The court appearance was a mockery. He stood mute as Lowenstrein made a motion for an extensive psychiatric examination.
“Does the defendant have anything to say on this matter?” the judge asked.
“He does not, Your Honor,” was the criminal lawyer’s immediate response.
And he was right, Cory realized as the motion was granted and he was led from the courtroom, down the hall to the defense attorney’s room.
Steven stood at his usual spot by the window and turned as Cory entered. “The examination is in your own self-interest.”
“I know.”
“I have to go back to Boston, Cory. I’ve spent too much time away from the firm as it is.”
“I understand.”
“You’re in good hands with Lowenstrein.”
“I know.”
“My offer still stands. I’ll raise bail the instant you give the word.”
“Thanks, Steve. But let’s see where this new avenue takes us.”
His brother shrugged, and their time together was over. There was a certain sadness in Cory as he was led back to his tier. His pompous, overbearing, and officious brother had, in the clutch, come through.
When they entered his corridor he stopped in the center of the tier. “I want my exercise time,” he said.
“You’ve just had it, fruitcake.”
“I get my time in the corridor and my time to mop,” Cory insisted.
His usual guard shrugged. “Give it to him. He ain’t going anywhere.”
They took off the leg irons and handcuffs in the center of the aisle and left him standing unencumbered in the middle of the tier. He shrugged off his suit jacket and threw it on the bunk in his cell. The door snapped shut behind the escort guards, and he was alone in the tier except for the single day guard.
He started to the supply closet.
“Where you going?”
“To get the mop.”
“Do it tomorrow.”
“I need the exercise.”
“Obsessive bastard, aren’t you?”
“Comes from the military.”
Once inside the closet he bent under the sink and ripped the loosely attached mesh from the wall. He closed the sink door and filled the mop bucket with warm water and detergent.
It was time.
The routine had been well established. Cory always started mopping the corridor and cells nearest the exit door. The guard sat on a stool ten feet from the door. He propped one elbow into a cell door and leaned back against the wall. Every fifteen minutes he would leave his stool and walk to the door to wave at the man in the guard booth down the outside hall. Cory would have to make his move immediately after such a signal. That would give him a maximum of fifteen minutes before detection.
He mopped four cells and a third of the corridor and went back inside the supply room. He filled the bucket nearly to the brim. It was the only weapon he had.
He left the supply room as the guard gave his signal out the door. Cory slowly walked toward the stool and took the mop from the pail. The disinterested guard continued reading a comic book.
Cory put the mop on the floor and bent to grasp the pail’s handle with both hands. He swiveled his hips and brought the pail upward in a long swinging arc.
The pail caught the guard along the side of the head and toppled him from the stool. He gave a low groan and fell unconscious to the floor.
Water spewed down the corridor as Cory sprinted for the supply room. He crawled through the narrow space under the sink and turned sideways to fit through the small aperture.
It was necessary for him to turn his body completely until his buttocks were on the flooring and his head and shoulders stretched up inside the venting. He slowly inched his body back and up until he stood upright in the narrow vent.
He braced his legs against one side of the tube and his back against the other and slowly began a chimney climb up the vent.
The vent ended at the floor joists of the top floor. Cory eased himself from the narrow aperture and lay on the dusty temporary flooring a moment, in order for the trembling in his legs to subside.
The fourth floor of the building was a surrealistic place. It was a long open space broken only by occasional support columns. A thin layer of dust covered the floor, while droppings of soda cans and sandwich wrappers from long-departed workmen lay where they had fallen. The narrow, mesh-covered windows admitted a diffused light, which lay in long swatches across the broad expanse of open flooring.
He got to his feet and began to walk across the rough flooring toward the far corner of the building. If Ginny’s drawings were only roughly accurate, the elevator shafts would be in the southeast corner of the building.
A large square of concrete squatted in the corner of the building. It was the service module that contained air conditioning and electrical service boxes for the entire building. It also held the elevator shafts. As he approached the module he heard the whirr of machinery from the elevator shaft as the two cars that serviced the building below moved automatically from floor to floor.
The protective walls surrounding the shaft on this floor had not been erected. Two sides of the housing were open. Cables ran up toward the roof, where the lift mechanism occupied another service module. Cory peered down the shaft. Two floors below, he could see the top of the car. Machinery began to whirr; cables flowed past his face as the car moved upward to the third floor.
He tried to estimate how much time had elapsed since he first entered the supply closet on the third floor. Perhaps five minutes. He had hoped for a total of fifteen minutes before any alarm, but it was impossible to tell how long the guard would remain unconscious. There was no time to hesitate.
He leaned forward and grasped a greasy cable. His body swung out over the shaft and dangled in space. His hands slipped on the greasy wire of the heavy cable, and he slid for half a dozen feet until a wrapped leg around the cable brought his progress to a halt. He continued downward until his right foot gently brushed the top of the elevator car. He quickly let go of the cable and fell on all fours to the roof of the car.
The machinery above his head began to whirr as the car moved down to the floor below.
