‘It’s against the law,’ said Bell.
‘So’s murder, rape and sexually molesting children. Still happens all the time.’ It was irritating having to go through the prison complaint charade before getting to what was really important to him, but he’d been patient for fifteen years and the delay now was going to be about fifteen minutes.
‘We’re OK. Trust me. What’s the complaint?’
Bell made no attempt to take notes as Mason recounted what had happened during the Washington visit. He didn’t once look at Mason, either, but sat head bowed on the other side of the interview table. Nor did he interrupt.
It seemed several moments after Mason stopped before the lawyer said, ‘Why should Howitt try to set you up?’
‘I told you, to screw my maximum remission.’
‘Why’d he want to do that?’
‘Because I haven’t kissed his ass, like everyone else.’
‘That serious enough to him, to try a stunt like this?’
‘He’s a bullying bastard. Wants everyone frightened of him.’
‘But you’re not?’
‘And he knows it. There’s going to be an internal prison enquiry. It’s on hold until we were able to talk like this.’
‘You’re alleging conspiracy. Who else was involved, apart from Howitt?’
‘An ass-licking guard named Gerry Garson.’
‘What producible evidence have you got?’
‘I wasn’t officially signed out. Which I understand I should have been, according to prison regulations. And I wasn’t taken in a secure prison van, which I also understand is covered by prison regulations. I was taken to the airport in Garson’s private car – I’ve got the number – and paraded in handcuffs until we approached Washington. They weren’t put back on, definitely not on the return trip, when I was under FBI escort. Shouldn’t I have been taken by the US Marshall’s office?’
‘Technically, perhaps.’
‘That’s what technicalities are for, rules to be observed.’
‘The moment Howitt disappeared, you handed yourself over to airport police.’
‘They could be called as witnesses. The FBI who got called in didn’t believe Howitt’s story. And there’s to be an internal enquiry, like I told you.’
‘When you went into Reagan terminal it was just the two of you – you and Howitt?’
‘Yes.’ Come on, let’s get it over with!
‘No other witnesses?’
‘There’s the airport policemen.’
‘Who weren’t involved until you went up to them? No one actually witnessed Howitt ducking away?’
‘No.’
‘It’s your word against his. He’s a senior prison guard, you’re a convicted felon. I’d take a bet the records show you properly signed out.’
‘Who’s got maximum, good behaviour remission. Why should I risk screwing it up trying to escape less than a month before I was going to be released anyway!’
‘Your release being delayed, because of what happened?’
‘Not that I’ve been told. I think that’s something you should establish.’
‘At the moment you haven’t lost anything?’
He could have predicted the conversation, thought Mason, who had no intention of pursuing any sort of claim to its end. ‘Not for Howitt’s want of trying.’
‘You looking for financial compensation?’
‘Don’t I deserve it, having had five years of freedom put in jeopardy?’
‘Which isn’t going to be jeopardized. You beat the bastard, if indeed it was a set-up.’
‘He should pay! Someone should pay.’ And you’re the key to a lot of money you don’t even know about, thought Mason.
‘It could take a long time.’
‘I’m used to long times, like fifteen years within the same walls. All I’m asking you to do is look into it. Decide if there’s a case.’
‘I’m just pointing up practical, legal difficulties, that’s all,’ insisted Bell.
‘Will you look into it, at least?’
‘I’ll look into it,’ begrudged the lawyer. ‘It won’t be quick, though.’
The last thing he wanted was for it to be quick, thought Mason. ‘I’m initially going to be under Washington parole, right on your doorstep. And we need to meet about other things, don’t we?’
‘Everything’s in order, waiting,’ assured the lawyer.
‘How much money is in the account?’ Bell had held power of attorney over his mother’s estate for the past ten years.
‘I checked before I left Washington,’ said Bell. ‘Your mother’s house sold for $120,000 and there was $80,000 after the sale of the disposable assets and the money that was in the account. It’s all been on the highest interest deposit, in the First National. In round figures you’re looking at close to $300,000.’
‘I’d like you to move, say, $50,000 into a checking account. And arrange a chequebook and cash card to be ready for when I get out.’
‘Of course.’
Mason hesitated. ‘There was a strongbox in which my mother kept things she thought important?’ And which is even more important to me, he thought.
‘That’s in a safety deposit box, at the First National. Those were your instructions.’
‘I’m hoping there’ll be some things, momentos, that I’d like to have. Photographs, stuff like that.’
‘I can understand,’ smiled Bell.
‘I’ll get in touch, as soon as I get out.’
‘Of course. It’s going to take some getting used to.’
More than you could ever guess, thought Mason. ‘I’ll admit to being a little nervous.’
‘It wouldn’t be natural if you weren’t. Everything will be ready for you.’
‘And by then you’ll have thought about this claim?’
‘Absolutely.’
Mason hadn’t expected to encounter Gerry Garson until the following morning at least but found the man at the far end of the library corridor later that afternoon when he closed up. Mason was within yards of the man before Garson saw him, immediately trying to hurry away.
‘Gerry!’ stopped Mason. There’s something you need to hear. Something important.’
