The Big Book of Reel Murders

by Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (epub)

  “No,” I said, “I can’t do it alone. Ruth, I hate to ask you, but…”

  “But we can’t let Arnie die. All right, Ben.” She stood up. “We’ve got a lot to get done by two o’clock in the morning.”

  By noon we had everything we needed listed, checked, and rechecked to make absolutely certain we’d included every last item; then Ruth made us some lunch with some supplies we’d laid in the day before.

  At just after one o’clock we walked out of a parking lot near Mission Street in San Francisco, heading for Market Street. On Market we separated; we’d divided the list, and were to meet at the car at two-thirty. We were to shop only in the biggest, busiest store we could find.

  * * *

  —

  At three-fifteen we were home in the attached garage, the big garage door closed, unloading our packages. Ruth had bought jeans and a work shirt with snap fasteners at the big J. C. Penney’s on Market. She had bought half a dozen pints of cream, and three one-pound tins of coffee at the Emporium, and another half dozen pints of cream and four one-pound tins of coffee at the Crystal Palace. In a big supermarket she had bought sandwich meat, cheese, bread, fruit, and cookies, and eight more pints of cream. She had withdrawn money from her bank, and she’d bought four big packages of absorbent cotton at a drugstore. I had bought a square of darkgreen canvas, half of a pup tent, at an Army surplus store, and a trenching tool. At a hardware store I had bought a two-foot length of pipe, a square of fine screening, a small can of brown enamel, a cheap paint brush, and eight rolls of black friction tape. At a second hardware store I had bought a dozen large bolts and nuts, a good flashlight, two spare bulbs, half a dozen spare dry cells, a large coil of copper wire, and a hundred-foot coil of new quarter-inch rope. On the way home, I had stopped at a lumber yard in the Sunset district, and had bought half a sheet of three-quarter-inch plywood, which I had put into the car trunk. While I was doing that, Ruth walked across to a supermarket and bought half a dozen more pints of cream.

  In the garage, our packages unloaded, Ruth put the blue jeans and work shirt into the automatic washer there, and poured in some bleach. There were hand tools and a makeshift workbench in the garage, and I marked off my plywood sheet into eight equal squares, and began sawing them out. The washing machine on, Ruth went into the kitchen, poured the cream she’d bought down the sink, and then began washing out the more than two dozen containers. When she finished, she emptied the six pounds of coffee into a paper bag and dropped it into the garbage can near the side door of the garage. I had my eight squares of wood clamped together by then, and a big J sketched on the surface of the outer one. I began sawing out this J shape.

  We were busy every second, both of us; at eight-thirty we knocked off, got into the car, and drove out to a drive-in a couple miles north on Highway 101 for supper. We didn’t waste any time, and were back before nine-thirty; it was dark. I parked at the curb so I’d have more room to work in the garage, and we started across the lawn toward the front door. A man’s voice called, “Evening,” and I glanced around. A man was in the adjoining yard, a vague dark bulk in the faint light from the street lamp half a block away.

  “Evening,” I answered, my voice instinctively cautious, and I was aware that my heart was beating faster. The indistinct silhouette grew. The man was walking silently toward us across the front lawn, then stopping before us, at our door, a tall, middle-aged, fat man, hatless and bald, his face large and round.

  “Mr. Nova,” he said, nodding abruptly, “your neighbor from next door. Just out catchin’ a breath,” he said slyly as though not expecting to be believed, “and saw you drive up. Thought I’d say howdy to my new neighbors.”

  * * *

  —

  “Glad to see you,” I said, and we shook hands. My hands aren’t small, but this man’s huge hand, soft but strong, swallowed mine. “This is my wife,” I said, “and we’re the Jarvises.”

  “Evenin’,” he said to Ruth, and she responded.

  I stood with the door key in my hand, waiting for him to say something that would let us say good night, and get on into the house.

  But instead he glanced up at the night sky, hands shoved into his back pockets as though he had all the time in the world, and said, “Nice out tonight. Been for a drive?”

