by Jon Mills
“Hey Jack, didn’t see you at lunch.”
He glanced at Charlie. “Seems someone had other plans.” He thought he’d get a lunch but Jack was told he had to stay the full day, something to do with doctor’s orders. It was bullshit.
Jack noticed in the stream of men entering was Rocket Man. He was sent over to the group dealing with planter boxes.
“Hey Charlie. Since I didn’t get a lunch break, you think I might take a sit-down break? Work on the planters over there?”
“Sure. Just don’t you go fucking anything up.”
He went with Edgar and Cowboy and took a seat at the table beside Rocket Man whose name he came to learn was Mack Roberts but no one called him that.
“Hey Rocket. You want to lower the volume? You’re giving me a headache,” Cowboy said as they worked on assembling pre-made wooden boxes. It was a lot like Lego. The pieces slotted together. Edgar said it was because they wouldn’t hand them a hammer or nails. Certain tools were only allowed to be used by Charlie and those who had proven themselves.
Lost in his own world, Jack leaned over to Rocket. “I heard you escaped this joint. That true?”
“Would I lie?” Edgar said. “Tell him, Rocket. Tell him how you busted out of this place.”
Trying to get a word out of him was impossible. All that came out of his mouth were song lyrics. He went from one tune to the next without missing a beat. If he wasn’t singing he was humming.
“Ah he won’t tell you. He’s in la-la land,” Edgar said. “Anyway, heard you spoke with the doc today. What did he have to say?”
“The usual but I got a coffee out of it.”
“You hear that, Cowboy. Chapman gave him a coffee. He must have a soft spot for you. Never given us anything except hassle.”
Jack was half listening and observing those who were handing back their tools. The one guard wanded them down. He could see how someone could get a tool past him, similar to the way patients avoided taking medication. But a distraction would be required.
“Here, Jack,” Edgar said pulling out a brown roll from his pocket. “Figured you might be hungry.”
“You got that for me?”
“Well it was to create some hooch but hey I can do that another time.”
“Hooch?”
“My special recipe. You see, you need yeast. This is a special kind of bread issued to me because I’m diabetic. It’s a part of my low glycemic diet. Anyway, two of these rolls is enough to make some hooch. There are a few other items like sugar, coffee filters, and juice from chapel. I mix it together, let it ferment for a couple of weeks in a sealed bottle and boom, a bottle of jail wine that I can enjoy or trade for other things.”
Jack stopped what he was doing. “A warm place. Where?”
“Ah, that’s my secret.” He let Jack wonder for a second or two before he said, “There is a compartment, located in a corridor wall over in C unit. It was once used for plumbing or something like that. Anyway, I was given the duty of mopping corridors so when I do that, I sample it and make sure my hooch is vented, and then in a couple of weeks it’s good to go.”
Jack chuckled. “And no one sees you?”
“No cameras in this place.”
“Yeah, why is that?”
“One word,” Cowboy said. “Budget. Or lack of. These a-holes don’t have the moolah. That’s why patients are being attacked at night.”
“Attacked?”
“Yeah. Dragged out of beds, given a beating,” Cowboy said. “They say they’re trying to do something about it but they won’t. Privacy laws, cost and whatever. It’s all excuses.”
Jack nodded.
He looked down and pocketed the roll. “You got that by the guard?”
“Of course. I’m allowed it because I’m diabetic. I could have an attack at any time.”
Jack frowned. “But this wouldn’t stop it.”
“No,” he whispered. “but most of these assholes don’t know that.” Edgar smiled.
A few minutes later, Jack looked at the security guard. “You ever had an attack?”
“In here?” Edgar nodded. “A few times.”
“Must cause one hell of a disturbance.”
Edgar followed his gaze. “What did you have in mind?”
“Oh, you know… a little of this, a little of that,” he said looking toward the lock box.
“Jack, even if you could get a tool out, where would you keep it?”
He stared back at Edgar, a smile forming.
“Oh no. Not with my hooch.”
“Come on, Edgar. It would only be temporary.”
“Yeah? Why, you thinking of breaking out of here tonight?”
“Maybe. I’ll take it when the opportunity arises.”
“You won’t get a hundred yards and the cops will pick you up. Besides, tools aren’t much use if you can’t get through security doors inside the unit.” Edgar got up. “Forget it.” He walked off to get a drink. Cowboy slipped off the end of the bench and said he needed to take a leak.
Sitting there beside Rocket Man, Jack continued working in silence. No more than twenty seconds had passed when he stopped singing and spoke up. “You don’t want to snip the fence. I tried that the first time.”
Jack turned and his brow furrowed. “You understood?”
“Of course.”
“But the singing. The dancing.”
He smiled.
“It’s all an act?” Jack asked.
He gave a nod. “Ever heard of banner blindness?” He paused waiting for Jack. “People consciously or subconsciously ignore what they see over and over again. How do you think I got out last time?”
A guard looked over and Rocket Man burst into song, an off-pitch rendition of “Honky Cat.” As soon as eyes were off him he stopped.
Jack knew he didn’t have long to squeeze out of him the truth. “How did you do it? Escape, I mean. Tell me.”
