Still, it seemed to him Armiston wasn’t the sort to plot out a break for himself, particularly from a place filled with loners like this one. He was more of a team player and a follower. Also, he was probably facing nothing more than the warehouse break-in; no California, no extradition, no murder one.
In fact, now that Turley had made him think about the situation, it made sense to Parker that Armiston had already made his deal, whatever it was going to be. He’d had two weeks for it, and nothing he did or said could make things worse for Parker, so why not?
Which meant this meeting was for a different reason. Turley had something else in mind. Parker sat there and waited for it.
Turley let him wait awhile, half-smiling, and then said, “No? Still don’t wanna get involved in game theory?”
“Not right now,” Parker said.
Turley sat back, toying with a pencil on his desk. “You’ve settled in pretty good here,” he said.
It’s coming now, Parker thought. He said, “You don’t settle in here. This is a bus depot.”
“Granted,” Turley said. “That’s perfectly true. In fact, most people in here never really make connections with one another at all.”
This is it, Parker thought. It’s Jelinek who’s started the negotiation, “beginning to make noises like he’d maybe come around,” as Turley had said of Armiston. It was Jelinek who’d passed on his observations to the authorities here, so naturally they were hoping to cut out the middleman, get the story without Jelinek’s help.
“But you,” Turley was going on, “you surprised me, Kasper.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes, you did. I figured you for the silent type, not the gregarious hail-fellow sort, not the kind of fella who makes friends that easy.”
Parker shrugged at that; what else?
“But here you are,” Turley said, “you got a couple buddies already.”
“I do?”
Turley consulted a sheet of paper on the desk in front of himself, the sheet of paper he’d been rolling that pencil on, though the consultation was clearly just a part of the play-act. Turley knew what names he was looking for. “Thomas Marcantoni,” he read; or said. “Brandon Williams.”
“Williams is my cellmate,” Parker said. “Why be rude to a cellmate?”
“Very wise,” Turley agreed. “And you play checkers with Marcantoni.”
“It makes the time pass.”
“And the three of you do weights together.”
“Sometimes,” Parker said. “You can get out of shape in here, just sit around, wait for your trial to come along. I’m still waiting on my arraignment.”
With a down-turning smile, Turley said, “I think your lawyer’s mostly the cause of that. I see, by the way, you weren’t happy with the lawyer the court provided.”
Parker said, “Mr. Sherman? He looks to me like he was overextended. I didn’t want to take up a lot of his time.”
Turley laughed, and it sounded real. He said, “What are you and Marcantoni and Williams up to?”
“Staying in shape,” Parker said. “Passing the time.”
“I hope you don’t have anything else in mind,” Turley said. He gave Parker his bright-bird look, then said, “Did you know this place was built seven years ago? Would you believe that? Seven years, and already look how it’s crowded.”
“Too many bad people around,” Parker suggested.
“That must be it,” Turley agreed. “But even with this overcrowding, this situation here being less than ideal, do you know how many escapes there’ve been from Stoneveldt since it opened?”
“Escapes? No. Why would I want to know about escapes?”
“Zero,” Turley said. He nodded to the guard. “Take Mr. Kasper back to his cell,” he said.
15
We’ve got to do it soon,” Parker said. “They’ll give us a few days, just a few, but if they don’t figure anything out, they’ll move us, put us on three different floors.”
Marcantoni looked up from the checkerboard. “I told you, Jelinek has to die.”
“On our way out,” Parker said. “Otherwise, he’ll see us move, and start to talk.”
“That, too,” Marcantoni said.
16
Looks like Thursday,” Parker said. “Five P.M.”
Mackey nodded. “I was wondering when you’d get around to it,” he said.
Thursdays, the third tier worked on its cases late in the day, starting at two-fifteen, finishing at four forty-five. At any time before four-fifteen you could decide to go down to the library, get a little work in on your case.