The prison guard halted, trying – but failing – to appear surprised at Mason being there. ‘I didn’t see you.’
‘Good job I saw you then. I had an interview with my attorney today. You might know about that, as you know there’s an internal enquiry about you and Howitt trying to pull that escape stunt. My lawyer thinks I’ve got a guaranteed compensation claim. Big bucks for me, goodbye job and pension for you and Frankie. I haven’t decided yet whether to go ahead with it. If anything bad – anything at all – happened to Chambers after I get out it might make my mind up for me. I could call him as a witness. You tell Frankie that, OK? You let him know just how much his fat ass is on the line. And yours, too. You understand what I’m telling you, Gerry?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘The same problem about answering a simple question that you had driving into the airport,’ reminded Mason. ‘I want to hear from you loud and clear that you understand what I’m telling you. So let me hear it, Gerry. You understand everything I’ve said, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I’ve understood,’ mumbled the man.
‘And you’re going to tell Howitt, make sure he understands?’
‘Yes, I’m going to tell him.’
‘That’s good. It’s important that we all completely understand each other.’
Mason waited until lock-up and the gradual although minimal quietening along the landing before telling Chambers, ‘You haven’t got anything to worry about after I get out.’
‘You sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘How’ve you fixed it?’
‘It’s fixed.’
‘I’m grateful.’
‘You haven’t told me what hotel you’ve chosen for us to meet at, when you get out,’ prompted Mason.
‘Th
e New York Sheraton, on Seventh and 56th. Conventions all the time.’
‘The 28th.’
‘I’ll be there, waiting.’
So will I, thought Mason. Everything was going like well-oiled clockwork.
Six
Jack Mason didn’t resort to any histrionics like stopping outside White Deer to gaze up in relief at the heavens or turn back with an obscene gesture, as he’d seen and heard of other long timers doing at their moment of release. Neither was the reservation anything to do with his first experience of relative freedom for the parole hearing, although it had put the disposal of the antiquated broad-lapelled and flaptrouser cuffed suit at the top of his immediate agenda. In the lost environment of penitentiary incarceration such predictable demonstrations were the closely watched and intently discussed stuff of prison folklore and Mason had years ago determined against performing for anyone’s satisfaction or benefit other than his own. He didn’t have difficulty either, in preventing any surprise at seeing Glynis Needham waiting at the wheel of a macho, broad-wheeled Cherokee 4x4, appropriately dressed in jeans, check work shirt and work boots.
At the car door he said, ‘I’ve got a travel voucher.’
‘I’ve got wheels,’ said the parole officer.
‘It’s a long drive to DC.’
‘We’ve got all day and I like long drives.’
‘You take this care about every parolee?’ asked Mason, getting into the vehicle.
‘No.’
‘Why me?’ asked Mason, although he believed he already knew.
‘Because I felt like it. And we got things to talk about.’
To have been waiting outside this early she would have had to have driven over the previous evening and stayed somewhere, Mason calculated. ‘I’m glad you did.’ He wondered how long it would take for her to make her pitch? But it really was a long drive. She didn’t have to hurry.
‘So how’s it feel to be out?’ Glynis Needham asked, firing the engine.
‘Good.’ Which role would she play, bull or bitch? He could allow himself to think about pussy now, after subjugating what had once been a preoccupation. Her shirt was too loose to decide what sort of tits she had, even though they would be off limits to him.
‘You going to miss your friend?’
‘My friend?’
‘Chambers.’
Did she believe like everyone else that he was gay, as she very obviously was, and that because of it there would be some bizarre empathy between them? ‘Sounds like you’re taking a special interest.’
‘I always take a special interest. That’s my job.’
‘I’m grateful for how you’re doing it so far.’
‘What about Chambers?’
‘Everyone got that wrong.’ He didn’t want her to have any curious recall if she heard later of Chambers’ death. Why the hell had she raised it now!
‘Sure,’ she dismissed, just as confusingly. ‘I’ve got you a room in a hostel.’
With sheets smelling of piss, farts and jerked-off semen, he guessed. ‘I’m not staying in any hostel. If you’ve read my file properly you know I’ve got money. I was thinking of something by myself at a Guest Quarters. There’s one I remember by the Watergate.’
‘I don’t like – or want – hostility.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Mason. He wasn’t worried the stupid bitch didn’t like being confronted. She had to agree to his staying somewhere other than in the accommodation she had selected.
‘Then let’s not have any.’
She’d be the bull with the strap-on dick, Mason decided. ‘If you’ve read all my reports you know I’m not hostile and you would have known of my inheritance, while I was inside. I’ve got more than enough jail money until I see my lawyer and pick up the bank things he’s been holding for me.’
‘I do know about the inheritance,’ said the woman. ‘And I’ll do everything I can to help you settle down.’
‘Thank you. You’re heading for the interstate, right?’
She chanced a sideways glance. ‘Why?’
‘You mind stopping at a mall, first? I want to get out of this fancy dress.’
She sniggered. ‘Good idea. Difficult to believe that suit was once snappy, isn’t it?’