“You’re not the first to want to get out of here but it’s not easy outside. They’ll have everyone looking for you. You prepared for that?”
“I’ll manage.”
Edgar was making his way back to the table.
“Mack. Come on.”
“Forget the tools. Tonight, after medication. Meet me in my room.”
With that said he went back to singing and Edgar sat down. He sighed. “Man, would you stop with the singing? It’s driving me nuts.”
Jack chuckled.
“Hey Winchester. Come over here. I need an extra hand,” Charlie said lifting a bike up onto a rack. Jack tapped the table and looked at Mack. A wave of hope came over him. This was it. He was getting out. All he needed was one chance. One way or another he was getting out. As soon as he escaped he would find Angelo and settle the score.
14
Back at the Evergreen Motel, Kelly and Zach were seeing what they could dig up on the number Sanders had given them. While they were doing that, Dalton had placed a call to Pastor Boone to see if he could get in and see Jack one last time.
“I don’t know what to say, Dalton, it’s out of my hands.”
“But you’re the pastor. You have access to them.”
“Only on Sundays, and occasionally under special circumstances. What I managed before was a one-off. I could have got in a lot of trouble for that. It won’t happen again, especially after what happened.” Dalton didn’t say anything so Boone continued. “You don’t know, do you?”
“About what?”
“Your friend Jack tried to escape not long after we left. He beat a guard and fled the hospital. Fortunately he didn’t get far. They got him but still, any chance of getting close to him now is zero.”
On one hand hearing that was bad but on the other, it meant Jack was up and moving again. Seeing him in Saranac Hospital had worried him. For a while he thought he might never come around. Dalton sighed. “Look, do you think you can at least get a letter to him through one of your contacts?”
“I can try but I can’t guarantee anythin
g. Winchester is under some serious scrutiny right now.” He took a deep breath. “Drop it off later and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks, Mark. I appreciate that.”
After hanging up, he brought a hand to the bridge of his nose and squeezed it. He could feel a tension headache coming on. As much as he wanted to stick around he knew he was limited on what he could do and his concern was now for Karen. “Things okay?” Kelly asked.
“Not exactly. Any luck with that number?”
“Oh yeah, plenty,” Zach said with a smirk. “If you want an extra-large pizza for ten bucks.” He snorted. “It’s for a pizza joint in New Jersey. That asshole screwed us over.”
“A pizzeria?”
Kelly turned in the chair. “Seems so.”
“I told you we shouldn’t have trusted him,” Zach said.
“I dunno, I would expect this Angelo character might be inclined to use such a place to cover his tracks. He obviously doesn’t want to be found and in the event Sanders was pulled in for questioning, all he’d have was a number for a pizza joint. Might not be any use to us but it might mean something to Jack.” He reached over and scribbled a short message to Jack on a pad of paper by the phone and then tore the piece off.
“Anyway, I did some digging into lakes around Apalachin and there really is only one large body of water and that is Mutton Hill Pond. There are a few other smaller ones, though I would be more inclined to think they dumped the vehicle in the Susquehanna River,” Kelly said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Dalton added. “It’s not like finding her would help. Sanders was right. It would all be brushed under the rug by the cops.”
“They might do something.”
Zach laughed. “Please. Dalton’s right. You think they would want to lose face for bungling an investigation and sending an innocent man away to a forensic hospital?” He laughed again and walked over to the drapes and pushed one back ever so slightly. He was nervous that the same men who’d run them off the road might return. “I say we head back to San Francisco with what we’ve got and publish that. The courts might need proof, but the public doesn’t. We’ll give them the dirty truth and let them run with it.” He turned. “That’s what we’ve always been good at. Agreed?”
“Well that would be an option if I had recorded Sanders.”
Zach’s eyes widened. “But you told me you had it.”
“No, you asked did I get it all. I didn’t reply.”
“You are shitting me!?” He stared at her and Kelly shook her head. “Well that’s great. Really great. So you mean I went in there and risked life and limb for nothing?”
“Well it wasn’t for nothing,” Dalton said. “We learned a lot.”
“You can’t send to print second-hand information.”
“Of course you can, tabloids do it all the time,” Dalton said.
“You know what I mean!” Zach pounded the wall with his fist and walked into the bathroom. They heard the toilet seat and then a steady trickle of piss before he flushed. “Of all people vying for a promotion I would have thought you would have got it, Kelly.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I was a little busy trying to avoid getting shot. You could have recorded it.”
“What the fuck do you think I was doing? Oh that’s right, saving your asses!” He exhaled heavily making it clear that he was pissed.
“I don’t think this is getting us anywhere,” Dalton said rising from the bed and heading towards the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To drop off a message.”
“Why not just tell him over the phone?”
“Because I’m old-fashioned,” Dalton said as he went out and slammed the door behind him. It wasn’t because of that. He could have told Boone over the phone but he didn’t want to take the risk of someone screwing up the message. At least this way Jack would have the phone number and some extra information, information that would be painful to hear. He didn’t want that coming from a stranger.
Kelly came out. “Dalton, we can give you a ride.”
