Glass Cell (4 page)

“As usual?” Her frown was back.

“I meant, it’s Sunday. You usually see him Sunday evenings, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say usually. Phil, I tell you every time I see him and what we talk about and even what we eat.”

That was true, and Carter clamped his teeth together. It was only Gawill who had made a couple of cracks in his last letter, and Gawill was no doubt exaggerating or making things up.

“You never mention what you eat,” Hazel said.

Carter could suddenly laugh a little. “I don’t think you’d care for it. Hog jowl—” And other things unidentifiable that had their prison names.

“You can complain to me. I only wish I could share it with you.”

The pain in his thumbs made his mind swim. He spoke to keep alert. “I don’t like to think of you here. I don’t want you to know all about it, because it’s too disgusting. Sometimes I don’t even want to look at the picture I have of you here.”

She looked surprised and also frightened. “Darling—”

“I don’t mean I don’t want you to visit me here. My God, I don’t mean that.” The sweat rolled down in front of his ears.

“Two more minutes,” said the guard, strolling behind Carter.

Carter looked wildly at the clock. It was true.

“Mr. Magran said he’d already written to the warden about your thumbs,” Hazel said.

“Well, the warden won’t reply to it,” Carter said quickly.

“What do you mean? It’s a letter from your lawyer.”

“I mean,” he said, trying to sound calmer, “he’ll acknowledge the letter, but he probably won’t refer to the stringing up. I know he won’t.”

Hazel wrung her fingers together. The cigarette trembled. “Well, we’ll see— Oh, darling, how I wish I could cook a few meals for you!”

Carter laughed, a laugh as if someone had crushed his chest. “There’s an old fellow here named Mac, nearly seventy. All he talks about is his wife’s cooking—apple pies, venison
sauerbraten
, popovers. Popovers, imagine!” Carter burst out in another laugh, his shoulders shaking, and he saw Hazel laugh, too, almost in her old way, and it transformed her face. “It’s funny because”—Carter wiped tears from his eyes—“because all the other guys talk about how they miss their wives or their girls in bed or something, and he talks about food. He spends all his spare time making ship models or making
one
ship he’s been on since I got here. It’s four feet long and his cellmate complains because it takes up too much room. He’s just up here.” Carter waved a hand sideways and up to the right, as if Mac’s cell were visible.

“Time’s up,” said the guard.

Carter half stood up, his lips apart, staring at Hazel.

Hazel was already standing up, to leave him. “That’s the first person you’ve told me about here. Tell me more. Write me. See you next Sunday, darling.” She blew him a kiss, turned and went.

He began the long walk back down the cell block. He had to have another shot before he could sit through twenty minutes with Magran. Near the end of the cell block, he looked left, and at last he came to Mac’s cell. The door was open and Mac sat there on his straight chair, so absorbed in the delicate sanding of his ship’s hull that he did not notice Carter looking at him. The ship was not yet painted, but Mac had made great progress since Carter had last seen it. The rigging looked finished.

“Hello, Mac,” Carter said. “My name’s Carter.”

“Oh, hello, hello,” Mac said, cordially but not recognizing him, and turned back to his work. “Got time for a visit?”

“No. Sorry, I haven’t. Some other time.” Carter walked on. Mac had made some kind of peace with himself, and for that Carter envied him. Mac hadn’t even noticed his bandaged hands, and that was somehow comforting to Carter, too. Mac hadn’t even
seen
him, Carter thought, only heard his voice.

4

C
arter got his shot from Pete, then sat on one of the wicker chairs at the end of the ward. He was so tense, he could not keep his heels from jittering on the gray linoleum floor. The visit from Hazel had made him realize something terrible, that he had been enduring the past three months in a deliberate fog, in a kind of mental armor that was not after all strong enough. Among the inmates and with Dr. Cassini, he could keep it up. With Hazel, he had been himself for a few minutes. The pain in his thumbs had been the coup de grâce to his morale. He had whined to her, he had shown bitterness and ingratitude. He had been everything a man should not be with his wife.

