Penzler, Otto Ed v2

by Murder For Revenge

  There wasn’t a thing he could do.

  They raped him, all three of them, and they weren’t gentle about it either. He fought at first but their response to that was savage and prompt, and he gasped at the pain and quit his struggling. He tried to disassociate himself from what was being done to him, tried to take his mind away to some private place. That was a way old cons had of doing time, getting through the hours on end of vacant boredom. This time it didn’t really work.

  They left him doubled up on the floor, warned him against saving anything to the hacks, and drove the point home with a boot to the ribs.

  He managed to get back to his cell, and the following day he put in a request for a transfer to B Block, where you were locked down twenty-three hours a day. He was used to that on Death Row, so he knew he could live with it.

  So much for making a life inside the walls. What he had to do was get out.

  He still had his typewriter. He sat down, flexed his fingers. One of the rapists had bent his little finger back the day before, and it still hurt, but it wasn’t one that he used for typing. He took a breath and started in.

  “Dear Paul...”

  “Dear Billy,

  “As always, it was good to hear from you. I write not with news but just in the hope that I can lighten your spirits and build your resolve for the long road ahead. Winning your freedom won’t be an easy task, but it’s my conviction that working together we can make it happen...

  “Yours, Paul.”

  “Dear Paul,

  “Thanks for the books. I missed a lot, all those years when I never opened a book. It’s funny—my life seems so much more spacious now, even though I’m spending all but one hour a day in a dreary little cell. But it’s like that poem that starts, ‘Stone walls do not a prison make / Nor iron bars a cage.’ (I’d have to say, though, that the stone walls and iron bars around this place make a pretty solid prison.)

  “I don’t expect much from the parole board next month, but it’s a start...”

  “Dear Billy,

  “I was deeply saddened by the parole board’s decision, although everything I’d heard had led me to expect nothing else. Even though you’ve been locked up more than enough time to be eligible, the thinking evidently holds that Death Row time somehow counts less than regular prison time, and that the board wants to see how you do as a prisoner serving a life sentence before letting you return to the outside world. I’m not sure I understand the logic there...

  “I’m glad you’re taking it so well.

  “Your friend, Paul.”

  “Dear Paul,

  “Once again, thanks for the books. They’re a healthy cut above what’s available here. This joint prides itself in its library, but when you say ‘Kierkegaard’ to the prison librarian he looks at you funny, and you don’t dare try him on Martin Buber.

  “I shouldn’t talk, because I’m having troubles of my own with both of those guys. I haven’t got anybody else to bounce this off, so do you mind if I press you into service? Here’s my take on Kierkegaard...

  “Well, that’s the latest from the Jailhouse Philosopher, who is pleased to be

  “Your friend, Billy.”

  “Dear Billy,

  “Well, once again it’s time for the annual appearance before parole board—or the annual circus, as you call it with plenty of justification. Last year we thought maybe the third time was the charm, and it turned out we were wrong, but maybe it’ll be different this year...”

  “Dear Paul,

  “’Maybe it’ll be different this time.’ Isn’t that what Charlie Brown tells himself before he tries to kick the football? And Lucy always snatches it away.

  “Still, some of the deep thinkers I’ve been reading stress that hope is important even when it’s unwarranted. And, although I’m a little scared to admit it, I have a good feeling this time.

  “And if they never let me out, well, I’ve reached a point where I honestly don’t mind. I’ve found an inner life here that’s far superior to anything I had in my years as a free man. Between my books, my solitude, and my correspondence with you, I have a life I can live with. Of course I’m hoping for parole, but if they snatch the football away again, it ain’t gonna kill me...”

  “Dear Billy,

  “...Just a thought, but maybe that’s the line you should take with them. That you’d welcome parole, but you’ve made a life for yourself within the walls and you can stay there indefinitely if you have to.

  “I don’t know, maybe that’s the wrong strategy altogether, but I think it might impress them...”

  “Dear Paul,

  “Who knows what’s likely to impress them? On the other hand, what have I got to lose?”

  Billy Croydon sat at the end of the long conference table, speaking when spoken to, uttering his replies in a low voice, giving pro forma responses to the same questions they asked him every year. At the end they asked him, as usual, if there was anything he wanted to say.

  Well, what the hell, he thought. What did he have to lose?

  “I’m sure it won’t surprise you,” he began, “to hear that I’ve come before you in the hope of being granted early release. I’ve had hearings before, and when I was turned down it was devastating. Well, I may not be doing myself any good by saying this, but this time around it won’t destroy me if you decide to deny me parole. Almost in spite of myself, I’ve made a life for myself within prison walls. I’ve found an inner life, a life of the spirit, that’s superior to anything I had as a free man...”

  Were they buying it? Hard to tell. On the other hand, since it happened to be the truth, it didn’t really matter whether they bought it or not.

  He pushed on to the end. The chairman scanned the room, then looked at him and nodded shortly.

  “Thank you, Mr. Croydon,” he said. “I think that will be all for now.”