“No, I’ll catch an Uber,” he said. “I need time alone to think.”
He wandered over to a vending machine and inserted coins to get a can of Coke. It clunked as it hit the bottom. As he was taking the can out, the same sedan that had pulled up outside the restaurant rolled into the parking lot on the far side. He squinted thinking it was just a vehicle that looked the same but it wasn’t.
Dalton burst into a sprint. The driver saw him and accelerated to cut him off. Brakes squealed, and as the vehicle swerved, Dalton launched himself over the hood and continuing on until he reached the motel door. He banged on it just as the driver hopped out. Kelly answered the door.
“Change your mind?”
Dalton shoved her in, kicked the door closed behind him, put the chain on and backed up. “They’re here. They’re here,” he said as he frantically moved to the rear of the motel room and looked out a window to see if they could escape.
Kelly frowned. “Who’s here?”
“Who do you think?”
Her eyes widened just as three gunshots rang out, rounds drilling through the front door. Dalton hurried to open the back window as that was the only way out. He beckoned Kelly to climb out. She grabbed her bag and tossed it as Zach reached behind his back and pulled a Glock.
“Where the hell did you get that?” Kelly asked.
“It was Sanders’,” he replied, not wasting a second to return fire. “Go!” he said, firing a round to hold the men at bay. Kelly and Dalton clambered out the window and waded through thick underbrush. Fortunately the rear of the motel wasn’t easy to access from the front thanks to fencing and woods.
“Zach!” Kelly yelled.
He was smart enough not to play the hero, he practically dove out the open window. He landed in a heap, the gun flying out of his hand. Kelly snagged it up and Dalton gave Zach a hand to his feet then they took off into the tree line that surrounded the motel.
They kept moving until they heard the sound of sirens drawing near.
“Great, now the cops are going to arrest us,” Kelly said.
“We didn’t do anything,” Zach said. “We’ll be fine. We’ll go back and explain and…”
“Are you serious? You do that and you’re liable to find yourself behind bars. You returned fire, remember?” Dalton said.
“Self-defense.”
“Yeah, with Sanders’ gun. Think about how that will look.”
Zach for once didn’t have a comeback for that. They trudged through the heavy woods and circled around with the hope of getting a better look at the scene. Crouched in the tall underbrush, Dalton observed the chaotic scene. Two cruisers were parked outside the motel, an ambulance arrived shortly after but thankfully it didn’t look as if anyone was taken from the scene. More likely the owner of the motel was being checked over. The door to their motel room was open and a cop emerged only to head over to the owner and speak to them. A few seconds later they watched the two of them head into the office. “Please tell me you paid in cash,” Zach asked.
“Actually I did.”
“Thank God for that. And you booked in with a false name?”
“Of course not. Why would I do that? I didn’t expect this to happen.”
Zach pawed his face. “Just when I thought you were learning. You don’t go giving your actual name when you book into a motel with cash. That’s the whole point.”
“Oh I’m sorry I don’t carry around fake ID.”
He sighed. “Well if we can just get the vehicle, we can get the hell out of here,” Zach said. “Let’s hope the owner didn’t….” His hope faded as the cop came out of the office and walked over to the rental car and peered in through the window on the driver’s side. “Of course. You gave them your license number.”
“The clerk asked for it. They don’t just want anyone parking in the lot,” Kelly said.
Instead of berating her or making her feel bad, Zach just shook his head.<
br />
“Well that’s that. We might as well go hand ourselves in. At least we can tell them our side of the story,” Kelly said. “Hopefully they’ll assume the holes in the door came from the men.”
“You want to go over there, be my guest. Not me. I’m hitching a ride out of town and to the nearest bus station then heading back to the airport. This vacation has been nothing but hell,” Zach said walking away.
“Zach. The gun?” Dalton said.
He took it out of his waistband. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll dump it in the river.”
“No. I can use it. Let me take it.”
Zach’s brow furrowed and he was reluctant at first but gave it to him.
Dalton looked over at Kelly. “What you gonna do?”
“Go down there. I don’t have much choice. You guys can go. The room is in my name.”
“You sure?”
“Trust me. It’s not the first time I’ve talked to police,” she said swallowing hard. “I’ll be in touch and let you know how it plays out.”
Dalton nodded. “Stay safe.”
She gave a strained smile as he took off trying to catch up with Zach.
After the sun waned behind pine trees that evening, patients received their medication and some gathered in the day room to watch TV. Jack headed for Mack’s room, curious to know how to escape. He could hear singing long before he saw him. As Jack rounded the corner into the room, Rocket Man was lying on his bed. He had an entire room to himself. Jack had come to learn that not everyone shared rooms. Depending on their situation, threat level, time inside or ability to get along with others, there were some that were given their own room. He was one of them.
“Mack.”
He glanced over. “Close the door behind you.”
Although there were no locks on the doors, they were permitted to close them. As soon as it clunked shut, Mack dropped to the ground and slipped under the bed. “Mack? What are you doing?”
“Come on down.”
Hesitant, as he was still unsure of Mack’s mental state, he crouched and looked.
“Well, come on. You want to get out or not?”