He sat back and let the morphine work its miracle. The morphine was attacking the pain, and as usual the morphine was winning the battle—would win for nearly two hours. Then the pain would rally its forces and counterattack the morphine, and it would be the pain’s turn to win. It was another game, futile and unreal, like the prison game. Carter saw it as a series of shocks and a series of efforts at adjusting. The first shock had been stripping naked with a dozen other men who were being admitted to the prison the same day, one with red sores on his back, another with a head wound, still drunk and belligerent, one a scared-faced kid of nineteen or twenty with a shapely, small mouth like a girl’s, a face Carter had puzzled over for an instant, wondering if that was the kind of innocent face that could mask the worst criminal of the lot of them. Then the first meals, the first dreary lights-out and the broken sleep until it was time to get up before dawn, the first nights of cold in December, the night he had stripped off his clothing and pajamas, wet them in the basin, and, while Hanky held a match so he could see, stuffed the clothes into the cracks between the stones at the back of the cell. Hanky had thought it very clever of him to wet the clothes so they would freeze tight, but there had been more cracks than clothing. He remembered Christmas with bronchitis in bed in his cell, and the first approach of a homosexual in the shoe factory. All this Carter had more or less got used to or at least learned to tolerate without fury. Even the stringing up he had tolerated, he thought, with some fortitude, but what if that fortitude were to collapse? What if it collapsed very soon because of the nagging pain in his thumbs? Would he run screaming through the corridors, tackling guards, hurling his fists in anybody’s face—until they shot him down or he banged his brains out against some stone wall?

Clark came and told him that he had a visitor downstairs. Carter made some lumpy instant coffee with water out of the tap, put three teaspoons of sugar into it for energy, and gulped it. Then he took a pass from Clark and went down in the elevator.

Once more the long walk to the visiting room. If this was Magran, Carter thought, he had no idea what he looked like, but Magran could recognize him by the bandages on his thumbs. Carter pulled his shoulders back. He had to make the best impression he could on Magran, not as to innocence, but as to confidence: Magran would report to Hazel on the interview.

In the visiting room, a man stood up and beckoned to him with a slight smile.

“Lawrence Magran. How do you do?” said Magran.

“How do you do?” Carter sat down as Magran did.

Magran was a short, round man with thinning black hair, rimless glasses, and hunched shoulders, and he looked as if he spent most of his time at a desk. He asked Carter how he was feeling, if his hands gave him much pain, if his wife had come earlier to see him. Magran’s voice was surprisingly gentle and soft. Carter had to lean forward to hear him.

“I think your wife’s talked to you about the Supreme Court appeal. It’s a slow business, but it’s our only hope now.”

“Yes, she has. I’m glad to hear you use the word “hope” at all. I can use some,” Carter said.

“I’m sure you can. And I don’t want to hold out too much. But people have appealed successfully to the Supreme Court, and that’s what we’re going to try, if you’re willing.”

“Certainly I’m willing.”

“And face the fact that it may be a good seven months before we have an answer, and the answer may be no.”

Carter nodded. Seven or six months, as Tutting had said, what was the difference?

Magran questioned him from some notes he had brought.

Carter replied, “As I said at the trial, I signed the invoices and the receipts when Palmer was somewhere out on the construction grounds. Lots of times he was away from the shed. I mean, where the truckers came in.”

“Your wife said you had the idea Palmer was often deliberately away so you’d have to sign them. Is that true?”

“Yes, that’s true. That’s the way I remember it.”

Magran scribbled a few notes, then he stood up. He said he would write to Carter in a few days. Then, with a cheerful wave of his hand, he was gone.

Carter felt cheered. Magran hadn’t mentioned the cost of anything, hadn’t extended a single false hope or even hope, really. “Get the doctor’s statement on your thumbs,” Magran had said, and that was all on the subject. Carter was walking past the visiting-room door guard, when the guard touched his arm and said:

“You got another visitor.”

“Thanks.” Carter looked toward the cage. Sullivan, he supposed. He turned and went down the steps to the visiting room.

It was Gregory Gawill. Carter spotted him at once. He was heavy, dark-haired, about five feet nine, and he was wearing his oversized polo coat with white buttons. Gawill gestured with a forefinger to an empty chair, then sat down in it. Carter pulled up a chair opposite him. Gawill was a vice president of Triumph, Inc. It was the second time Gawill had visited him in prison. The first time, he had been breezy and cheerful, saying like everyone else that it was only a matter of reaching “the right people” and Carter would be out in no time. Today he was serious and commiserative. He had heard about the denial of a retrial and about Carter’s thumbs.