He heard the doors swish open on the second floor. Someone entered the car beneath him and coughed. The car began to descend.
The elevator halted on the first floor. Doors swished open and remained open.
Cory reached for the small trap door on the top of the car and pulled it open. A quick glance into the interior informed him that the car was empty. He swung down into the car, hesitated a moment, and then stepped outside into a corridor.
He was in the building’s main entrance vestibule. A uniformed officer sat at a small desk near the front door, which was thirty feet ahead. Two bulky men with gold badges protruding from breast pockets were in serious conversation to the left. A policewoman, holding a stuffed clipboard, hurried across another corridor that bisected the entryway.
Cory began to saunter to the front door.
The double glass doors were a dozen feet ahead. He passed the officer at the desk. He wanted to break into a run but held himself back and walked as casually as possible.
One of the double doors was held open by one man as a second limped through the entrance, holding tightly to a cane.
Sergeant Pierce looked at Cory’s face. Instant recognition flooded across the man’s features. For an instant he seemed speechless as his cane came forward to point at Cory’s chest.
“It’s Williams!”
Cory sprang forward and stiff-armed Pierce in the face. The man staggered backward and slammed against the tile wall. Cory ran toward the doors. He hit the second detective with his shoulder and the man went sprawling down the steps.
Pierce had pulled himself to his feet and fumbled at his belt for his service revolver. The cop at the reception desk stood. The two talking detectives turned in curiosity as Cory left the building at a full run.
“Get the so
n of a bitch!”
Two empty police cruisers were parked directly in front of the building. Across the street was a waist-high metal balustrade that separated highway lanes. Cory hurdled the barrier and ran out into a double stream of fast-moving traffic. He heard vague cries behind him as more police were flushed from the building in pursuit.
The heavy air horn of a semi blared as it bore down on him. He reached the far lane as car brakes squealed. A Ford went into a skid in order to avoid hitting him. He reached the far barrier safely, leaped it, and continued running.
He was fifty yards down a narrow alley between two warehouse buildings when he heard the first shot. He didn’t look back. No ricochet warned him of a near miss, and he conjectured that it was a warning shot fired into the air. He began to zigzag from one side of the narrow alley to the other.
Three more shots were fired nearly simultaneously. A bullet whined off the wall behind him. A part of his mind coolly assessed the situation. He tried to calculate the mathematical probability of a running man, firing a handgun, hitting a moving, weaving target thirty yards away. His odds were good, and he kept running.
As he drew closer to the end of the buildings, he saw a high chain link fence surrounding a group of parked construction equipment. The yard beyond the fence was filled with a menagerie of mammoth yellow vehicles: backhoes, bulldozers, rollers, and other odd-looking pieces of equipment whose functional use defied his knowledge.
Cory made a left turn at the end of the warehouse and ran along the edge of the fence. Ahead, he could see that the warehouse buildings had an ell extension containing a sealed loading platform that ran up against the chain link fence.
He was in a cul de sac only yards from his pursuers.
He turned and ran at full speed toward the fence. At the last moment he jumped and clawed with his toes for a hold in the narrow openings as his hands reached through the metal for a fingertip grip. He began to climb the fence much like a small animal scurrying up a cage wall. They were only seconds behind him.
He reached the top of the fence and threw one leg over the top supporting pole. A shot, fired from a position near the corner of the building, ripped through his pants leg.
Cory pulled the other leg over the fence, held to the top bar a moment, and dropped to the ground below as a fusillade of shots tore through the air. He took off in a weaving crouched run around a large bulldozer.
He ran an erratic path in and out, between the parked heavy equipment. As he approached the end of the yard, he stopped on the far side of a large building crane and looked back toward the fence.
Two men, one in uniform, the other in sport clothes, were nearly at the top of the fence. Their climb was impeded by the fact that each clutched a .38. A cluster of other police was at the base of the fence. They spread out and peered between the massive machines for a glimpse of him.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
There was a large shed near the corner of the yard. Cory ran around the building to keep its bulk between him and the pursuing police. He began to climb the fence and again dropped down on the far side.
Beyond the construction equipment park was a land-fill area. Large heaps of trash smoldered in gigantic piles that spewed small curls of dark smoke toward the sky. He frantically tried to orient himself as to his location within the city. As best he could remember, beyond the fill area was marshland that extended to the river. He began to run.
He took care to keep his mazelike course without predictability, and constantly to keep the piles of refuse between himself and the sightlines of his pursuers.
His breathing began to come in rasping gasps. The days in jail, combined with the nightly beatings, had begun to take their toll. In a few hundred yards he would have to rest. He continued past the piles of burning refuse until marsh grass stretched ahead. Beyond the marsh he could see the river. A red tug slowly pulled half a dozen barges along the waterway that bisected the city.
Cory plunged into the marsh grass and immediately sank to his knees in a quagmire-like mud. The massive effort to pull each foot from the sticky substance would quickly sap the last of his remaining strength. His already depleted reserves would rapidly diminish until he fell into the grass, exhausted.
