by Ed Griffin
"Gilmore's having trouble adapting to being out of prison. You gotta be patient with him."
"Gilmore?" She sounded surprised. "He doesn't have trouble adapting to anything. He's the most flexible guy I've ever seen."
Frank shook his head. "It's really hard to get the smell of prison off your clothes."
She circled her cup. He watched, fascinated, imagining her drawing circles on his hand. She looked up at him, a sincere look in her eyes. "Maybe I haven't been fair to him."
Now you've done it, Frank. You've gotten her back with her husband. He hated himself for that thought.
Jeannie Dickinson came down the aisle toward them. "Hi Latisha, Hi Frank," she said. "I'm doing the shopping for my father. This store - like sucks."
"How's school?" Latisha asked.
"It sucks. That teacher has us older kids teaching the younger ones. One teacher for all the grades. Give me a break."
Frank laughed. For Jeannie, everything sucked. She picked up his spirits. What would it be like to have a daughter? Never mind the high-sounding prison programs, Alternatives to Violence, and so forth. A young girl's laughter could accomplish so much more.
Latisha asked Jeannie if the teacher asked her to teach anything.
Jeannie pointed with her finger down her throat. "Math. I want to work in the factory with everyone else."
"How about friends? Have you made any friends?"
"The number 5, the number 6 and two little kids."
The door opened again and the blast of air whipped through the building. Who had come in now?
"How long did you go to school, Latisha?" Jeannie asked
"Through high school and college."
"Yeah, well, I better get the shopping done." She started down the aisle, then stopped. "Whoops. Here comes trouble."
Chapter 21
Latisha watched Gil coming up the aisle of the store. His parka glistened with water and water ran off his head. Like everyone else on this island, he looked wet. Not powerful and boss-like. Just wet. He looked so - human. Was Frank right that Gil, like everybody else, was having trouble adapting, getting the smell of prison out of his clothes? Gilmore?
Across from her Frank kept fixing his glasses onto his nose. He looked upset, nervous, like he expected a confrontation. His reaction made her question herself. Why wasn't she upset?
Jeannie had started down the aisle, but stopped. Latisha watched her pick up a can of chili beans and pretend to read the label with great interest. Latisha smiled. Nosy, worldly-wise, teen-age, alive - God! How she loved that girl. When would she ever experience the joy of motherhood?
Gilmore stopped at the edge of the table and glared down at Frank. Frank's mood seemed to shift from one of worry to one of anger.
Why was she viewing this whole thing like a movie, she wondered. The two men were fighting about her.
She thought about a light explanation of what she was doing, Just talking about the factory, but then she decided no. "Hi Gil. Join us for coffee?"
He looked at her, then looked back to Villa. "Looks like I interrupted some democracy in action."
Latisha saw Jeannie lean forward to hear what was said.
Frank said nothing. He sat up straight, his jaw set, his teeth slightly clenched and his eyes narrowed. She had never seen him look so determined. But still he said nothing.
Gilmore leaned toward Frank and spoke in a subdued tone. "I think you're a wife-stealer."
Latisha knew him. When he spoke quietly, he was at his deadliest.
"No," Frank responded barely audible, his face set against Gilmore, "you're a wife-loser."
Latisha shivered. Neither man made idle threats. This was serious.
Latisha could see Jeannie edging closer to hear. She, Latisha, had to end this scene. Action. Decision. She stood up. "Why did you come here, Gil?"
"Shopping. Why else?"
She swept her hand across the aisles. "Then go do it." How strange it was to be the one giving him the orders.
He didn't move. His mouth was partially open in a look of surprise. She understood his surprise. She was surprising herself. She'd never been this assertive.
She turned to Frank. "I interrupted your shopping by asking you about the IRS forms." There, that was all the explanation Gilmore was going to get. "I'm sorry." She motioned for Frank to get up and go.
He did. She motioned Gilmore on in the opposite direction and finally he left. She picked up her shopping basket, a discarded picnic basket she had found. "Walk me up front, Jeannie."
