  “And you think I’d do it. You think I’d shop mates just to get myself time off?”

  “You’re like everybody else, Billy. You’re no different. You take your chances but you don’t want to do any more than you have to. Why should you? You probably didn’t know the stupid bastard was tooled up, anyway. Why do time for him as well?”

  “Well you know me. Never did have time for that kind of stuff. Takes all the excitement out of things”

  So I let Tobin think I’m set on the idea. In court, his face is a picture when I keep buttoned up. But then it’s too late to reverse the wheels. Everything’s fixed and stuck fast. I get my eight years and Tobin gets fuck all. But even so, eight years is eight years. I’m outside again in six months.

  I decided that Terry was the only one we could trust. The others we would leave. So when Tommy and Terry and I were together in Tommy’s cell I brought the matter up and told him how far we’d got.

  “It’s perfect, Terry,” I said. “It can’t miss. Just me, you and Tommy. What do you say?”

  “I dunno, Billy,” he said. “I don’t reckon it, really.”

  “How do you mean? I’ve told you, it’s going to work.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But I don’t think I’ll bother.”

  I began to think we’d made a mistake. I began to smell Walter.

  “Why not, exactly, Terry?” I said.

  Terry shrugged.

  “Nowhere to go, have I? No firm to go to. No bird. No family. What’s the fucking point?”

  “Is that right?” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “It isn’t Wally. I just don’t want to go. There’s no point, that’s all.”

  I didn’t say anything. Tommy said: “I believe him, Billy. I’ve seen this before.”

  “So have I,” I said. “I was just wondering why he hasn’t told us how he felt before.”

  “Why should I?” Terry said. “I’ve done my bit to help. What I think’s my own business.”

  “He’s right, Billy,” said Tommy.

  “All right, so he’s right,” I said. “I’m just bearing Walter in mind. You never know how he’s going to pull his strokes.”

  “Talking about Walter . . .” Tommy said.

  I looked at him.

  “What about Walter?” I said.

  “I was thinking,” Tommy said. “In the light of Terry leaving himself out. It means that now we’re going to have to go blind.”

  “Now look . . .”

  “No, listen to me, Billy. I’m right. We can do what we like when we get the other side of that wall, we can put the bar over his head in the cellar and leave him down there if you can’t wait that long. But we can’t go out blind. There’s only Ray left and do you trust him? We may as well put Wally in and leave out the suspense.”

  “Tommy,” I said, “I’m more worried about Walter than I am about the fucking screws. You know we can’t put him in it. What the Christ have we been fucking about at for the last month? Do me a favour.”

  “We can leave him in the cellar, I’ve told you.”

  “Tommy, we can’t start fighting this side of the wall, and neither can we afterwards. Listen, he’d try and put it on us before we reached the wall. And on the other side of the wall he’ll have help. Look, I’ve told you, he’s had something in the wind since before I got here. Either he’ll try and balls it up for us or he’ll drop us in it and get away himself. You know his muscle; you know he could arrange it, outside or in. How would you feel if that toerag was out and you were still inside, or just inside because of him?”

  “I know all that, Billy, but I still think we should take him. It’s too dodgy not to. Supposing he sniffs it while we’re making it? He’ll start yelling and screaming so as to grass us. You know what he’s like.”

  People were always saying “You know what he’s like” about Walter.

  “Look, you know I don’t want the cunt’s help,” Tommy went on, “but I’m not going to take the chance of him sniffing it out and grassing. Which is what he would do. I’d rather tell him and take our chances that way.”

  Walter wasn’t going. That was one thing I was certain of, Tommy or not. I upped the stakes.

  “Tommy,” I said, “I’d rather not go than take Walter with us. I’d rather go up there and smash him all round his cell. Then we’d both be out of it. You could go on your own. That’s how strong I feel about it.”

  There was a silence. In the lull Terry said:

  “Tommy, I know it’s none of my business, but I think Billy’s right. It’s wrong to let Wally go. He wouldn’t take anybody with him. He’s just a stroke-puller and he’s pulled too many.”

  Tommy sighed.

  “I know,” he said. “I’ve just got this thing about him grassing us on the night. If we put him in it we could keep an eye on him.”

  “Listen, he’s still racking his brains over that hacksaw,” I said. “He’s no idea of what’s on.”

