The Big Book of Reel Murders
Page 31
* * *
—
Many hours later, at daylight, there was the sound of hundreds of voices all around me. I awoke quietly, knowing where I was. Moving very slowly then, my muscles stiff and my body awkward, careful never to slip or fall, I got down out of my crate, and stood in the narrow aisle I’d pushed into last night, standing well back from the front. Blue-denimed, blue-shirted men streamed past the narrow opening, alone, in pairs, and in groups, most of them talking, and I smiled a little; much of the talk reminded me of the Army, nearly every adjective an obscenity; I was surprised at the amount of laughter. Then a blue-shirted shoulder leaned beside the opening of my aisle, partly blocking it, and I saw a profile, Arnie’s. He said quietly and rapidly. “Are you in there? Ben, are you there? Just say ‘yes’ if you are.”
“Yes,” I answered.
* * *
—
Arnie was silent, and a little group of men passed by. Then he said, “How you doing? You okay? Talk till I cough, then shut up.”
“I’m okay, Arnie; I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“You bring anything to read?”
“No.” The notion astounded me.
“Too bad. Well, I’ll—” He coughed twice, and a moment later steps passed, and a voice said, “Hi, Arnie.”
“Charley,” Arnie answered pleasantly. “How goes it?”
“Okay.” The voice was well past the crates now.
“I’ll see you at four,” Arnie said. “And thanks, Benny,” he added softly.
“Okay, Arnie, see you later.” The blue-shirted shoulder moved, and was gone.
At noon I ate one of the waxed-paper-wrapped sandwiches in my canvas bundle, and sipped from one of the cardboard cream containers Ruth had washed out, filled with water, and sealed with tape. By one o’clock, the sun beating down on the exposed pile of crates, it was terribly and oppressively hot, and I was wet with sweat. But I endured it, dozing a little, or simply lying there staring up at the bottom of the big crate above me. At three-thirty, I again climbed down into the little aisle, and the air was cooler, there was some circulation, and occasionally a warm breeze, and presently my clothes were no longer conspicuously wet.
Again the stream of blue-denimed men flowed past me, in the opposite direction now, and almost immediately a blue-shirted back leaned against the narrow opening, completely covering it. I could hear the prisoners stream on past the crates, and occasionally one or more of them would speak to Arnie, and he’d answer, his voice pleasant and unconcerned.
He changed position, leaning negligently against the end of a crate on one shoulder, still blocking most of the opening. And now, his face in profile to me, I could see that he held a lighted cigarette in his hand. Bringing the cigarette to his mouth, he murmured, “Are you all right Ben? Just answer yes or no.”
“Yes.”
“You out of the crate?”
“Yes.”
“All right; be ready to move. This is the bad moment. Benny; the guards are still on the walls, and there’s one who can see me. I’m watching him; he’s paying no attention. Far as he knows, I’m just standing here waiting for a friend from the fact—” He coughed, and several men approached, then passed us. “Move out now, Ben; come forward till you’re right behind me.” Again he leaned with his back to the opening.
I crept forward, and touched Arnie’s back.
“Take my ID card out of my back pocket.”
I felt in his back pocket, touched the little plastic-sealed card, and pulled it out. “Keep it in your shirt pocket; whatever you do, don’t lose it.”
We waited, then Arnie again turned his head, and bringing his cigarette to his mouth, said, “When I say now, just step out, and stand here talking to me.”
Two men passed, talking, and the moment they passed, Arnie said, “Now,” and I stepped out of the aisle into the daylight, and stood facing him.
“Smile, Ben! We’re just a couple of cons standing here talking.” I managed a smile, and Arnie smiled back, and said, “All set, now? You know what to do, Ben?” and I nodded, still smiling.
* * *
—
Four inmates were approaching from around the corner of the quonset-hut auto-repair shop twenty feet across the way from the furniture factory by which we stood; as they passed, one of them said. “Hi, Arnie,” glancing at me without interest.
Arnie replied, looking without seeming to at the wall tower ten yards or so to the south, and I couldn’t help it, I had to look, too. The guard was leaning on his forearms, the upper part of his body outside the open window of the watch post, staring down into the industrial area, but looking off to the west. Nevertheless, I knew we were completely within his range of vision. I turned to speak to Arnie, but he was gone, and before I could speak, he whispered at me harshly. “Move, Ben!” he said, and I saw his strained face in the shadows between the crates, and I turned and walked after the four inmates just ahead, taking each step in the absolute certainty of hearing a shout from behind me.
* * *
—
But I reached the front corner of the building, and in the moment of turning glanced back at the wall guard; he was leaning as before, staring out over the prison in a posture conveying his boredom and relief that one more tour of duty was nearly over.
And now I was part of a thin straggle of identically dressed men from all parts of the industrial area moving toward the wall gate ahead; and then I stopped dead in my tracks at what I saw. A shakedown was going on at the gates, and all I could do, feeling sick with fear, was join it, and I walked on till I reached the end of the line of men at the gate.