  “Yeah, little drive,” I said. It was awkward, just standing there, not asking him in, but I couldn’t; we had too much to do, and he just stood there, too, in the dim light from the living room where we’d left a lamp on, nodding his head, eyes narrowed, smiling at me shrewdly, I didn’t know why. He was dressed in what looked like Army suntans; tan wash trousers, and a shirt, open at the collar. He couldn’t be in the Army though, I realized; he was fifty-five years old, maybe, with a great paunch beginning high on his chest and curving down through his belly; he was broad everywhere, from shoulders to hips, a slow-moving, powerful man evenly overlaid with fat.

  “Seen you before,” he said softly, watching me, and one little eye narrowed in almost a wink, as though we were sharing some lewd joke.

  “Oh?”

  * * *

  —

  “Yep.” The exasperating nodding started again, while he watched me shrewdly. Then he leaned toward me, hands still in his back pockets, and said, “Out to the prison.” I felt my face muscles go slack.

  “Oh,” he said, wagging a great meaty hand in reassurance, standing comfortably back on his heels now, staring down at me. “Don’t worry.” He grinned at me, then winked at Ruth. “I’m a guard out at Quentin,” he continued, then immediately added, “correctional officer, I mean,” and his paunch shook in amusement, while he glanced from one to the other of us. “I used to be a guard”—his small, blue eyes twink maliciously—“years ago. In the old Quentin I was a guard, a bull, a screw.” Deliberately he straightened his face into mocking approval, and said, “But now I’m an officer,” and again his paunch shook, his amused eyes inviting us to share the joke. “Good thing, too,” he added with intentional hypocrisy. “Much better this way. Treat ’em decent. Like human beings. Movies, classes, television even. Much better, naturally.” His voice had lost interest in what he was saying. “Seen you goin’ into the Visitor’s Room,” he said. “Month or so ago, maybe. Think it was you, anyway.”

  I nodded. “I’m sure it was.”

  “Well”—again he wagged his hand—“don’t worry. I see a lot of people from around here out to the prison; people got relatives there. I’m used to it—never give it a thought. Who is it, your brother?”

  I wanted to drive a fist straight into that fat belly. “I’m not worried, Mr. Nova,” I said angrily. “Yes, it’s my brother. And while it’s not exactly something I’ve told everyone I know or meet, it’s no big secret as far as I’m concerned.” Oh, I was shouting silently, why does he have to live next door?

  “Course not.” He smiled imperturbably, then winked confidentially. “Moved here. I expect, close to the prison, so’s you could visit him regular.”

  None of your business, you fat prying slob! “Well,” I said, “that’s partly it.”

  “Be glad to look him up.” Eyes narrowed, he watched me. “I can do that easy, you know; might help him out, maybe. Guard can be of help to a con. Inmate, I mean.”

  “Oh”—I paused, forcing myself to act as though I were considering a friendly gesture—“I think not. Thanks just the same, but I’m afraid he’d feel he was a source of embarrassment to us if he knew a San Quentin official was a neighbor of ours. He’s doing all right; he’s settled down to do his time.” Am I protesting too much? Does he already know all about Arnie?

  Nova was nodding again. “I’ll check up on him anyway; let you know how he’s makin’ out. Do it on the q.t.” He winked again. “Won’t tell him I know you.” He watched me, waiting for an answer, and reluctantly I had to nod. “Well,” he said, glancing at the closed front door. “I’ll be gettin’ on home. J
ust wanted to say howdy,” and we answered something or other and went on into the house, as he walked across the front lawns toward his own.

  “Of all the unbelievable bad luck,” Ruth murmured, dropping onto the davenport, when the door was closed again. “Of all the places we could have moved into, we had to move next door to a San Quentin guard.”

  I shrugged, and sat down in the big chair. “Well, it’s a big prison,” I said, as though I weren’t worried. “This county must be full of San Quentin people; probably most of them live here in Marin. Hardly a town you could go to, I’m certain, without guards and every other kind of San Quentin official living in it. Bad luck to move right next door to one, but not so strange.”

  “Ben, what do you honestly feel?”

  I stared down at the floor for a minute, fingers playing with my hat brim. Then I looked up. “He’s a prying, sadistic-minded, dangerous trouble-maker.”