  “Maybe.”

  “If you put him in it all you’ll have is grief,” Terry said. “Believe me.”

  “I know,” Tommy said. He thought about it for a while. “All right,” he said. “Let’s keep the bastard blotted out.”

  “We’ve got to,” I said.

  After a while Tommy said:

  “Although in one way it would have been good to take Walter.”

  “How’s that?” Terry said.

  “It would have really got up their noses. Can you imagine the scream? It would have been worse than Blake.”

  The screw unlocks the door and comes into the cell. I stare up at him from my pit.

  “Governor, Cracken.”

  I don’t move.

  “Come on, shift it. He’s in his office, waiting.”

  “What am I supposed to have done this time?”

  “Move your fucking self and you’ll find out.”

  I stand up very quickly. The screw begins to wonder a bit.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “It’s too bleeding hot.”

  The Governor is writing when we march into his office. We wait for him to finish. He looks up.

  “Leave us, Glover,” he tells
the screw.

  The screw disappears.

  “Sit down, Cracken,” says the Governor.

  I sit down. The Governor looks down at his pad for a while, thinking.

  Then he looks up, in my direction, at a point somewhere above my head.

  “I am afraid I have to tell you,” he says, “that last night your sister was found dead.”

  I look at him. I don’t comprehend the words.

  “I’m afraid it was suicide. An overdose.”

  The words don’t mean anything.

  “She was taken to a hospital. Everything was done that could possibly have been done.”

  “Dead?”

  “Naturally your—”

  “Dead?”

  “—your mother—”

  I stand up.

  “I’ve got to see her. I’ve got to help.”

  “Glover!”

  Glover and three other screws come into the office. I start to walk through them.

  “I’ve got to see her. I must see her.”

  Their hands are gripping me and they begin to pull me to the floor.

  “Cracken!”

  The Governor’s voice fills the room.

  Then Glover’s voice is soft in my ear as we hit the floor.

  “Take it easy, Billy. Take it easy.”

  “I must go,” I say. “I must help. I must help them.”

  “Come on, Billy,” says Glover. “Just take it easy and calm down. You won’t help anybody carrying on like this.”

  Tommy had to do a bit more work oil the hole that led into the cellar, just to make sure I didn’t get stuck on the night. This was just the kind of manoeuvre that was bound to set Walter sniffing.

  “What’s the point of going down there again?” Walter said when we told him.

  “Wally,” Tommy said, “I want Gearing to go down there tomorrow or Wednesday to try it out. I’m not having him getting stuck down there. You know what a clumsy cunt he is. It’s bad enough having him with us without him nausing it into the bargain.”

  Walter laughed.

  “That’s all we’d need on the night,” he said. “One of us stuck in the cellar ceiling and the others waiting to go.”

  The afternoon that we widened the hole, the wing got a new arrival. Gil Hardy, a lifer who’d been transferred up from Leicester. I’d never met him but I’d worked with people who’d worked with him and I knew he was sound. He was still on punishment for a try he’d made down there and in practical terms he was still behind his door but I chatted up a sympathetic screw and got him unlocked. Hardy came along to my cell for a chat. We gave each other the heard-about-you glad-to-meet-you jive and he told me how unlucky they’d been at Leicester. He also told me that Dennis Colman had made one down there and I was glad to hear about that because Dennis was in a different class to Walter. Anyway, we were sitting there talking about this and that, and then right out of the blue he popped me off.

  “Billy, is there anything on here?” he said. Normally I would have just passed it off. But what with Wally parking half an hour before and the surprise of Hardy asking, my face shopped itself, I tried to compensate for my surprise. I shrugged and said: “Not really.”

  He immediately jumped in and apologised.

  “I’m sorry, Billy,” he said, “I shouldn’t have asked. I was out of order.”

  This only increased my discomfort.

  “No, Gil, it’s nothing,” I said. “You just surprised me, that’s all. You’re entitled to ask. I’d do the same.”

  But we dropped the subject and I knew he’d never bring it up again.

  I told Tommy about it that evening.

  “He caught me open, Tommy,” I said. “I couldn’t help showing it. But immediately he saw my reaction he backed off. He accepted he couldn’t be put in. It makes you sick when you contrast him with that other ponce.”