"Those two - they were fighting about you."
"Yes - and no. They have different ideas about how this place should be run. I'm going to check out now. Can I walk you home?"
"No, my dad is coming. I'm supposed to do the shopping. Teach the number 5 and the number 6, then do the shopping for the cafeteria. Life sucks."
Latisha hugged her and paid Billy the Cheese for her groceries. She put them in her backpack and left the store for her forty-five minute walk back up Bering Hill. The big thermometer outside the store read 39 degrees. She shifted the weight of her backpack and put on her gloves. The wind would make her trip up the hill a cold one.
On the road the wind slapped at her from the north and then from the southeast and then the southwest. It was like the scene she had just left, people pushing at her from different directions - Frank touching her heart with his idealism and his little-boy crush on her; Gilmore, calling her back to her marriage vows; and Jeannie, arousing long-hidden desires of motherhood.
Frank was right about one thing. Adak was an island of change and change was hard on people. She had not been fair to Gilmore. And unless she did something, the conflict between Frank and her husband was going to intensify.
At the bend in the road, she turned into the Sea Otter. She had to give her marriage one more chance.
Chapter 22
At 5:40 one morning, Gilmore sneaked out of bed so as not to wake Latisha and made a cup of instant coffee in the large kitchen of the Sea Otter. It wasn't hard to get moving this morning - the excitement of prison break tingled his nerve endings. Today he would test the prison walls around Adak.
He sipped his coffee and smiled. Things were going well enough. Latisha slept in his bed, the Sea Otter turned a profit and his informal poll showed him gaining on Villa. But who wanted to spend their life blasted by a wind from hell?
He put his parka on and drove through the rain to Bering Hill. As he passed the Marine Barracks, he saw Joe Britt heading for the outhouse. "Worse thing in the world," he muttered. "An early rising cop." What if Britt saw his men? What would this quasi-cop do? Try to stop them?
A con in prison would never turn in guys making a break for it, but what the hell would happen on Adak? Britt would be loyal to Villa. What would Villa do?
Gilmore shook his head. Who knew? He headed west, down a road called Bomb Storage Road to another called. Potholes made the driving slow, but he had figured for that and he got to Trout Creek itself on schedule at 6:20 AM. He left his car there and walked down the creek bed to Shagak Bay. Nager, Rubenstein, and Watkins waited for him beside a large rowboat.
The plan was simple. The obvious way to leave Adak was from the east. Downtown faced east. Its harbor, Sweeper's Cove, was in the east. Finger Bay, where there were some old cottages, faced east. And most important of all, Kagalaska Island was only a quarter mile off Adak - in the east.
The idea was to draw the Coast Guard to the east and then see how far they could get - in the west. To the west of Downtown Adak lay a small bay called Shagak Bay, a round little body of water at the base of the hills. Two low-lying peninsulas stretched across the entrance to Shagak, one from the north, one from the south, protecting the bay from the worst of the wind and waves in the Bering Sea. The Bay was shallow and kelp often clogged the entrance.
If they were lucky, they could get into the Bering Sea and shoot down farther south on the island to a place called Expedition Harbor where the Navy had built an
emergency shelter. They would still be on Adak, but they would find out just how strong the Coast Guard was.
The men could hike back to Downtown.
In the east he had arranged two fake attempts. At the entrance to Finger Bay two men were to make themselves very visible at 7 AM in a leaky canoe one of his men had pulled from a Navy dump. They were not to leave the Bay, but merely to taunt the Coast Guard.
On the shores of Kuluk Bay another group of men were to make a big show of loading a homemade raft, without ever setting off, again to keep the Coast Guard busy.
Gilmore looked at his watch. Almost 7. Time to launch his western probe. "Let's put this thing in the water, men," he said, pointing to the large rowboat. The men had found it washed onto the shores of Adak two days previous. It had Japanese characters on its side and a McDonald's bag, written in Japanese, had been found, wedged under a seat. Rubenstein had rigged an orange Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engine to a paddle wheel fixed onto the back of the boat. The bottom of the boat held fishing nets and a large steel tube which, Gilmore assumed, carried fishing poles. He had told the men, if they were boarded, they could always claim they were fishing because their children were hungry.