Jelinek didn’t work on his case, not in the same way the bozos did. Thursday afternoon, just a little before four, he was almost alone in the game room, spread on his back on a couch in the corner, reading Car & Driver. On the wall to the left of his head was a set of shelves where the games were kept.
He looked up when he saw Parker cross the room toward him, and would have gotten to his feet except that Parker made a down-patting motion in the air; stay there, no big deal, I just want to talk with you a minute. So Jelinek put the magazine down, looked expectant, and reacted just a bit late when he saw Marcantoni moving in from the other side, not hurrying but striding, diagonally across the room toward Jelinek’s feet.
“What—”
That was as far as he got before Parker’s left hand closed on his windpipe and pressed him down onto the couch. Jelinek’s hands snapped up to clutch at Parker’s wrist, straining to lift that arm. His legs started to writhe, but then Marcantoni casually sat on his legs, reached his hand leftward past Parker, and plucked Jelinek’s right hand from Parker’s wrist. Pushing that hand down onto Jelinek’s stomach, Marcantoni reached across himself with his free hand to pick up the magazine from Jelinek’s chest and start reading it himself, one-handed. He didn’t seem to notice the convulsions of Jelinek’s legs beneath him or the tense quivers of Jelinek’s wrist grasped in his hand.
Jelinek’s eyes and mouth were all wide open. He wanted to say something that nobody wanted to hear. His left hand gave up on the wrist pressed down on his throat, and he reached up to claw at Parker’s face. Parker’s free right hand plucked Jelinek’s hand from the air and forced it down onto the couch arm, behind Jelinek’s head, just as Williams arrived. Williams hunkered down in front of the shelves, in order to study the games on offer. His left hand reached over to take Jelinek’s left hand from Parker and continue to hold it tight against the arm of the couch.
Jelinek was going, his face turning red, the struggles of his limbs getting weaker. Parker watched him, waiting for the moment. They didn’t want a strangulation death, with eyes bulged and tongue protruded and flesh the color of raw beef. They needed to leave something that looked more natural than that. Inmates fell asleep on these couches all the time, with so little to do. No one would try to wake him until everybody was supposed to line up for dinner.
Now. Parker lifted his hand from Jelinek’s throat. Jelinek stirred, trying to breathe, to cry out, to do something to save himself. Parker clutched Jelinek’s jaw in his left hand and lifted. His right hand slid under Jelinek’s head, feeling the greasy hair. Both hands clamped to that head, he snapped it hard to the left. They all heard the crack.
Parker straightened, Marcantoni stood, Williams got up from the shelves of games. They all glanced around, but the few other people in the room were involved in their games or their reading.
Marcantoni sniffed. “He shit,” he said.
Parker said, “Cover him with a blanket. Williams, you go first.”
Williams left the game room, while Marcantoni went to the low table where a few thin gray blankets were kept folded, for when people napped in here rather than in their cells. He threw it over Jelinek, said to Parker, “See you later,” and left.
“You’re running it pretty close,” the guard at the stairway door said, looking at his watch.
“I just thought of something might help,” Parker told him.
&nb
sp; The guard shook his head, but didn’t bother to point out that nothing was going to help any of these losers in here. Turning to his radio, he clicked it on and said, “Got another librarian coming down.”
“Make that the last,” squawked the radio.
“Absolutely.”
The guard buzzed the gate open, not bothering to look at Parker again, and Parker went down the clanging stairs for the last time. The guards below passed him on, along the standard route, and when he went into the inmates’ part of the library there were only five other cons there, including Williams and Marcantoni. Williams typed something or other at one of the electric typewriters, Marcantoni was in discussion with the volunteer lawyer at the chest-high counter separating the inmates’ space from the volunteer’s space, and the other three cons all doggedly typed, with just a few fingers.
Parker went over to stand on line behind Marcantoni, and to hear him say to the volunteer, “I’m gonna need one of those typewriters.”
“So am I,” Parker said.
