“That's enough of that,” she said. “We have a long way to go before you are safe.”
“All right, but could you tell me just where we are going?”
“To Lake City, if there are no complications. You will be safe there for a while.”
“Lake City suits me fine. By the way, it occurs to me that I haven't thanked you for everything you've done.”
“Don't bother,” she said, looking straight ahead. “This isn't a free ride. You'll be expected to earn your passage when we get to Lake City.”
I would earn my passage, all right. I had known that from the first; it didn't bother me—John Venci's work was my kind of work, and we'd get along.
That started me thinking about Venci, and the way we had arranged this escape almost a year ago. It had been a beautiful set-up, as absolutely perfect as a circle. We had started with a basic truth which held that the actual prison break was the least important detail of a successful escape. With a little care, any moron could crash out of prison—he could stay on his good behavior, become a trustee and simply walk away, if that's all there was to it.
But there was a lot more to it than that. Those first few hours, those first two or three hours after the initial crash-out—they were the hours that killed you. You had to have help, that was the main thing, and without it you were beat before you started. “The initial break,” Venci had told me, “will be up to you. Nine months and I'll be out of this place; I'll be in a position to help you, but I'm not going to try anything as crude as smuggling you a gun, is that clear?”
“Perfectly.”
“Nine months you'll have to think about it, make it good.”
“I could do it tomorrow. I could crash out of this rock pile and make it as far as Beaker before they knew what hit them.”
“Nevertheless, you will wait the nine months if you really mean business, if you have the brains I think you have.”
He was completely humorless, John Venci—or I had thought so at the time. He was small, lean, extremely intense, and he had a brain that was as immaculate and keen as a scalpel. When John Venci took a liking to a man it made all the difference in the world; you were suddenly somebody to be reckoned with, you amounted to something. No con dared cross you after the word got around that John Venci had taken a liking to you—it was the best thing that could happen, and it had happened to me. On the other hand, the worst thing that could happen to a man was to get Venci down on you, and the cons knew that too.
Almost from the first we had hit it off, which may sound strange. John Venci was old enough to be my father. He was the master of his calling, which was crime. His organization had a thousand brains and two thousand arms—arms that could reach anywhere, grab anything. “I don't get it,” I had said once, “a man like you, a gambling rap's nothing. Why did you stand still for it? Why did you allow yourself to be put away for a stretch, even a short one?”
Paper-thin lids had dropped over his intense eyes, and he had smiled with no more expression than a razor gash in a piece of leather. “Suppose,” he said, “that a very religious man feels the overpowering need for meditation, for reconsecration of his flagging spirit, where does he go?” I said, “A monastery, I suppose.”
“Exactly,” he had answered. “Well, I came to prison.”
That was John Venci. A purist, a theorist, a perfectionist in crime. John Venci had intelligence and imagination—and I think he was slightly mad.
I wanted to talk about escape, and Venci would deliver a lecture on abstract theories of vengeance. I had believed in them. Our personal philosophies gave us common ground from the very beginning. No longer was I a nobody. No longer was I just another punk who had blundered on his first bank job.
“This is amazing!” Venci had said.
I said, “I fail to see anything amazing in the fact that I have teamed to read and am capable of thought.”
“Nevertheless, it is amazing! Materialism makes an intriguing theory, but how many people have the guts to believe it, actually believe in it, right to the bottoms of their bleak little souls? How many have you known?”
“Not many, I guess.”
“Do you know why? It knocks their crutches from under them, that's why. They simply don't have what it takes to purge themselves of their fantastic little guilts....”
Then he had stopped, his eyes alive, and he had interrupted himself calmly: “I have in mind a certain... project. A rather audacious project, I might say, even for me. It will take a good deal of thought... as well as action. Strange, until now I had not envisioned another actor in this—particular little drama x)f mine...” He had studied me bleakly, in sober concentration. “Yes,” he had said finally, “I think I could use you, Roy Surratt.”
“I can't do you much good if I stay in this cell the rest of my life.”
“No.... Do you have a specific plan in mind?”
“Yes. You'll be out of here in nine months. In nine months I'll be ready. I'll be the best prisoner they ever saw; I'll be the darling of every screw in the yard; I'll endear myself to every goddamn contract guard that comes within ass-kissing distance of me. I'll make myself Warden's pet even if it makes me vomit. In short, ill be a trustee, and the initial crash will be a cinch. After the break I'll make it into Beaker under my own steam, and I'll somehow arrange it so that the alarm doesn't get out immediately. Forty-five minutes or an hour, I'll need that much start at least, and I'll get it.”
He said nothing, so I went on. “All right, we assume, then, that I can make the break and reach Beaker before a general alarm goes out. The town of Beaker, that's where I must have help. I must have a getaway car, and not a hot one, either. I must have a complete outfit of clothes, some money, some escape routes planned in case the unforeseeable should happen. That's the way it has to be if I'm to get out of that town alive.”
“Yes.... It can be arranged.”