Nobody moved at Gilmore's order to launch the boat. "Let's go," Gilmore said again, grabbing hold of the prow of the boat. The wood felt waterlogged, like the boat couldn't possibly float. Nager, a surly type, nodded to the others and they launched the boat and then got in. Gilmore stayed on shore.
Rubenstein started his lawn mower engine, but did not engage the belt-driven paddle wheel. A racket of putt-putting and backfiring filled the bay. "Better get those fishing rods ready," Gilmore said, "in case the Coast Guard comes around."
Watkins and Rubenstein looked at Gilmore, then at Nager.
"I said let's get the rods out." Gilmore pointed to the steel cylinder in the bottom of the boat.
"That ain't fishin' rods," Nager replied.
"What is it?"
"Change of plans." Nager swelled his chest up and stuck out his jaw. "See, Gilmore, we're not just gonna go out and get ourselves shot up so you can learn about the Coast Guard. We're gonna find a Coast Guard ship and capture it. I got my foot on a World War II bazooka we found in the hills. All nice and sealed in this tube and we found 21 rockets."
Gilmore looked at Nager. "You're crazy. They'll kill you."
"No, we been practicing. We blow away the cabin on one of them Coast Guard ships, bring it in for repair, and we're off to California."
"God, Nager, you're naive. Do you have any idea how much firepower the Coast Guard has out there? Our only hope is to find the hole in their system."
"We're going."
"You're crazy."
He watched Rubenstein engage the paddle wheel. The putt-putting changed to the un-muffled roar of an obnoxious lawn mower. A smoke cloud went up. If the Coast Guard waited beyond the spits of land, they now had plenty of warning. Gilmore remembered a con they called "Ten Thumbs," who got caught every time he pulled a job. He specialized in gas stations and always asked the attendant for directions out of town after he robbed a station.
The rowboat moved out into Shagak Bay. Gilmore watched as the men readied the bazooka. Slowly the little boat approached the opening to the Bering Sea, but the ocean current stopped their forward motion and held them in one spot. They sat there and bounced on the waves, the paddle wheel churning hopelessly.
Gilmore made his way to a vantage point on the north spit, where, helped by the wind, he could hear Nager's orders.
"Swing back along the south spit," Nager yelled, pointing to the rocky edge of the south spit where, for a few feet, there was shelter from the wind. "We'll try to get through where the waves ain't so big."
The little boat slid off to the side and into the shelter of the south spit and again edged its way toward the opening of Shagak Bay. "Everybody grab a paddle," Nager ordered.
The three paddled vigorously.
Gilmore climbed higher on the rocks and looked out to sea. "My God!" he exclaimed. Not a hundred yards away he saw what the men in the boat could not see - a Coast Guard patrol ship, its guns trained on Nager's impossible craft!
Nager was in the trough of a wave. Gilmore tried to motion to him, but it was no use. He yelled, but the wind from the south took his words away. The small rowboat rose to the crest of the wave. For a second the paddle wheel spun in midair. He could hear Rubenstein cry out, "Look!" Nager grabbed the bazooka and put it on Watkins' shoulder. Rubenstein handed Nager a rocket and Nager jammed it into the tube, aimed, and fired from the crest of the next wave. The rocket sailed over the Coast Guard ship.
Gilmore heard a noise in the sky. He looked up to see a helicopter gun ship approaching from the south. He ducked down and began to make his way rapidly off the peninsula. He heard a swoosh, a thump, and then an explosion. He turned to see an orange Briggs and Stratton engine and the lower half of someone's body fly through the air.
The open sea was a prison wall.
Chapter 23
Despite the cold drizzle, Frank felt hot as he stood in front of a door in the Amulet housing area. He hesitated and turned around. Anything but the task at hand. The Announcer of Death.