I watched what happened; as each man reached the head of the line, he lifted both arms, straight out at his sides. The tan-uniformed guard facing the line—a thin blond man of thirty—would stoop, grip the inmate’s ankles, then run his hands up the outside of his trousers, down the insides, then up the man’s ribs, and out along his arms. Then, at his nod, the man would step forward, and walk out the gate, his face expressionless.
My turn came incredibly fast; the shakedowns were being conducted with unbelievable speed, a few seconds to each man. And suddenly there were only three men in front of me, and I knew what was going to happen. The guard’s hands sliding up along my ribs and feeling the powerful thump of my heart, he’d peer at me closely, then say, Who the hell are you? You’re not a San Quentin man at all! The man at the head of the line dropped his arms as the man before me stepped forward, raising his. The tan sleeves moved, searching him, shaking him down for anything stolen from the shops or factories which might conceivably be sharpened into a weapon. Then the man dropped his arms, and I stepped forward, arms extended, and I knew my face was chalk white.
I felt the hands squeeze my ankles, flash up my trouser legs, then down on the insides, felt them brush my ribs, then slide out the lengths of my arms, and from the corners of my eyes, staring straight ahead. I saw the guard nod perfunctorily, not even glancing at my face, and I walked forward toward the gate, knowing—really knowing for the first time—that what Arnie had told me was incredibly true. Dressed in blue denims and work shirt, and following the routine of the prison, he said, I’d be lost among five thousand similar men, and not a man of the prison from the Warden on down could question my presence. Now I knew it was fact.
I simply followed the men ahead of me on through the prison, turning when they did, staring down at the ground, the asphalt paving, or the concrete we walked on, as though lost in thought. We passed a flat-roofed building of ancient brick, three or four stories tall, its upper windows boarded. In the distance, I glimpsed a low stone building, and recognized the old Spanish cell block built over a century before. The straggle of men ahead passed through the open gate of a wire-mesh fence, and then I passed through it, too. Three guards, one with the collar ornaments of a lieutenant, stood beside it, talking, star
ing absently at the prisoners passing through the gate beside them. Then I was past them, and in the vast San Quentin Yard.
* * *
—
The sight and sound slashed at my senses, and I stopped, staring around me. The sound was a roaring murmur; thousands of voices in an enormous open rectangle surrounded by concrete walls. And the sight was a great stretch of asphalt pavement on which stood or moved thousands of identically dressed men, the whole area completely cut off from the rest of the world. Suddenly I recognized it; like most other Americans, wherever they live, I’d seen it before—in a dozen movies filmed in California. Here it was, the great paved yard, its background the concrete walls of the cell blocks. The roar of mingled voices and the reality of the mass of blue-clad bodies were a shock to my senses, and I knew that confusion could overcome me, and that I could make a terrible and irretrievable mistake in the next moments.
* * *
—
Even as I watched, the mass of men around me was thinning, and I saw that men were streaming into the cell blocks through each of several great riveted doors, and I knew there wasn’t much time. Within minutes I had to find, and be inside, a cell; one certain cell, and that cell only, out of thousands of identical cells in one of these four great cell blocks joined end to end to enclose the great Yard I stood in.
East block, I said to myself; that was the block to my left, and I turned toward it, then stopped. Men were entering the east block, apparently, by one of two doors; which one was mine? One door lay far ahead to the south, at the other end of the Yard; the other was directly to my left across the Yard. I made myself think. The men at my left must be entering the north block, not the east; I could see no other entrance for the north block. The east block entrance must lie ahead to the south. There were far fewer men in the Yard now; they numbered in the hundreds, not thousands, and I began to hurry.
Once again, passing through the great cell block doorway. I stopped dead in my tracks, and the man behind me bumped into me, and cursed. I was inside a great concrete shell stretching far off into the distance before me, and soaring high overhead. It suggested an enormous dirigible hangar I’d once been in, only the inside of this huge structure wasn’t empty. In it stood another distinctly separate structure touching the concrete shell which enclosed it only at the floor. It was a high spidery-appearing structure composed mainly of vertical steel bars, and I understood what I was seeing. These were steel-barred cages, the cells, side by side, and stretching off into the distance before me in dwindling perspective. Five layers of cells, one on top of the other, rose up toward the ceiling; door after door after iron-barred door, and before each of the upper four tiers hung a concrete paved steel walkway. They were reached by an iron stairway at each end of the cell-block, and I saw men swarming up them, and along the walkways, and entering their cells, the entire block an echoing cavern of sound.
Following the men who had been passing around me, I climbed the nearest stairway to the third tier, repeating Arnie’s cell number to myself—1042. 1042—over and again. Turning onto the third-tier walkway, I saw the cell numbers stenciled over each steel-barred door. The first read 1291, the next 1290, then 1289, 1288; the cells stretched off ahead of me, and I began to hurry along the walkway, aware that most of the cells I was passing were already occupied, hearing the murmuring conversations of the men inside them.
I was almost running—there weren’t many men left outside now. 1233, 1232…1196, 1195…1148, 1147, 1146; I reached the last cell, far down at the other end of the block, and the number above it was 1100, and there were no more cells. There was no 1042.
