“You’d think.”
Their footsteps echoed through the garage. A pigeon flapped overhead. They watched it nestle in a nook between steel beams.
“Spare a smoke?” the man asked.
Alec fished the soft pack from his jacket. He shook a butt from the pack and offered it to him. “Organic,” he warned.
“I’m easy,” the man replied. They stopped walking long enough for Alec to flick his lighter and put flame to the cigarette.
I’m easy? What the hell does that mean?
Was this guy trying to pick him up? In a parking garage outside the mall and the megaplex? Alec was straight, though he realized his style of dress and his finicky tastes in the arts could jam a person’s gaydar and thus give the wrong impression.
The stepped together up the stairs.
“You know a lot about film,” the man said.
“Studied it in school,” Alec said, adding a white lie to put his sexuality in context: “My girlfriend says I’m the next Fritz Lang.”
The man blew smoke and laughed. “What’s a film student doing at the megaplex? You should be at the indie theater.”
He hadn’t flinched at Alec’s mention of a girlfriend. Maybe the guy just enjoyed free tobacco and enlightened conversation. “I’m just killing time,” Alec confessed. “I’m on jury duty and I can’t stop thinking about the case.”
At the garage’s top level, Alec’s twenty-year-old Volvo faced the railing across a wide swathe of white concrete unevenly lighted by flickering fluorescent tubes. To the left, the open-air garage overlooked a highway interchange. Even at midnight, cars streamed off Route 95 in a sweeping cloverleaf that flowed into downtown Providence. Beyond the highway, Federal Hill clubs and restaurants brightened the hillside with colored lights. Parallel rows of glowing yellow dots marked the residential streets of Mount Pleasant.
Alec flicked ash on the floor. “I’m parked down this way,” he said.
“So what about your case?” the man asked, keeping pace with Alec. “Is he guilty?”
“I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
The man sucked hard on the butt and drew his cheeks in. Exhaling, he said, “There’s nobody here. I’m just interested. You can tell me now and kill me later, if you’re afraid I’ll squeal.” He raised an eyebrow at Alec and smiled. The man’s green eyes were narrow and sleepy.
“I think the prosecutor is full of shit,” Alec offered. “I can say that much.” He drew on his cigarette. There were just four cars on the entire level. “Which car is yours?”
“The Taurus,” the man answered instantly. Raising his voice above the grumble of a trailer truck on the street below, he asked, “Why is the prosecutor full of shit?”
“They all are, aren’t they?” Alec replied. “They care about convictions—their won-loss records—not the truth.”
Which of those cars was a Taurus? Didn’t look like any of them were. Alec quickened his pace. The man jogged a step to catch up, then matched steps with Alec, as if he expected a ride home. A prickling sense of danger combed down Alec’s back. Who was this guy? Alec put his head down and marched double time for his car, fishing his keys from his pocket. “Well, take care,” he said, bidding the man good-bye without a glance, and lunged for his car.
That’s when Alec heard the blade click.
He whirled. The man’s face was calm, his body language casual. Only the switchblade in his hand indicated evil.
“Your wallet,” the man demanded.
The knife paralyzed Alec. He blurted, “I’m fucking broke.”
The man never raised his voice. “Your wallet.” He gave a little nod. “Take out your wallet. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Alec caught himself blinking furiously at the man, and at the five-inch blade, which reflected the maroon ugliness of Alec’s battered sedan. He drew his brown leather wallet from a back pocket. “I got, like, fifteen dollars here,” he said, holding the wallet in the space between them.
The man took a last puff of his free cigarette, dropped the stub on the floor, and twisted a toe over it. Then he took the wallet.
“My Visa is maxed out,” Alec said. Not even a lie.
From his own pocket, the man took a folded wad of white paper. He slid the paper into Alec’s wallet and then handed it back to him.
Alec couldn’t move. “What is this?”
“Take it.”
“Take it for what?”
“Take back your wallet,” the man ordered, “and put it away.”
What the fuck’s with this guy?
Alec complied. He kept his eyes on the blade and slid the wallet back into his pocket.
If he had been a split second faster, he might have figured it out.