Across the street and behind some houses, Runway A lay silent. He pictured it during Navy times, lights along the edges, planes landing. Must have been loud in those houses, he thought.
If only he didn't have to do what he was about to do. Far on the right, he saw that Sweeper Creek had flooded a section of the runway. The Navy must have had a way to control the creek.
He turned back to the door and practiced his line. "Missus Nager, I'm sorry, there's been an accident."
It had taken him all day to piece together what happened in Shagak Bay and who was involved. He knocked gently on the door.
From inside a woman shouted, "Jason, the door's open. Wipe your feet."
"This is Frank Villa here."
"So, come in. The door's open."
Frank grasped the doorknob. Was it wet from the rain or from his hand? She stood in the living room, a paint roller in her hand, a baseball cap on her head, her face and clothes smeared with a cream colored paint. "Missus Nager, I'm sorry, I have some bad news for you."
She dropped the roller. Her hand went to her mouth. "What?"
"Your husband. There's been an accident." Frank took a deep breath. "He's dead."
"Oh, Bill, Bill, Bill, no, no, no."
A sudden realization hit Frank. Sixteen years ago someone had knocked on another door and told a woman that her policeman-husband had been killed - in the bank robbery he and Saunders had committed.
"Oh God, I'm sorry," Frank said.
"How?" she asked. "What happened?"
"It was an escape attempt."
"Escape? Why did he want to escape?"
Frank shook his head. What could he do to console this woman?
"I mean he had me and Jason." She was crying now.
Frank started to open his arms to hug her, but then pulled back.
"I'm sorry," he repeated.
"What happened? He told me he was working for Gilmore today."
"It was an organized plan, three groups in all. Your husband's group was the only one that actually put to sea."
"And who…?"
"The Coast Guard."
She sobbed loudly and moved toward Frank. He opened his arms and hugged her.
"I warned him about Gilmore time and again," she said through her tears. "I warned him."
The door opened and Jason came in. Frank guessed he was ten or eleven. The woman turned from his arms and swept the boy up.
"Mom, why are you crying?"
"Your daddy's been killed. He's dead." She wept loudly and hugged the boy. Frank watched as wave after wave of reality washed over the boy's face - his father was dead, his father had left him, he was alone with his mother.
Frank left the house quietly. He had to knock on two more doors. "No, make that three doors," he said out loud.
"I'm going to find out what Gilmore's role in all this was."
* * *
In the Sea Otter Frank walked past Gilmore's auditorium, where raucous catcalls punctuated his nightly sex show. Up ahead, to the left, the juke box in the Bar played nineties' rap. Frank ignored it all and pushed right into the door marked Private, Office of James T. Gilmore, Director.
It was 9:30 PM.
Gilmore sat behind his big desk, studying a folder.
Frank marched right up to the desk and shook his wet parka off. "Gilmore, you've made three widows today."
Gilmore stood, defiantly. "Hold on here, Villa. I didn't make any widows today. Three of my men disobeyed my orders and got themselves killed."
Frank lowered his voice to a deadly, quiet tone. "Your men, your plan, your responsibility. You made three widows today and took fathers from five children." He lowered his voice even more. "No more escape attempts, Gilmore."
Gilmore opened a cigar box on his desk, took one out and lit it. "You know, Villa, this is a prison. Prisoners try to escape from prison."
"This is not a prison. It's a community."
Gilmore looked sideways at him and sneered. "Sure, it is."
Frank stared at the man. Anger welled up inside him. "Listen, Gilmore, if you want to escape, then you get yourself a boat and you go out there and let the Coast Guard blow you out of the water. Don't get some of your minions to do it for you."
Frank felt his face flush with anger.
Gilmore took a big puff of smoke and blew it at him. "Like I said, Villa, it was none of my doing. And, as long as we're talking, I never got a chance last week to tell you to stay away from my wife. You know, it's not the leader-type thing to do. You talk about democracy and respect for convicts. What kind of respect is that to me - and to her?"