“I happened to call your wife the same day she heard herself, about the denial. She sounded pretty blue and I’d have gone over to see her, but she said she had a date with David Sullivan that night.”

“Oh.” Carter was on guard. Gawill’s speech sounded rehearsed.

“Sullivan’s got a lot of influence over Hazel. He’s got her thinking he’s the next thing to God.”

Carter laughed a little. “Hazel’s no fool. I doubt if she thinks anybody’s the next thing to God.”

“Don’t be too sure. Sullivan plays it close to his chest. He’s pretty much in control of her now, don’t you realize that?”

Carter felt rattled and angry. His left hand moved toward his cigarettes. “No, I didn’t realize that.”

“For one thing, Sullivan’s investigating me. Surely you’ve been told about that.”

Carter had a twinge of guilt, but he shrugged. He had suggested to Sullivan that Gawill might be as guilty as Wallace Palmer. “Sullivan carries on his own affairs. He’s a lawyer, I’m not. And he’s not my lawyer.”

Gawill smiled, without amusement. “You don’t get what I mean. Sullivan’s trying to ingratiate himself with Hazel, and he’s doing damned well at it, by saying he’ll come up with something against me. In regard to the Wally Palmer business, of course. Lots of luck, Mr. Sullivan, is all I can say.”

“How do you know this?”

“People tell me. My friends are loyal. Why shouldn’t they be? I’m not a crook. I could punch Sullivan right in the mouth. It’s bad enough that he’s playing up to your wife. How low can a man sink, playing up to another man’s wife while her husband’s stuck in prison and can’t do anything about it?”

Don’t believe half of it, Carter told himself, even a tenth of it. “What do you mean by playing up?”

Gawill’s dark eyes narrowed. “I think you know. Do I have to go into details? Your wife’s a very attractive woman. Very.”

Carter remembered the evening Gawill had made a pass at Hazel, at a party at Sullivan’s house. Gawill had had several too many that evening and made a lunge at Hazel, upsetting somebody’s plate (it had been during a buffet supper), grabbing her around the waist so roughly that a snap had come open at the back of her white dress. Carter felt again the impulse he had had to pull Gawill away from her and hit him with his fist. Hazel had been furious, too, but she had given Carter a glance that said, “Don’t do anything,” so he hadn’t. Carter was bending and unbending a matchbook cover.

“Well—why don’t you go into details? If you have any,” Carter said.

“Sullivan’s there all the time. Do I have to be any plainer? The neighbors’re talking about it. Hasn’t any of them dropped you a hint in a letter or something?”

The Edgertons hadn’t. He’d had two letters from them. The Edgertons lived next door. Their house was within sight of the Edgertons’ house. “Frankly no.”

“Well—”Gawill shifted, as if the subject were too distasteful to go on with.

Carter pressed the matchbook cover harder. “Of course, when you say all this, you’re making quite a judgment on my wife, too.”

“Aw, no-o.” Gawill drawled the word in his New Orleans accent. “I’m making a judgment on Sullivan. I think he’s a slimy bastard and I don’t mind saying so. He’s got a nice exterior, that’s all. Well brought up, dresses well. Subtle.” He gestured. “And I say he’s working on your wife. In fact, I know it.”

“Thanks for telling me. I happen to trust my wife.” Carter meant to smile a little, but he couldn’t.

“Hm-hm-hm,” Gawill said in a manner that made Carter want to sock him through the glass wall. “Well—to get on to a pleasanter subject, Drexel’s going to pay you a hundred dollars a week of your salary while you’re in this clink. Retroactive and continuing as long as your contract would have gone on. I had a long talk with Drexel on Friday night. About
you
.”

Carter was surprised. Alphonse Drexel was the president of Triumph. He had stood by in cold neutrality during Carter’s trial, and when pressed had put in the barest of good words for him:
As far as I know, he’s done a good job for me with what he had to work with. If you ask me if I think he took the money or part of it, I just don’t know
. Carter said, “Very nice of Mr. Drexel. What happened?”

“Well, I did a lot of talking,” Gawill said, smiling. “I’ve practically convinced Drexel that Wally Palmer was the crook and the only crook in this thing, so—I made him feel he didn’t say enough at the trial to help an innocent man out of the jam you were in, so he feels guilty about it, naturally. Paying you some salary’s one way of making him feel better. Anyway, I suggested it to him, and I thought you could use it.”