  “Yes,” Tommy said. “He’s a nice fellow, Billy. I knew him down on the Moor. I was going to suggest taking him. But it’s up to you.”

  “It’s not up to me, Tommy. I just didn’t want to commit without discussing it first. He’s game enough and on my life I don’t mind. The way he stoomed up is as good as a reference to me.”

  We postponed telling him until the next day: even getting Gil unlocked twice on the trot would have been enough to flare Walter’s nostrils, the way he was watching us. In the evening I got Gil unlocked again and gave him the SP.

  “Gil,” I said, “you know yesterday you asked if there was anything on?”

  “Yeah, Billy. But . . .”

  “Listen. Tommy and me are together on one. We’ve got a hole and it’s beautiful. It leads all the way out.”

  “That’s great, Billy . . .”

  “Listen. We’re going tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow night? Jesus.”

  “Yes. Tomorrow night. Do you want to make one?”

  His face was like Blackpool illuminations.

  “Billy, you must be fucking joking. Do I? Jesus. Of course I fucking want to make one.”

  We clasped hands and grinned at each other.

  “One thing, though,” I said. “Walter.”

  “Walter?”

  I gave him the score. When I’d finished he said: “No sweat to me, Billy. I don’t know him but even his cousin thinks he’s a cunt.”

  “Right. So it’s just me and you and Tommy.”

  “Sure, but I mean, I’m supposed to be behind my door. How am I going to get out for long enough not to noise it?”

  “That won’t be any problem. I’ll arrange for you to have a shower or go to the library. Don’t worry about it.”

  Gil shook his head.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said. “I mean, over the wall and it’s only my third day here.”

  “How was your mother?” Sheila asks.

  I shake my head.

  “The same,” I say. “She doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t want to know anything. Still feels that everything’s been down to me. You know.”

  Sheila puts her arm round me.

  “Don’t let it worry you,” she says.

  “Worry me? It doesn’t worry me.”

  She rests her head against my chest.

  “Anyway I shan’t go again. Stuff it. It’s too risky. Why should I run the gauntlet just to get that routine?”

  Slight pressure from her fingers at the base of my spine.

  “Not to mention what would happen to you. Harbouring, you would get three years, easy.” I stroke her hair. “The whole situation, it’s unfair. You’re really out on a limb because of me.”

  “Do you think I mind?”

  “No, but—”

  “Well, then.”

  There is a silence. The fingers tighten again. She lifts her head and looks into my face.

  “And anyway,” she says, “you wouldn’t leave a poor pregnant girl all alone to fend for herself, would you?”

  I woke up and stared at the ceiling. The nick was quiet but grey daylight filtered into my cell.

  I got up and went to the window and looked out. Light drizzle softly swept across the nick. Instead of doing my exercises straight away, as usual, I lit a cigarette and stared out at the rain. I felt the way I used to feel before a school examination, as if the exam was today, and there was no time for any more work, the feeling that if you hadn’t swotted it up now there was no more time so you just had to take your chances on the questions being about the few things you knew. It was a kind of desperate exhilaration, a feeling of excited relief, relief that there was nothing more to be done other than to sit down and do your paper.

  During the morning a weight-lifting referee visited the nick and I did a couple of lifts for the inter-prison comp
etition. I weighed exactly 175 lbs and I dead-lifted 520 lbs. It was my best lift to date.

  At tea time I got the sheet rope from the laundry basket where I’d kept it hidden and took it up to my cell, and wrapped the sheets round my waist. After that I went down to Gil’s cell and briefed him on a few details and told him to get himself unlocked for a shower at about eight o’clock, after he’d eaten. I never had time to tell him very much. He really didn’t know what the hell was going on. Then Tommy and I wandered down to the library. Tommy minded by the door while I uncoiled the rope from round my waist. I pushed a table near the wall, got up on it and tied the rope to the bottom of a vertical bar and let out the rest of the rope through the hole in the plastic and down into the badminton yard. It was dark, but if someone went into the yard they would switch on the light. There was no safeguard against that happening. But the chances of a screw going into the badminton yard after dark were slight. When I’d dropped the rope I went down to the weights cell and looked out across the badminton yard. I could only just make out the sheets dangling through the hole. Again, the chances of anyone coming into the weights cell or either of the other two cells that overlooked the yard just to stare out into the dark yard were negligible.