  She was nodding. “There’s something—I don’t know what—nasty about him.”

  I shrugged, and said, “Yeah.” There was nothing more to say. There are times when you somehow know you’ve met a natural-born enemy. “Well,” I said, and got to my feet, “we’ve got a lot to do,” and Ruth nodded, and stood up, and we went out to the garage again.

  * * *

  —

  We finished at one o’clock, everything done and ready, and by then it was too late to go to bed. Ruth made coffee, and we sat in the living room, the drapes pulled tight shut, just talking about anything and everything except what was about to happen. At two o’clock I shaved, so closely it hurt, changed clothes, and we went out to the car and backed it out into the street, Ruth at the wheel, as quietly as possible, only the parking lights on. I closed the garage door. Then we headed west toward Highway 101.

  At two-twenty-five, then, Wednesday morning, we turned off 101 onto the narrow county road that winds through the Marin hills toward the San Rafael ferry. I was wearing the blue denims and work shirt Ruth had bought, washed out and faded now, and I wore black shoes, shorts, and a white T-shirt. Between my feet on the floor of the car lay a great bundle wrapped in the square of dark-green canvas I’d bought. Within three minutes or less we were passing the wire-mesh steel fencing that marks the outer-most boundaries of the San Quentin Prison reservation, and now I said quietly, “Anywhere along here,” and Ruth pulled off the road, then stopped and switched off the lights.

  “Well,” I said, “see you soon,” and managed to smile and add, “I hope.”

  * * *

  —

  But Ruth didn’t smile. In the starlit darkness I saw her head move as she nodded; then she leaned toward me, and I saw her face, strained and white. “Be careful, Ben,” she whispered. Suddenly she reached up, put both palms on my cheeks, drew my face toward her, and stared at me. “Oh, Ben, be careful!” she said again, and I put my arms around her and let myself yield to the comfort of it, holding her close, more scared than I’d ever been in my life. Then, knowing I had to leave now if I was going to be able to, I drew back, kissed her once, quickly—that last comfort I had to have—then reached for the door handle, and the canvas-wrapped bundle.

  A moment later, standing on the dirt shoulder of the road, my arm moving to close the car door, I said, “Get going, Ruthie!” Then the car was sliding past me, picking up speed, and I turned, clambered a few feet up the dirt embankment to the fence, and threw my bundle over it. I climbed the fence, dropped to the other side, then stood there in the middle of the night, low-ebb time for the human body and spirit, knowing that I was about to walk into the greatest danger of my life, and that I had no stomach for it. Then I began to climb the hill before me, guiding myself to its top by the silhouettes of trees at its crest.

  It took me fifteen minutes, in the darkness, before I stood looking down the gentle slope of its other side. Ahead and below me, spread out like a great map, lay the prison in black shadow and yellow electric light. I’d been through the prison twice, after Arnie was confined there; anyone can go through it—they have scheduled tours every Thursday afternoon. So I knew what I was looking at now. Far ahead lay the enclosed area of the prison itself, its sides formed partly by cell blocks and other prison buildings joined together, and partly by concrete walls. Directly below me at the base of the hill lay the prison industrial area, a concrete-walled rectangle directly adjoining the prison area, its south wall the north wall of the prison, and I began walking toward it down the dark hill.

  In each of its four factorylike buildings, dim lights were burning, and there were more lights suspended from the twenty-foot concrete walls, shining down into the area. But now, work long since over for the day, most of the area except for the wall lights around its edges was dark, the buildings empty except for an inmate fire guard in each, Arnie had told me. At the four corners of the walls, and at scattered intervals between them, I saw the black silhouettes of guard towers. The area cleared now except for the four honor men in the buildings, the gate leading into the prison area locked, and all men accounted for, the towers were unmanned. But what if they’re manned tonight? The words spoke themselves in my mind. What if there’s a man with a gun in one of those wall posts? But I knew there wasn’t, I told myself; high above the prison on its standard hung the green light; all was quiet, the prison was in normal condition. Picking my way down the hill. I thought, The light’ll be red before long.