Had it been that simple and direct, Carter wondered. Obviously, Gawill wanted all the credit for it. Why? Because Gawill was as guilty as Palmer? Carter simply didn’t know. Palmer and Gawill had never been particularly chummy as far as Carter knew, or anybody at the trial had known, but that proved nothing at all. Nothing proved anything except little pieces of paper, checks or banknotes, that might have passed between Palmer and Gawill.

“Thanks a lot,” Carter said. “Hazel’ll be very pleased, too.”

“Wasn’t the first time I’d talked to him about it,” Gawill murmured. He looked at Carter’s bandaged thumbs and shook his head. “Your wife said your thumbs still hurt.”

“Yep,” Carter said.

“That’s a hell of a thing. They give you painkillers for it?”

“Morphine.”

“Oh. It’s easy to get hooked on that stuff.”

“I know. The doctor here’s going to give me something else. Demerol or something.”

Gawill nodded. “Well, there’s always a fall guy, I guess, and you sure were it this time.”

Carter frowned at the dirty metal ashtray in front of him. What did it all mean? Did Drexel now think he was absolutely innocent or what? Half innocent? Why didn’t Drexel write him a letter about it, or was he afraid of putting anything down on paper? Carter suddenly realized who Drexel reminded him of: Jefferson Davis. A wizened, gray old man with an unpredictable temper.

“It’s good Hazel’s going to get away for a few days. She must have had a pretty rough time these last months.”

“Away?”

“Up to Virginia with Sullivan for Easter. Didn’t she mention it? You saw her today, didn’t you?”

A painful emotion exploded in him—composed of jealousy, anger, a childlike feeling of having been left out. “Yes, I saw her. We had so many other things to talk about, she didn’t mention it.”

Gawill watched him carefully. “Yeah. Sullivan has some friends up there with a big house. An estate, horses, and a swimming pool and stuff. The Fennors.”

Carter had never heard of the Fennors. Had Hazel not mentioned it, Carter wondered, because she thought such a pleasant prospect might make him feel worse, sitting in prison?

“Sullivan’s very thoughtful about her,” Gawill went on. “I don’t think he’ll have much luck, but I think he’s really in love with her. Well, she’s pretty easy to fall in love with.” Gawill grinned. “I remember the night I was loaded and made a pass at her. Hope you weren’t too sore about that, Phil. You know it never happened again.”

“No, no, I know.”

“I’m sure Sullivan has a subtler approach,” Gawill said, and chuckled.

Carter tried to show no concern at all, but he squirmed in his chair and inwardly he writhed. Sullivan was very smooth, he was very civilized, his passes would be civilized. He was quite a lot of things that Hazel liked. If nobody else was around, mightn’t Hazel have a very discreet affair with him? Hazel could be very discreet. She might never tell him, because she knew it would kill him. And they were getting started early, Carter thought, after he’d been only three months in prison. That was the way such things had to start, early or not at all.

Their time was up. Carter jumped to his feet at the sight of the approaching guard. Gawill got up, too, made a bad joke about bringing him a file the next time he came to see him, waved a hand and was gone. Carter walked stiffly out of the visiting room.

When he arrived at the ward, supper was being served. Pete was collecting the trays as they came up on the dumbwaiter beside the elevator. The food came from a long way and was always cold.

Carter ate his dinner sitting sideways on his bed, because there was no table at the end of the ward big enough for the tray plus a book. He put the open book on the bed, and propped himself up on his left elbow. It was a large mediocre historical novel which at first he had not liked, but which he later found passed the time very well, because of its complete difference of scene from his own. Now he stared at the book between bites without seeing a word of it. The meal on his tray consisted of hamburger that gave off a smell of putridity, and some lima beans and mashed potatoes that had swum together in pale gray gravy, now stiffened with cold grease. There was no plate. The food was held in depressions in the tray. The only really edible part of the food was the bread, and there were always two slices and a thin pat of butter. He ate with a spoon. The inmates were not permitted knives or forks. He gulped the weak coffee from the plastic cup, and took the tray to the hall and set it on the floor near the dumbwaiter. Later Pete would chuck trays and cups and spoons down a chute.