He might remain hidden in the marsh for hours, but they would eventually find him. The area he had run through, and surrounding escape routes, would be quickly cordoned off and then throughly searched. It was hours until dusk. It would be impossible to remain hidden until nightfall.
The river stretched ahead. It was his only salvation. He plunged forward, each step an agonizing effort as he approached the river waters. The mud, almost as if it were working in consort with his pursuers, seemed to pull at his feet as he fought his way to the water.
He reached the river and plunged forward until the water lapped at his waist. Ahead, the third barge of the long line drawn by the insignificant-appearing tug chugged slowly downstream.
Cory began to swim.
He swam between the third and fourth barges and glanced up at the cargo. The vessels seemed filled with a wet, sludgelike material. He remembered that the Army Corps of Engineers was dredging the channel. These barges must be filled with gunk ripped from the bottom of the river by gigantic dredges.
On the far side of the line of barges he turned and swam parallel to the slowly moving hulks. On each side of the barges were ancient rubber tires hung as bumper guards. He grabbed the nearest.
He wondered if he had the strength to pull himself up on the tire, swing his feet in the rim, and stand in order to gain a handhold on the gunwales of the barge. He hung limply, letting the barge’s momentum drag him slowly through the water.
He must act at once. The longer he held to the rancid tire, the quicker his arms would tire. Soon, there wouldn’t be strength either to pull himself aboard or swim away.
It had to be done. He lunged, grabbed the hawser holding the tire, and pulled his body from the water. He swung his feet into the rim of the tire and levered himself over the gunwales.
He fell, panting, into the dark sludge of river-bottom dredgings.
Slowly, he began to scrape the foul-smelling substance over his legs and torso until he was nearly completely covered.
He was safe—for the time being.
CHAPTER 12
The man in Toledo impatiently tapped his foot until the phone connection was made. “Rook,” he snapped when the other line was picked up.
“You’ve heard what happened?” a distant voice asked.
“Of course. I want the board swept clean. The new game is far more important.”
“Too many pawns have already been sacrificed.”
“You know the game plan.”
“It will take some time.”
“See to it.” He crashed the phone back in its cradle and snorted, “Incompetents!”
The dredgings in the barge smelled of some unknown foulness. In the beginning, Cory had gagged and retched. But the human body can learn to accommodate to nearly anything, and in minutes he was able to tolerate the stench.
He moved his body slightly. He was covered. Even his hands, which had spread the muddy loam across his body, were now burrowed in the muck. Only the small oval of his face protruded from the filth. He would be invisible to all but the most minute inspection, and even that would have to be made by men actually standing on the barge.
He estimated that the towed barge moved at four miles an hour. He had been aboard ten to fifteen minutes. He had traveled a mile and was nearly beyond the city limits and headed downriver toward the distant ocean.
He had to plan. His past thinking hadn’t progressed beyond the difficult first step of escape. Now he seriously had to consider the next move. He must concentrate.
His eyes closed. He blinked them open. They closed again. The smell receded, and there was a warmth to the tailings that covered his body. His eyes closed a final time, and he sank into a deep sleep.
Cory awoke with a start. His nerves
tightened as his fists clenched and his body arched into a sitting position. The stench assailed him, and he choked. He had been dreaming of the silent men who visited him late at night and beat him.
His sense of orientation returned, and he looked over the water toward the shore. The barge was making its slow way downriver. The locale was unfamiliar to him, and he searched for a landmark he might recognize. Two hundred yards away a bluff rose from the river and towered above them. A pine forest studded the top of the bluff. The promontory slid by, and the land of the bank flattened. An occasional house and barn could now be seen. A road wound into view and turned toward the access ramp on an interstate highway. The scenery sparked recognition. They were approaching the city of Middleburg.
Cory slipped off the stern of the barge into the water. The initial immersion sent a shock through him, and his heart began to pound.
He stood up a few feet from shore. The water was up to his waist, and he waded ashore. He stopped before climbing the bank and found himself in front of a stand of pine and hidden from view. The filth from the barge covered him, and he slowly removed each piece of clothing. He rinsed his body as well as he could and then washed the clothes. Naked, he climbed the bank and spread the clothes out in a small clearing to dry in the waning sun. He lay under a tree.
After dark he dressed and approached a small diner on the outskirts of town. Two semi rigs were parked in the side lot, and a large neon sign blinked on and off. He entered the double doored vestibule, and a counterman, in a grease-splotched apron, looked up with indifference. Cory slid onto a stool.
“Whatcha have?”
Cory realized how hungry he was. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and that had been skimpy at best. “A couple of cheeseburgers.”
The counterman turned and flipped two beef patties onto the grill, where they immediately began to sizzle.
He didn’t have any money. His wallet and change had been taken from him the day he had been booked. He beckoned to the counterman. “I don’t have any money.”
“Great.” The counterman flipped the meat off the grill. He turned back toward Cory. “Outta here, bum.”
Game Bet Page 11