There were three or four different volunteer lawyers. This one was white, tall, skinny, midthirties but already balding, and wore a yellow tie that made his pale face look even paler. Now, with a look at his watch, he called over to the cons at the typewriters, “Time’s up, fellas. You can come back tomorrow.”
Williams said, “I just got here.”
“I know you did,” the volunteer assured him. “But these other three fellas.”
The three fellas were used to being ordered around. Without any argument, they gathered up their materials into the folders or envelopes they used as briefcases, and one by one made ready to leave.
Meantime, Marcantoni discussed his case with the volunteer, giving him a very complex story about missing witnesses and prejudiced ex-wives. The volunteer nodded through it all, listening, taking notes, and finally the three other cons left, trailing out, all of them trying to look hopeful. The door closed behind them at last, and Marcantoni reached out across the counter to grasp the volunteer’s yellow tie, yank him forward, and head-butt him so hard the volunteer slumped, eyes out of focus, and would have fallen to the floor on his side of the counter if Marcantoni hadn’t kept hold of the necktie.
Williams went over to lock the corridor door as Marcantoni and Parker pulled the volunteer up far enough onto the counter to go through his pockets, pulling out wallet, thick key ring, notepad, two pens, comb, cellphone, pocket of tissues, eyeglass cleaner cloth, and a state police ID card to put on your dashboard when illegally parked.
“Jesus,” the volunteer gasped, flopping draped over the counter like a fish over the gunwale, “what are you, what are you fellas, what can you, what can you possibl…”
They ignored him, Parker going over the counter to see what was available on the other side, while Marcantoni kept hold of the volunteer’s tie and Williams took a quick scan through his wallet, then hunkered down close to the counter so he could look the volunteer in the eye and say, “Jim? You okay, Jim?”
“What?” Hearing his name both calmed the volunteer and focused him, so that he quit flopping around and blinked at Williams. “What did you say?”
Williams tapped the open wallet, showing it to the volunteer. “Says here you’re gonna be an organ donor, Jim,” he said. “That’s a wonderful thing, I want you to know that.”
“Yes,” the volunteer said, still trying to catch up.
“I mean it, Jim,” Williams told him, while Parker went through the rear half of the library. “Being an organ donor’s just about the most generous thing a person can do.”
“It’s the least,” the volunteer said. He was still groggy, but focusing more on Williams now.
“No, it’s the most, man,” Williams insisted. “That you want to be an organ donor.” He leaned closer, almost nose to nose with the volunteer. Low-voiced, confidential, he said, “But not today, Jim.”
The volunteer flinched, and Marcantoni had to yank him down again by the necktie. Wide-eyed, the volunteer stared at Williams. “I don’t want to die!”
“Of course you don’t, Jim.” Williams went on in that low, soft, confidential manner, saying, “These two guys I’m with, I’ve got to tell you, they’re the meanest people I ever met in my life. I come along because they asked me to, and whatever they ask me to do I’m gonna do, you know what I mean? Jim? Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” said the volunteer.
“Now, listen, Jim,” Williams said. “I made these boys promise me one thing before we started. I made them promise me no killing, unless it’s absolutely necessary. I mean, none of us have guns, and you don’t have a gun, and any guard that comes in here, they don’t carry guns, not in the part where the cons are.”
“That’s right,” the volunteer said.
“So there won’t be any killing,” Williams assured him, “there won’t even be any danger for anybody, if we all just stay calm and do it by the book. And Jim, what I mean here is their book. They’re gonna ask you to do a couple things pretty soon, nothing bad, nothing hard to do. Jim, I want you to promise me, you’re not gonna make me look bad. Just do what these fellas say, and you’ll be outa this mess in no time.”
The volunteer nodded. “I know what you’re saying,” he said. He sounded better now.
Parker walked back toward the counter. “There’s a chair back here.”
“I think Jim would like to sit awhile,” Williams said.
“Time,” Marcantoni said.