The man’s forearm flashed up at Alec. The blow caught him square in the Adam’s apple. Alec gagged, clutched his throat, and spun away, hitting the side of his car. His eyes watered from the pain. He tried to scream but heard only a dry whisper. By instinct, he staggered two steps away from the attacker, saw the railing, empty space beyond, and braked in terror.
Not that way.
A forearm into his spine drove Alec against the rail. He bent over it, looked straight down six stories to a bridge over the flaccid Woonasquatucket River flowing shallow and brown beneath the mall in a man-made trench of granite blocks.
He bounced off the rail. The man punched him in the lower back.
Alec tried to scream but managed only a wet gurgle from his bruised windpipe. The man rammed his shoulder into Alec and drove him back against the rail. Alec slapped an open hand feebly on the attacker’s head. The man jammed a hand between Alec’s legs, grabbed him under the groin, and lifted him.
He growled as he rolled Alec over the railing.
Alec slapped a hand on the rail and clung to life, dangling sixty feet above the concrete. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see through a glass wall into the mall’s food court. The lights were off and the place looked closed. Some janitor had leaned a mop against the glass.
Alec imagined the movie: The camera would start tight against the hand, close enough to see the tendons stretching and the little black hairs standing on end. Then the camera would pull back, revealing the arm, the body, the wall. Faster, the camera would retreat, the wall growing ever higher, until the ground appeared at the bottom of the frame. No good director would show the fall, of course. Instead, the camera would switch to the attacker showing him battering Alec’s fingers on the rail with the butt of his knife, until one final blow dislodged the hand, and then—for only an instant—the camera would film a shadow on the wall, plummeting.
twenty
The jurors gathered as they did each morning in the jury lounge, sitting in the order of their numbers, around a long, crooked conference table shaped like California.
The seat next to Billy was empty.
At quarter past ten, a sheriff with a clipboard entered to take attendance. He reminded Billy of a buzzard—long neck tucked between hunched shoulders. His skin was gray and he smelled like cigar smoke.
“The lawyers have been arguing for an hour,” the sheriff told the jury. “We’re, um, down one juror, and the judge had to consider whether we should go forward with just one alternate. He just ruled against declaring a mistrial, so we’ll go ahead and resume the testimony this morning.”
He beckoned with a wave of his arm. The jurors got up and filed past him to the courtroom.
We’re down one juror?
Where was Alec?
Billy was the last one out. He leaned toward the sheriff and asked, “What happened to Alec?”
“I’m not supposed to say. We should get moving.”
“Did he get kicked off the jury? What did he do?”
“Mr. Povich—” the sheriff began.
“I like the kid,” Billy said, interrupting. “I want to know what he did to get kicked off.”
The sheriff sighed. He peered down the hall, saw that it was clear. In a low voice, he said, “Alec Black killed himself
last night.”
Billy chuckled. “All right, come on!” he begged. “Just tell me what he did to get kicked off, so I won’t do the same thing.”
The sheriff stared at Billy.
“Oh Jesus,” Billy said.
The sheriff made the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father … the Son … and the Holy Ghost …
“How?” Billy demanded. “How could this happen?”
The sheriff shrugged. “He told his roommate he was going to the movies, and then he jumped from the top of a parking garage, late last night. He died instantly.” The sheriff turned away. Billy grabbed his arm and rooted him there.
“But why would he do that?” Billy stammered. “We’re in the middle of this trial.… This kid had strong opinions.” Billy suddenly gasped. “Somebody killed him!”
The sheriff clapped Billy on the shoulder, a comforting gesture. “I guess Mr. Black had a lot of personal problems,” the sheriff said. “It was a suicide—they found a suicide note in his wallet.”
The sheriff paused a few moments and then urged him along. “We really need to get to the courtroom.”
Billy relented, nodding. He walked slowly toward to court. Alec Black… a suicide victim? Billy couldn’t picture it. The kid was so cynical, such a pain in the ass. He had a sarcastic comment for everybody; he loved sticking his thumb into the eye of the powerful. Why would he have killed himself and wasted fifty or sixty years of perfectly good scorn?