  “I think I speak for all of us,” the chairman said, “when I say how much weight we attach to your appearance before this board. We’re used to hearing the pleas of victims and their survivors, but almost invariably they come here to beseech us to deny parole. You’re virtually unique, Mr. Dandridge, in appearing as the champion of the very man who...”

  “Killed my sister,” Paul said levelly.

  “Yes. You’ve appeared before us on prior occasions, Mr. Dandridge, and while we were greatly impressed by your ability to forgive William Croydon and by the relationship you’ve forged with him, it seems to me that there’s been a change in your own sentiments. Last year, I recall, while you pleaded on Mr. Croydon’s behalf, we sensed that you did not wholeheartedly believe he was ready to be returned to society.”

  “Perhaps I had some hesitation.”

  “But this year...”

  “Billy Croydon’s a changed man. The process of change has been completed. I know that he’s ready to get on with his life.”

  “There’s no denying the power of your testimony, especially in light of its source.” The chairman cleared his throat. “Thank you, Mr. Dandridge. I think that will be all for now.”

  “Well?” Paul said. “How do you feel?”

  Billy considered the question. “Hard to say,” he said. “Everything’s a little unreal. Even being in a car. Last time I was in a moving vehicle was when I got my commutation and they transferred me from the other prison. It’s not like Rip Van Winkle. I know what everything looks like from television, cars included. Tell the truth, I feel a little shaky.”

  “I guess that’s to be expected.”

  “I suppose.” He tugged his seat belt to tighten it. “You want, to know how I feel, I feel vulnerable. All those years I was locked down twenty-three hours out of twenty-four. I knew what to expect, I knew I was safe. Now I’m a free man, and it scares the crap out of me.”

  “Look in the glove compartment,” Paul said.

  “Jesus, Johnnie Walker Black.”

  “I figured you might be feeling a little anxious. That ought to take the edge off.”

 
; “Yeah, Dutch courage,” Billy said. “Why Dutch, do you happen to know? I’ve always wondered.”

  “No idea.”

  He weighed the bottle in his hand. “Been a long time,” he said. “Haven’t had a taste of anything since they locked me up.”

  “There was nothing available in prison?”

  “Oh, there was stuff. The jungle juice cons made out of potatoes and raisins, and some good stuff that got smuggled in. But I wasn’t in population, so I didn’t have access. And anyway it seemed like more trouble than it was worth.”

  “Well, you’re a free man now. Why don’t you drink to it? I’m driving or I’d join you.”

  “Well...”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Why not?” he said, and uncapped the bottle and held it to the light. “Pretty colour, huh? Well, here’s to freedom, huh?” He took a long drink, shuddered at the burn of the whiskey. “Kicks like a mule,” he said.

  “You’re not used to it.”

  “I’m not.” He put the cap on the bottle and had a little trouble screwing it back on. “Hitting me hard,” he reported. “Like I was a little kid getting his first taste of it. Whew.”

  “You’ll be all right.”

  “Spinning,” Billy said, and slumped in his seat.

  Paul glanced over at him, looked at him again a minute later. Then, after checking the mirror, he pulled the car off the road and braked to a stop.

  Billy was conscious for a little while before he opened his eyes. He tried to get his bearings first. The last thing he remembered was a wave of dizziness after the slug of Scotch hit bottom. He was still sitting upright, but it didn’t feel like a car seat, and he didn’t sense any movement. No, he was in some sort of chair, and he seemed to be tied to it.

  That didn’t make any sense. A dream? He’d had lucid dreams before and knew how real they were, how you could be in them and wonder if you were dreaming and convince yourself you weren’t. The way you broke the surface and got out of it was by opening your eyes. You had to force yourself, had to open your real eyes and not just your eyes in the dream, but it could be done.

  ...There!

  He was in a chair, in a room he’d never seen before, looking out a window at a view he’d never seen before. An open field, woods behind it.

  He turned his head to the left and saw a wall panelled in knotty cedar. He turned to the right and saw Paul Dandridge, wearing boots and jeans and a plaid flannel shirt and sitting in an easy chair with a book. He said, “Hey!” and Paul lowered the book and looked at him.

  “Ah,” Paul said. “You’re awake.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “What do you think?”

  “There was something in the whiskey.”

  “There was indeed,” Paul agreed! “You started to stir just as we made the turn off the state road. I gave you a booster shot with a hypodermic needle.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You never felt it. I was afraid for a minute there that I’d given you too much. That would have been ironic, wouldn’t you say? ‘Death by lethal injection.’ The sentence carried out finally after all these years, and you wouldn’t have even known it happened.”

  He couldn’t take it in. “Paul,” he said, “for God’s sake, what’s it all about?”

  “What’s it about?” Paul considered his response. “It’s about time.”

  “Time?”

  “It’s the last act of the drama.”

  “Where are we?”

  “A cabin in the woods. Not the cabin. That would be ironic, wouldn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If I killed you in the same cabin where you killed Karen.

  Ironic, but not really feasible. So this is a different cabin in different woods, but it will have to do.”