  * * *

  —

  At the bottom of the hill, only a narrow road, then a dozen feet of sloping bare ground lay between me and the black rising bulk of the wall. Kneeling beside my bundle six or eight yards from the road—ready to drop face down in the darkness the instant a car came along the road—I reached under the knotted corners of my pack, and found the coil of new quarter-inch rope I’d put there. I brought it out, pulling with it the four-pronged hook I’d fastened to the rope end with a braided pleat. I’d made the hook at home this afternoon; four J-shaped hooks sawed out of plywood, the shafts bolted together, then wrapped with copper wire. Every last inch of the surface of this four-pronged grapple I’d padded with absorbent cotton, and wrapped tight with black tape. Another identical hook and rope coil still lay in my canvas bundle. Unbuckling my belt, I slipped an end under the knotted corners of my pack, cinched my belt tight, then kneeling there motionless, listened and watched. I neither saw nor heard anything, and so could not postpone what I had to do.

  * * *

  —

  I stood and walked forward across the silent road, the canvas pack bumping my knees, then clambered down the short bank to the base of the wall. The coiled rope hanging in my left hand, I held the grapple in my right hand by the last few inches of rope. Once more I listened, watching the road behind and above me. Then I swung the hook back and forth twice, drew my arm far back, and heaved the hook up underhanded and with all my strength. Through three full seconds of silence the rope coils flashed off the palm of my hand, then the hook struck and fell with a dull clatter.

  The top of this wall, I knew—I’d seen it in daylight—was flat concrete. Running the length of all the walls were waist-high, continuous metal hand-rails; it would be almost impossible to toss up a four-pronged grapple without its engaging some part of the guide rails, and now I pulled in the slack, and the rope tightened. Then I lifted my feet, and the rope held fast, straining and creaking.

  I climbed it hand over hand, the first fifteen feet rapidly and easily, the last five or six in a desperate scrabbling agony of rapidly draining strength. Just short of the top, I hung, afraid I’d have to drop or slide back; then I managed one last heave, the sweat pouring, caught the wall edge, and in the instant before my arms gave out, I heaved my upper body onto the wall. Then I drew up my legs and lay flat, my arms strengthless.

  * * *

  —

  If anyone had been in the wall towers or in the area below they’d have shot, or shouted, or been on me by now. But nothing happene
d; from far out on San Francisco Bay—I could see its buoy lights, the lights of a ferry approaching the slip on this side, and the glow of San Francisco far off to the south—I heard a boat whistle, low and mournful, then felt silence all around me.

  I lay in darkness, but just below me the dozen feet of bare ground between the wall and the north end of the furniture factory was clearly lighted by wall lights; and the industrial area was patrolled, Arnie said, at least once every night. But there was nothing to do but what I now did. I lowered my hook till it touched the ground, then looped the rope around the base of a guide-rail post, its doubled length hanging to the ground. I unfastened my bundle, dropped it, then slid down the rope into San Quentin prison, completely visible if there was anyone to see me. My feet touched ground. I yanked the rope down after me, scooped up my hook and bundle, and ran to the corner of the furniture factory.

  Around the corner, against the west wall of the factory, lay a great uneven silhouette in the darkness well past the range of the wall lights. This was the huge stack of wood crates Arnie had described. They were empties, used as needed to crate prison-made office desks. After a moment, I slipped around the building corner, and moved ahead into the darkness toward the crates.

  As Arnie had promised, they were not carefully stacked. The gaps between them measured from one or two inches to more than a foot, and near the center of the great stack I found a wide gap and pushed myself into it, dragging and forcing my bundle in after me. By feel, I found a crate projecting some inches beyond the bottom of the crate on top of it, and climbed into it, rapping my head sharply against the projecting corner of another. Made to hold an office desk, it was roomy enough; I could lie almost flat, my head pillowed on my bundle, my knees bent only slightly. Now, more afraid than I remembered ever having been before, with the persistent, depressing fear of a man lying helpless in a trap, I didn’t expect to sleep. But, worn out physically and emotionally, I did, almost instantly.