In the courtroom, the actors were at their marks.
Peter Shadd stared into outer space and absentmindedly cleaned his glasses with his necktie.
On the stand, his former cell mate Lawrence Home was ready to continue his testimony. Home shot nervous glances around the courtroom, like a rabbit that had wandered onto a greyhound track.
The night was mooniess. Garrett had insisted they wait for the new moon.
The dim glow from the yard lights put Garrett’s face in silhouette in the window. He worked the shank around the metal frame, driving it in with the heel of his hand and then wiggling it out. “Like butter, baby,” he whispered.
“I can’t wait for butter,” Larry moaned. “First meal I’m gonna get is a half-pound burger, real rare, so that the juice runs down your hand from the first bite. Cheese all over it. Cheddar. Real sharp. Mm-hm. Couple slices of Canadian bacon melted so deep into the cheese, they almost disappear. Sliced tomato. Some crunchy iceberg lettuce. Spanish onion. And butter, baby—both buns grilled crispy in butter.” He laughed and pumped his emaciated arms in the air. “The diet ends tonight.”
“My mouth is fuckin’ watering,” Garrett said. “Thanks, asshole.”
“Say, Shadd? You coming?” Larry asked.
Peter sat up in the second bunk, swung his legs off the side, and rubbed his eyes. “I ain’t been dieting,” he said.
“Skinny shit like you don’t need to.”
“I can’t handle any more years on my bid.”
“They can’t jail what they can’t catch,” Garrett said.
Larry asked, “How many years you got?”
Peter exhaled hard and then counted the years silently on his left hand—from pinkie to thumb, back down to pinkie, and back up again. “About fifteen,” he said.
Larry slapped a hand over his chest and staggered in a make-believe heart attack. “By the time a young guy like you does fifteen fuckin’ years, there’s no guarantee his dick would still work when he got out. Maybe you should come with us,” he advised.
A shard of metal from the window frame went plink on the concrete floor. Garrett snickered.
“Destroying state property is a crime,” Larry joked.
“A misdemeanor,” Garrett answered, never taking his eye off his work. He hummed a few bars of some hymn and then said, “Freedom lies in being bold.”
“Amen,” Larry said. “Book of Leviticus?”
“Gospel according to Robert Frost,” said Garrett.
Another shard went plink.
“Where will you go?” Peter asked. He sounded flabbergasted, like he was trying to talk them out of something so obviously stupid, like cliff jumping without parachutes. “So maybe you get through the window and into the yard? So what? Say you get over the fence. So what? The guards never start the nighttime count later than one-thirty. You won’t get two miles before they’re after you. Every cop in the state will be working overtime. Your faces will be on TV, in the papers. How far can two guys dressed in orange get on foot? All this effort… seems like a lot for one night of exercise, and then three extra years on your bid. Three more years to listen to Larry mumbling about food in his sleep.”
Garrett stopped work for a moment. He looked at Larry. “In the month he’s been here, that’s the most I ever heard him say.” He went back to work on the window.
“How far can you run?” Peter asked.
“Not running anywhere,” said Garrett.
“You think you can moon-walk to Mexico?”
“I can crawl as far as Pontiac Avenue, and that’ll be far enough.”
“And then we’ll get my stash,” Larry said.
“You hush about your stash,” Garrett ordered.
Nobody said anything for a while. Peter and Larry watched Garrett work the pick around the window. Every half minute or so, Garrett stopped for a few seconds and all three men strained to hear danger in the silence—the boom of a distant door, the clink of a key, a guard’s footsteps.
They heard nothing.
Garrett attacked the window with persistence. He was like a battlefield surgeon—not fancy, but quite skilled with a knife, like Jack the Ripper.
Peter broke the silence, “What do you mean? Crawl to Pontiac Avenue? That’s right outside—what happens when you get to the street?”
Garrett chuckled. He said to Larry, “Notice how he says when we make it to the street, not if. Interesting, huh?”
“He’s getting religion,” Larry agreed.
After another minute, Peter demanded, “Are you getting help from the outside? A car? Somebody picking you up?”