‘Maybe catch a coffee and a bagel, too?’ Knowing she’d expect the remark he added, ‘First food I can choose myself, now that I’m out.’
‘Why not?’
The interstate was being signposted before they came to a shopping complex. It was far bigger than Mason could remember from 1985, the year he’d been arrested and held, pre-trial. He disguised any outward bewilderment at the bustle and the size, isolating almost forgotten store names. Mason was oddly glad, although he didn’t know why, when the woman got out of the car to walk with him into J C Penny. He bought everything new, even underwear and loafers, bemused that the fitness regime had taken an inch off his old waist size and added two across his chest and shoulders. He bought an additional pair of jeans, three extra check sport shirts and a loose, Italian-labelled windbreak. Glynis Needham chose a soft leather grip to carry his purchases in. She also brought a large plastic shopping sack to the changing room for him to bag up all the discarded clothes, which he dumped into a waste bin directly outside the store, on their way to the nearby McDonald’s. Mason, who in the penitentiary had rigidly controlled his diet as he’d controlled everything else, had a sausage and egg McMuffin breakfast, with extra hash browns and drank three cups of coffee and insisted on paying for Glynis’s maple syrup waffles and coffee, as well as his own meal.
‘Feel like you’ve never been away?’ said Glynis Needham.
‘Feels like I shouldn’t have eaten so much.’
‘You’re doing good. Damned good.’
‘Good?’
‘I know you’re nervous, getting out. But no one would know, certainly not now you’re dressed properly.’
‘If there’s still a Guest Quarters near the Watergate, we could make a reservation from here.’
‘You want me to do it for you, on my cell phone?’
Mason felt a blip of irritation, at being beholden, but said, ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’
‘It’s my job to fit you back into society,’ she said, with almost mocking formality.
‘You’re helping a lot, this early,’ said Mason, his irritation lessening at the awareness that it was he who was patronizing her rather than how she thought it to be. He watched and listened attentively, determined not to make mistakes when he got his own cell phone.
Glynis Needham made her pitch within minutes of their getting on to the interstate, tapping her fingers against the wheel to accompany the softly playing country and western for which Mason thought they were both dressed.
She said, ‘I think there might have been a misunderstanding.’
‘Misunderstanding?’ queried Mason, genuinely confused.
‘When we met at the penitentiary after that mix-up in Washington. I didn’t mean it to sound like a threat when I said a compensation claim might affect your release.’
‘Then it was my misunderstanding,’ said Mason, in seeming apology. It was close to being amusing.
‘You serious about going ahead with it?’
Mason set out automatically to use the word ‘fuck’, which she’d probably expect after his being institutionalized for so long in an environment in which the obscenity featured so much, but instead, maintaining the reformed persona, he said, ‘Howitt tried to screw me over.’
She gave another sideways look at the restraint. ‘But didn’t manage it.’
‘It could have cost me another five years.’
‘But it didn’t.’
‘He still tried.’
‘You properly thought about what it would mean? Headlines again, your being recognized wherever you go. You really want all that notoriety repeated?’
‘I want Howitt properly punished for what he tried to do, like I was properly punished and served my time, for what I did.’ It was dif
ficult not to laugh aloud.
‘I’m on the inside here, remember. I know what’s already been sworn by the airport police and the FBI,’ said the woman. ‘Howitt will be found guilty at least of gross negligence, which will mean his being stripped of his rank and seniority.’
‘He deserves to be dismissed.’
‘That won’t happen.’
‘It will if there’s a full hearing and I get compensation.’
‘You really think it’s worth it, put against the anonymity you’ll lose? It’s you and your resettlement I’m thinking about.’
Bullshit, thought Mason. She was thinking of a nice quiet, secret internal tribunal with no embarrassment to the prison service, which was what Hubert Harrison had been thinking of during their final release interview at which the warden had even used some of the same words and argument as Glynis Needham was now employing. ‘I gotta go with my attorney’s advice.’
‘No, you don’t,’ insisted the woman. ‘You’ve got to listen to his advice and make a decision based upon it – upon what’s best for you. And I think you should balance that decision by what I’ve warned you you’ll lose.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mason, choosing the moment to introduce his supposed uncertainty. ‘I got to think about it, like I’ve got to think about a lot of other things like relocating to California … California and sunshine.’
‘That’s exactly what you’ve got to do,’ urged the woman. ‘Think long and hard about what there is to lose against what there is to gain.’
It came as a sudden, physical chill, so that Mason shivered and was surprised to find that he had his arms around himself, hugging himself, and that there was a churning sensation, physical again, deep in his stomach. He unwrapped his arms, embarrassed although he was alone in the Guest Quarters apartment but kept his hands together, driving back into himself the control that he’d always been so confident of having. Gradually the shivering stopped and the inner turmoil went. There was sound: outside traffic noise and the inevitable scream of an emergency siren; but to Mason it appeared to be – it was – total silence. He hadn’t known such silence for years, he realized: fifteen years, longer if he included his remand custody. Or aloneness. Always the rustling, crying, shifting movement of the claustrophobic human anthill that was unrelenting, uninterrupted imprisonment.
Time to Kill Page 6