“Fine. Now for the details for your end of it. First, a contact point. And a time for the contact. Noon is the best time, so we'll make it between twelve noon and one o'clock. Now the place. I used to know the town pretty well—let's see, at the north end of Main Street there is a big service station, just before you get to the railroad tracks. That's a good place, easy to spot. Now west of that service station there is a quiet residential street, as I remember, which should be all right. The second block to the right of that station, midway in the second block, between twelve noon arid one o'clock, is that all right for the time and place of contact?”
“You make it sound pretty simple.”
“It will be simple. I'll keep it as simple as it humanly possible. After I work on this thing for nine months it will be perfect—all I want to know is do you go for it?”
Only a moment's hesitation, then positively: “I go for it. I'll see to it myself, but only for one day a week, over a three month span from the day they release me.”
“That's fair enough, make it Friday. Friday's the best day, it's always the most hectic, and if there is a shortage of guards it will be on Friday, just before the week end.”
For one long moment he had said nothing. At last he murmured, “Yes... Yes, it sounds all right.” Then, with no warning at all, he stepped forward and hit me in the mouth with his fist.
The suddeness of the attack stunned me. I reeled back and crashed against the bars of the cell. “Goddamnit,” John Venci hissed under his breath, “fight!”
Then I got it. In case of an assisted escape, the cops always suspected the escapee's friends, and John Venci was merely striking off such a possibility. The entire cell block seemed to know the instant the first blow was struck. At the top of his lungs, John Venci yelled, “You sonofabitch!” Then he grabbed up a stook and hurled it at me, and the place burst into bedlam as every con in the block began rattling bars and yelling. All right! I thought. All right, there's no sense doing a thing half way! We might as well make it look good!
My mouth was pouring blood, and I'd caught one of Venci's shoe heels unde
r my left eye. He kept digging in as though his very life was at stake, cursing and yelling like a crazy man, as savage as a lion. But it was no match. He was tough, all right, and vicious, but I had weight and youth on my side, and every time I knocked him crashing against the bars I thought: Jesus, I hope those goddamn guards break it up before I kill him!
So that was John Venci, as I knew him. He played it to the hilt, and by his rules only the winner ever walked away. After the brawl, after the guards finally got tired clubbing us, after their legs wearied from kicking us, they finally dragged us off to the hole.
I don't know what John Venci thought about during his stay in solitary, probably it didn't bother him at all.
What I thought about was that escape. I nursed my two splintered ribs and tried to breathe as lightly as possible, and thought of that dazzling day nine months in the future when I would crash out of this hell hole for good. And when I did, somebody was going to pay for those two splintered ribs.
Still, the thing that fascinated me most through those endless days of darkness was the fact that I never doubted John Venci. When the time came, he would be there, and I never doubted it for a second. I understood that it was not going to be a free ride, and that I would have to “earn” my passage, as Dorris Venci had put it.
That was fine with me; I had never cared for free rides anyway.
CHAPTER THREE
WE HIT TOWN about nine o'clock that night, Dorris Venci and I, and quite a town it was, too. It was like a fairyland, all that color, the dancing lights, garish show windows, the buildings.
I was completely delighted. “This is the most wonderful thing I ever saw,” I said.
Dorris Venci said, “Turn left at the next corner. I'll tell you where to go from there.”
I was afraid she was going to take me away from the lights. I felt like a child who had been allowed to watch a carousel for a moment and then jerked away. “Where are we going?” I said.
“Stop here,” Dorris said.
“Here on the corner?”
“Yes. The Tower Hotel is just across the street. Go to the desk and tell the clerk you are William O'Connor from Dallas; he has your reservation.”
“This is going to be a little rich for me at first, but I hope to get used to it. What do you do while William O'Connor checks in?”
“Take the car around to the hotel garage. Stay in your apartment; I'll want to talk to you later.”
“All right, but shouldn't I have some luggage or something. It's going to look pretty fishy walking into a hotel like that without any luggage.”
“That's been taken care of,” she said. “The luggage is already in your apartment.”
She thought of everything. Well, almost everything. I got out of the car, and then turned back again. “I hate to bring this up,” I said, “but could you let me have a dollar?”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Unless hotels have changed a lot in five years, the boy who shows me to my room is going to expect more than handshakes and fond wishes.”
It wasn't good for a laugh, or even a smile. She got a five dollar bill out of her bag and handed it to me. I hadn't thought much about it until now, but she was in a pretty sour mood and had been ever since I had known her. I headed for the lobby.
“Mr. O'Connor...” The desk clerk frowned, thumbing through his reservation file. “Oh yes, Mr. O'Connor, here we are.” He smiled, suddenly glad to see me. He motioned to a bellhop and said, “821 for Mr. O'Connor. Your luggage is already in your apartment, sir; hope you enjoy your stay.”
“I'm sure I will.” I smiled and tried to keep my dirty hands and grimy fingernails hidden in my pockets.
The so-called apartment was nothing special, but it was certainly better than a prison cell. I gave the bellhop the five and he took it as though it were a debt long overdue.
“Would there be anything else, sir?”
“No, thank you; that's all I can afford.”