I simply stood there, mouth hanging open, and I did not know what to do. I started to turn back, knew it was useless, then stopped again, Oh, damn Arnie, damn him; he said his cell was ten fort—actually running. I turned the corner, ran twenty-five feet, rounded the next corner, and there they were, a second great bank of cells back to back with the first, stretching ahead before me. 1001, 1002—there was only one other man on the entire length of the walkway now, and he turned into a cell. I ran at top speed—1034, 1035, 1036…
Then here was 1040, 1041, the walkway utterly deserted now by everyone else, and I stepped in through the half-open door of cell 1042, the other occupant staring at me, and pulled the door closed. Instantly, just outside the cell door, there was the chunking sound of heavy metal dropping onto metal. An immensely long steel bar, half the length of the tier, had been dropped into place by a hand-operated lever, to slide over the top edges of the long row of cell doors into heavy L-brackets riveted to each door, and I was locked in cell 1042 of San Quentin prison.
“Just made it,” the lean, white-haired man in the cell with me said.
* * *
—
“Yeah,” I nodded, and he turned to the rear, lifting a newspaper from the top of the two bunks fastened to the wall beside me. Leaning on the tiny washbasin fastened to the plaster wall at the end of the cell, he began to read, and I sat down on the lower bunk, Arnie’s bed, and began reassuring myself with what Arnie had told me. This morning Arnie had told his cellmate, this man at the washbasin, that tonight he was going to switch cells; that he was going to visit an unnamed friend in another cell. I was his friend’s cellmate, trading places with Arnie for the night. Switching cells, Arnie had explained to me, was absolutely forbidden, and severely punished when detected. Yet it happened often and regularly, for a variety of reasons, because it was almost impossible to detect. There were nearly five thousand men confined in San Quentin’s four main cell blocks, and simply counting them four times every day was time-consuming enough. To check the actual identity of each man in each of several thousand cells was an impossibility, practically speaking. On the rare occasions when it had to be done, it took hours. In the next few minutes, as on day after routine day, for this cell to contain two blue-denimed men was enough for the guard who would soon glance in, lips moving as he counted the tier.
* * *
—
Far at the other end of the tier walkway I heard footsteps; a guard beginning his count of the tier, and I went rigid in spite of all I had told myself, certain that he would not pass this cell without knowing I didn’t belong here.
“Hot today, wasn’t it?” the bored voice said; I looked up to see Arnie’s cellmate staring down at me over his newspaper.
“Yeah,” I nodded, listening to the footsteps, much nearer, much louder.
“You workin’?”
The steps were coming fast; it was hard to concentrate on what he was saying to me. “No, unassigned.”
“You a fish?”
This was dangerous; a fish, I knew, was a new prisoner, and I couldn’t understand how he could have guessed I was strange to this place. I simply nodded, turning to glance boredly out through the cell door, trying to end the conversation. But I heard him step quickly toward me, and as I turned to glance up, he stepped past me to stand at the front of the cell, hands clasping the bars.
Then, almost too late—the footsteps outside at the next cell—I jumped up, to stand at the bars, hands gripping them, and the guard was at the cell door while I stood frozen, actually holding my breath, and then he was gone without even breaking his stride. Still standing at the bars unable to move, as Arnie’s cellmate turned away, I realized that the guard was actually counting the entire tier in only the brief time it took him to walk its length rapidly. Then, hands trembling a little, I turned to my bunk again, knowing how close I had come to having the guard stop at this cell and reprimand me, and for all I knew, to realize that I was not who I should have been. For the guard had to see us at this count, close up, standing on our feet, hands on the bars; false counts had been made, Arnie had explained, with a dummy lying in a bunk where a man should have been. And I sat wondering how I could remember all the details of San Quentin routine Arnie had told me, and when I would make a disastrous slip.
T
he count has to be right! It was a silent shout of sudden remembrance in my mind, and now it was more than I could take, and I simply lay down on the bunk facing the wall, knees drawn up, to endure in helplessness the very worst moments so far. For if today there was a hideout, a prisoner missing from his cell, the count now going on would reveal it, and a search would immediately begin. Though they were not searching for Arnie at all (there was a blue-denimed man, already counted, lying where Arnie ought to be), they would nevertheless find him. Among the first and obvious places to be searched would be the big pile of crates in which Arnie was now hidden. And the moment they discovered him would be disastrous for both of us.
I lay wondering what the chances of a hideout were. They were neither frequent nor infrequent at Quentin, Arnie had said. They happened not every day or even every week, but in the course of a year there could be a fair number of them, and on any one day the danger of a hideout—as the preliminary to an escape attempt, or for no reason a man could put into words—was real.
“Slow count tonight,” Arnie’s cellmate said quietly, and I couldn’t help it, I rose up on one elbow and stared at him.
For a moment I couldn’t talk, and then when I did, all I could do was stupidly repeat, “Slow count?” I had supposed it would take much longer than this.
“Yep,” he nodded. “Shoulda had the all-clear by now.”