  “You’re going to kill me?”

  “Of course.”

  “For God’s sake, why?”

  “Because that’s how it ends, Billy. That’s the point of the whole game. That’s how I planned it from the beginning.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “Why is it so hard to believe? We conned each other, Billy. You pretended to repent and I pretended to believe you. You pretended to reform and I pretended to be on your side. Now we can both stop pretending.”

  Billy was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I was trying to con you at the beginning.”

  “No kidding.”

  “There was a point where it turned into something else, but it started out as a scam. It was the only way I could think of to stay alive. You saw through it?”

  “Of course.”

  “But you pretended to go along with it. Why?”

  “Is it that hard to figure out?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense. What do you gain by it? My death? If you wanted me dead all you had to do was tear up my letter. The state was all set to kill me.”

  “They’d have taken forever,” Paul said bitterly. “Delay after delay, and always the possibility of a reversal and a retrial, always the possibility of a commutation of sentence.”

  “There wouldn’t have been a reversal, and it took you working for me to get my sentence commuted. There would have been delays, but there’d already been a few of them before I got around to writing to you. It couldn’t have lasted too many years longer, and it would have added up to a lot less than it has now, with all the time I spent serving life and waiting for the parole board to open the doors. If you’d just let it go, I’d be dead and buried by now.”

  “You’ll be dead soon,” Paul told him. “And buried. It won’t be much longer. Your grave’s already dug. I took care of that before I drove to the prison to pick you up.”

  “They’ll come after you, Paul. When I don’t show up for my initial appointment with my parole officer—“

  “They’ll get in touch, and I’ll tell them we had a drink and shook hands and you went off on your own. It’s not my fault if you decided to skip town and violate the terms of your parole.”

  He took a breath. He said, “Paul, don’t do this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m begging you. I don’t want to die.”

  “Ah,” Paul said. “That’s why.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If I left it to the state,” he said, “they’d have been killing a dead man. By the time the last appeal was denied and the last request for a stay of execution turned down, you’d have been resigned to the inevitable. They’d strap you to a gurney and give you a shot, and it would be just like going to sleep.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “But now you want to live. You adjusted to prison, you made a life for yourself in there, and then you finally made parole, icing on the cake, and now you genuinely want to live. You’ve really got a life now, Billy, and I’m going to take it away from you.”

  “You’re serious about this.”

  “I’ve never been more serious about anything.”

  “You must have been planning this for years.”

  “From the very beginning.”

  “Jesus, it’s the most thoroughly premeditated crime in the history of the world, isn’t it? Nothing I can do about it either. You’ve got me tied tight and the chair won’t tip over. Is there anything I can say that’ll make you change your mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He sighed. “Get it over with.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Huh?”

  “This won’t be what the state hands out,” Paul Dandridge said. “A minute ago you were begging me to let you live. Before it’s over you’ll be begging me to kill you.”

  “You’re going to torture me.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “In fact you’ve already started, haven’t you? This is the mental part.”

  “Very perceptive of you, Billy.”

  “For all the good it does me. This is all because of what I did to
your sister, isn’t it?”

  “Obviously.”

  “I didn’t do it, you know. It was another Billy Croydon that killed her, and I can barely remember what he was like.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “Not to you, evidently, and you’re the one calling the shots. I’m sure Kierkegaard had something useful to say about this sort of situation, but I’m damned if I can call it to mind. You knew I was conning you, huh? Right from the jump?”

  “Of course.”

  “I thought it was a pretty good letter I wrote you.”

  “It was a masterpiece, Billy. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t easy to see through.”

  “So now you dish it out and I take it,” Billy Croydon said, “until you get bored and end it, and I wind up in the grave you’ve already dug for me. And that’s the end of it. I wonder if there’s a way to turn it around.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Oh, I know I’m not getting out of here alive, Paul, but there’s more than one way of turning something around. Let’s see now. You know, the letter you got wasn’t the first one I wrote to you.”

  “So?”

  “The past is always with you, isn’t it? I’m not the same man as the guy who killed your sister, but he’s still there inside somewhere. Just a question of calling him up.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just talking to myself, I guess. I was starting to tell you about that first letter. I never sent it, you know, but I kept it. For the longest time I held on to it and read it whenever I wanted to relive the experience. Then it stopped working, or maybe I stopped wanting to call up the past, but whatever it was I quit reading it. I still held on to it, and then one day I realised I didn’t want to own it anymore. So I tore it up and got rid of it.”

  “That’s fascinating.”

  “But I read it so many times I bet I can bring it back word for word.” His eyes locked with Paul Dandridge’s, and his lips turned up in the slightest suggestion of a smile. He said, “ ‘Dear Paul, Sitting here in this cell waiting for the day to come when they put a needle in my arm and flush me down God’s own toilet, I found myself thinking about your testimony in court. I remember how you said your sister was a good-hearted girl who spent her short life bringing pleasure to everyone who knew her. According to your testimony, knowing this helped you rejoice in her life at the same time that it made her death so hard to take.