I got the fish eye for an instant, just before he slipped out the door. Well, I thought, it has been a busy day. It has been the most wonderful day of my life. I owed John Venci plenty, for what he had done for me this day, and I didn't mean to forget it. He could have anything he wanted out of Roy Surratt, all he had to do was ask.
I opened the bedroom closet and there were two leather suitcases with the initials W. O. C. stamped in gold letters near the handles. I opened them up and there was more haberdashery.
I was standing at the window looking out at the city and all those exciting, dazzling lights, when there was a knock at the door. It was Dorris Venci.
“I was just looking at the city,” I said. “You have no idea how beautiful it is to me. Look at the way those lights shimmer, they never stand still. A painter would have a hell of a time getting a thing like that on canvas.”
Dorris Venci frowned. “What are you talking about?”
I laughed. “Nothing, I guess. It's just that there are a lot of sights and smells and sounds and experiences that I haven't been exposed to for a long time. I'll get over it.”
“I hope it's soon. Is the apartment all right?”
“The apartment is fine, but I'm not sure I understand all you're doing for me. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all this and expect to pay for it, but it seems like a lot of trouble to go to when all I expected was a lift out of Beaker.” Dorris looked at me, then moved across the room and sat on the edge of an uncomfortable sofa. “By the way,” I said, “when do I get to see your husband? He's not too sick to talk, is he?”
Without a flick of an eyelash, she said, “My husband is dead.”
I wasn't sure that I had heard her correctly. “What did you say?”
“My husband is dead. He was murdered a week ago.”
This news stunned me. After all that had happened, after all that he had done for me, I simply couldn't believe that John Venci was dead. But it was no joke—a person didn't joke while looking at you the way Dorris Venci was looking at me. John Venci was dead. It was a fact that I had to get used to.
“I think I'll sit down,” I said. Now I knew why she had that soured-on-the-world look.
I took a chair on the other side of the small coffee table and looked at Dorris Venci. “Your husband was quite a man, Mrs. Venci,” I said. “I didn't know him long enough to know whether I liked him or not, but I did admire him. There are very few people in this world who share that particular distinction.”
“Just how well did you know my husband, Mr. Surratt?”
“Not very well, as I told you. He was in my cell three days and then they separated us. Oh, I knew who he was, all right. He was the boss of Lake City.”
She smiled, completely without humor. “Would you tell me what you and my husband talked about in prison?”
“A lot of things: both of us had a great admiration for realists, the only real philosophers of modern times. Do you think philosophy a strange subject for a prison discussion? Well, it isn't. A man has to think in prison—work and think—that's about all he has time for. The bad thing about it is that there are so very few people in prisons who are capable of thinking. We spoke about the freedom of the individual.”
“I see. The freedom of the individual to do as he pleases.”
“The freedom of the individual to do as he pleases, providing he has the necessary strength.”
“Yes, there is a difference, isn't there. Tell me, Mr. Surratt, if you had all the money you could ever want, how would you live out your later years?”
“Probably I would retire and concentrate on killing all the people I didn't like.”
“That,” she said, “is what my husband did.”
I sat there for a full thirty seconds without making a move.
She was completely serious. Her face was set and her eyes were as cold as gunsteel. This, I thought, is the wildest thing I ever heard of in my life... but I believed it. So now I knew why John Venci had bothered to spring me—he had foreseen the possibility of his own murd
er and had wanted a man on his side that he could trust.
But I was too late. Venci was dead.
After a moment she said, “Mr. Surratt, did it ever occur to you, while you were in prison, that my husband might not keep his part of the escape bargain?”
“Never. After that fight of ours I never saw him again, but I never stopped believing. You know why? Because your husband needed me as much as I needed him. For what reason, I didn't know at the time; I just knew we needed each other. He wanted a man he could trust right up to the brink of death, and that was me, because we had the same kind of brains.
“I understand some things now. You just said that your husband had set out to dispose of his enemies—that can be dangerous business, very dangerous, with the kind of enemies John Venci had. He was afraid his enemies would try to kill him before he killed them, and he wanted me around to see that it didn't happen.”
Mrs. Venci said, “You are wrong again, Mr. Surratt. John Venci was afraid of no one or no thing.” She stood up, suddenly. “I'm not sure that I need your help, after all, Mr. Surratt.”
I believe she would have walked out of the room if I hadn't crossed in front of her. “All right,” I said, “I'm wrong. But how about setting me right?”
“I'm not sure I can trust you.”
“If you can't trust me, whom can you trust?”
Yes, who could she trust? Not many people would be capable or willing to pick up John Venci's fight, against John Venci's enemies. “Very well,” she said, after a moment's hesitation. “I'll think about it. I'll contact you tomorrow.”
“Just a minute,” I said. “Do you happen to know a beauty operator you can trust?” Her eyebrows came up just a little. “I want my hairline changed,” I said, “and my hair bleached. I also want a pair of horn-rimmed glasses with plain lenses.”
“That can be arranged,” she said, “if it proves necessary.” She went out.
We hadn't mentioned money, but I was thinking money all the time. I was thinking of all that money John Venci had made. It was Dorris's money now. And she wasn't a bad looking woman, either. Oh, no, I thought, she's not going to get rid of me now!
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