Garrett snorted. “ ‘And some believed the things which were spoken—’ “ he said, glancing at Larry.
“ ‘—and some believed not,’“ his longtime cell mate replied, completing the verse from the Acts of the Apostles.
Garrett wrenched the tool with sudden violence.
A chunk of metal went clank on the floor.
“Yahtzee!” he said.
He put the shank aside and wormed his fingertips into a crack between the window frame and the wall. With a foot braced against the wall, he steadily pulled. His body quivered. He pulled without success for nearly a minute, and then the metal frame squeaked faintly in surrender and abruptly tore off in Garrett’s hands. He held it to his face and grimaced at Peter, showing off his canine teeth like two fangs.
He looked like the devil in a picture frame.
Larry clapped lightly, excited. “I’m gonna dig up my stash, buy a bottle of Crown Royal and a crystal glass,” he promised.
Garrett flipped the frame on the bottom bunk, grabbed the shank, and went to work on loosening the window glass. “The seal is all dried out,” he said. “This won’t take long.”
He worked in silence for ten minutes.
Larry watched over his shoulder.
Peter lay on his bunk and stared at the ceiling. Eventually, he asked, “Who on the outside would ever help you get out of here?”
“I don’t care if you come or not,” said Garrett. “But if you stay, you better keep your fucking mouth shut.”
“I’m wondering why anyone would help you.”
Garrett paused a moment and wiped the back of his hand over his brow. He was breathing heavily from his struggle with the window. “I’m not without certain talents,” he said to Peter. Then he laughed and got back to work.
He jammed the tool in the crack above the window and pried. The glass suddenly fell inward, like a tree toppling without sound. He caught the glass, whisked
it across the cell, and propped it against the door.
“Holy Jesus,” Larry said.
Peter roused from his bunk and climbed to the floor. “I never thought…” he said, trailing off as a breeze carried the scent of freedom into the cell, which chased away the stink of body odor and despair.
The three cell mates inhaled deeply, standing spellbound and silent, smelling grass that had been cut that day, and a blend of summer pollens. They found joy in a whiff of ragweed. They heard distant cars on the highway, a trailer truck burping between gears. Crickets cheered for them to escape.
Garrett finally broke the spell of the outside world. He slid Larry’s mirror from his Bible, eased it through the opening, and peered around.
“Well?” Larry asked.
“Paradise lost,” replied Garrett. He stripped off his jumpsuit and pushed it out the window, then his shoes, socks, and underwear. Naked, he grabbed a can of petroleum jelly and smeared it over his ears and his torso.
Larry, too, began to strip.
“Grease my back,” Garrett ordered.
Larry shuffled to him, pants at his ankles, and quickly slathered the gel over Garrett’s back and shoulders. He slapped Garrett’s flesh. “You’re good to go,” he said. Then he kicked off his pants and shoved his clothes out the narrow window.
Garrett said to Larry, “You’re first.”
“Me?” asked Larry. He was about to protest, but Garrett smacked petroleum jelly on his back and spread it in two hard swipes. Larry greased his chest, thighs, and ears.
“Lay flat, tight against the building, until I’m out.”
Larry nodded and went to the window.
He paused a second, sizing it up, and then climbed onto a foot-locker and reached his right arm out into freedom. The window was a tight squeeze. But the diet had shrunk his body to its minimum. His greased-up shoulder slipped through the opening. He turned his head and pressed it into the frame.
There’s no way.… this hole is too small.
“Push, push,” Garrett urged.
Larry closed his eyes, relaxed his jaw, and wormed his head deeper into the opening. He winced at the pain. Tears streamed along his nose. Just when it seemed impossible to push any more, his head slipped through, and Larry looked up into the star-filled sky. He blinked away his tears, steadied himself in the opening, exhaled deeply, and pulled his sunken chest through. Reaching a hand below the window, he steadied himself again, and then let his legs slide through. He dropped five feet to soft earth. The ground was moist and cool. Long-dormant memories revived the moment he touched freedom. Panting, he put his nose into the grass and inhaled deeply. For a moment, he was five years old again, sneaking through the weeds to scare his sister.
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