“Oh, you’re right,” Williams said. ’Jim, I’m not gonna steal your watch, but I would like to look at it. Could you twist your arm around here? Thanks. It’s twelve minutes to five. You gonna be okay if Tom lets go of your tie?”
“Yes,” said the volunteer, so Marcantoni released the tie and the volunteer slid backward off the counter until his feet were on the floor, then stood there reeling a bit, holding to the counter edge with both hands.
Williams, sounding concerned, said, “Your vision a little blurry, Jim?”
“Yes.”
“What you’ve got there,” Williams told him, “you’ve got a slight concussion. Nothing serious. But when this is done, just a few minutes from now, you’ll take my advice, you go straight to your family doctor. Not the ones in the dispensary here, they’re not that good, if you want the truth. You go to your family doctor, right?”
“Yes,” the volunteer said.
Marcantoni said, “Have somebody drive you. Don’t drive yourself.”
Williams said, “Good thinking.”
While Parker looked around the back library area for anything useful, he listened to Williams and Marcantoni herd the volunteer. They knew how to go about it, hard and soft, a menace but not quite a mortal threat. He’d needed to find a crew in this place, and he’d found one.
Williams said, “Jim, whyn’t you sit down in your chair.”
The volunteer made it across the clear space from the counter to his small desk and chair, tucked away in a corner out of sight of anybody in the inmates’ area. He dropped there, both forearms on the desk, mouth slightly open.
Marcantoni was fooling with the volunteer’s cellphone. Now he said, “How do I get this thing to work?”
“It doesn’t work in here,” the volunteer told him.“You have to take it outside.”
“Well, that’s where I’m going,” Marcantoni said, but when he and Williams hoisted themselves over the counter he left the cellphone behind with the rest of the volunteer’s stuff.
Parker told them, “There’s cartons back here. Some kind of legal boxes.”
“Good,” Marcantoni said, looking at them. Stacked in a corner were four empty white cardboard cartons with separate cardboard tops, like the boxes used to carry evidence into court. They’d most likely been used here to bring books in.
Williams said, “What have we got for persuasion?”
“This desk lamp,” Marcantoni said, and picked up from in front of the volunteer a heavy metal lamp with a pen trough in its broad bas
e and a long green glass globe around the bulb. Marcantoni yanked the end of the cord from the outlet, then took the base of the lamp in one hand and its neck in the other and jerked them back and forth against each other until something snapped. Then he started to separate them and said, “Damn the cord. Jim, you got scissors?”
“In the top drawer,” the volunteer said. He looked mournfully at his lamp.
Opening the drawer, taking out the scissors, Williams told the volunteer, “They still make those lamps, the state’ll buy you another one.” Turning, he snipped the cord, so Marcantoni could drop the glass globe in the wastebasket and heft the base. With a conspiratorial grin at the volunteer, Williams put the scissors back in the drawer and shut it.
Meantime, Parker had found the supplies closet; a metal stand-alone armoire with two doors on the front. Inside were mostly forms, papers, various kinds of tape. But on one shelf was a green metal file box, sixteen inches long, meant for 3×5 cards. It was full of the cards, half in use for various records, the rest still in their clear packaging. The file box was unwieldy, but heavy; Parker ran duct tape over the front of it, to keep it closed, so he could carry it by the front handle.
Williams said, “Is it time?”
“Might as well,” Marcantoni said.
Williams sat on the corner of the volunteer’s desk. “Jim,” he said, “this is where you’ve got to do it right, or you’re in big trouble.”
The volunteer looked at him, tense, waiting.
“You’re gonna call out to the guards at the end of the corridor,” Williams told him. “The way you do every day, phone to them to unlock your door here so you can go home. But today you’re gonna tell them you’ve got two heavy cartons of law books to be carried out of here, and you’d appreciate it if a couple guards could come down and give you a hand. You’ve done that kind of thing before, the guards carrying the heavy stuff for the civilians like you, am I right?”
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