The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape (18 page)

Lee tried the door and found it locked. There was no knob to turn, no key in the keyhole. He shouldered uselessly against it, was unable to force it open, and, at the scuff of shoes behind him, swung around, waiting. Stood palming the ball of string, his finger in the loop.

It all happened too fast. A chunk of concrete fell and Delone rushed him, the knife-edged ice pick low and lethal. Lee saw too late there was no room to swing his weapon. He dodged but Delone was on him, the knife flashing as Delone rammed him into the wall. Lee felt the knife go in, low in his side.

Delone jerked the blade free, blood spurted. The weapon flashed again. Lee kicked Delone in the knee and kicked the blade from his hand. The effort doubled Lee over, the cat could feel the pain of his wound as if it were his own. He crouched to leap as Delone closed in, but instinctively backed off when Lee swung the garrote. He watched it circle Delone's leg. Lee jerked the cord hard, the blades cut through cloth and flesh, Delone stumbled, clutching his torn leg. But when Lee jerked the weapon free again, Delone lunged. Lee dodged and swung higher, the cord whistled, light shattered off its arsenal of blades as it snaked around Delone's throat. Lee grabbed the heavy nut, yanked the cord hard. Delone fell, clutching his torn throat. The ghost cat crouched lower, his yellow eyes burning, his own fear eased, his sense of Satan's presence fading.

L
EE, WATCHING
D
ELONE
die, knew
he
could have been dead in Delone's place. He worked the garrote loose and backed away from the body. He found the lavatory, untied the nut from the cord, washed it off, and tossed it in the corner. He flushed the bladed cord down the toilet, stringing it out long, hoping it wouldn't get stuck. He washed the blood off his hands and pressed a wad of paper towels under his shirt
against the knife wound. The blade had gone through at an angle, piercing the flesh along his side and maybe cracking a rib; it hurt like hell. He prayed it hadn't reached anything vital.

He stripped off his shirt and pants, soaked and scrubbed the blood out as best he could and dried them with paper towels. Tearing the towels in pieces, he flushed them down a little at a time. He cleaned his shoes and disposed of those towels the same way. He dressed in his wet clothes, securing the wadded towels under his belt. He scrubbed the floor, using the last of the towels; the pain turned him dizzy when he knelt. He walked out slowly, stopping only once on his way to the cellblock, at the back door of the cotton mill.

He got up to his cell all right, keeping his arm over his side against the bleeding. He pushed inside, chilled not only with the pain but with fear. This could blow his release, could put him in prison for the rest of his life. He'd snuffed a few men in his time, every one of them trying to kill him. He'd been lucky so far. This time maybe his luck had run out?

Lying on his bunk keeping pressure against the wound, he must have dozed some. He heard the Klaxon for supper, he'd have to skip that meal. He rose from his cot meaning to clean the wound better. He was standing at the small steel basin, his back to the bars, his shirt open, washing the jagged knife hole with soap and water, when he heard a thump behind him. Turning, he saw no one. On the floor inside the bars lay a little rag bundle.

He retrieved it fast, going sick with pain when he bent over. Inside were adhesive bandages, gauze pads, iodine, and ten aspirin tablets wrapped in a tissue. Thanks, Gimpy. Gimpy hadn't batted an eye when Lee told him his needs. Lee swallowed three aspirin and, his back to the bars again, smeared on the iodine, working it in deep, clenching his jaw against the pain. He bandaged the wound, listening for the guard's footsteps on the catwalk. He tore the bloody paper towels into small pieces and flushed them. He changed to his
other shirt, pulling on the thick, prison-issue T-shirt under it. He hung the wet shirt on the hook to dry, and why would the guard ask questions? He often came in from the kitchen splashed with dishwater. When he stretched out again on his bunk he felt the cat land on the bed.

“Does it bother you,” Misto said softly, “that you killed him?”

“He tried to kill me,” Lee said gruffly.

“Does it bother you?”

“Maybe,” Lee growled. “What difference? If I hadn't done him, I'd be dead.”

Misto lashed his tail against the blanket. Lee felt him curl up as if prepared for sleep. Maybe Lee slept, too, he wasn't sure. The wail of a Klaxon brought them both up rigid, the cat standing hard and alert beside Lee. The body had been found. The cellblocks would be locked down, double security set in place. Fear chilled him at thoughts of the search. Before the guards reached his cell he rose, took three more aspirin, and lay down again, listening to the clang of barred doors as the search began.

W
HEN THE PRISON
team reached Lee's cell, he stood in the middle of the small space, sucking in his gut when the guard patted him down. He willed the man not to feel the bandage under the heavy T-shirt. The guard jerked off his bedcovers, flipped and examined his mattress, inspected his damp shoes and wet shirt. “You fall in the dishwater, Fontana?”

“The guy works beside me,” Lee said, “sloppy as hell.” He waited, hiding his nervousness until the man finished his nosy prying and left, giving Lee a last appraising look. Alone again, Lee crawled back under the covers. That was when the devil returned, descending as if Delone's death had kept him near. Again the cat stiffened, the air grew icy, and Lucifer's grainy voice struck through Lee.

“That guard,” Satan said, “he
could
have made you strip down, Fontana. He would have if I'd nudged him a little. Or,” the devil said, “think of this. When you killed Delone, I
could
have led a guard in there at that moment, led him into the masonry room to find you standing over the body.

“I took pity on you, Fontana. Now, you can return the courtesy.”

“Go to hell.”

“I have a mission for you.”

“I don't want to hear it. Get someone else for your lackey.” Lee rolled over, turning his back, gritting his teeth against the pain.

The wraith shifted again so it faced Lee. “I want you to gain Morgan Blake's full confidence, I want him to completely depend on you.”

Lee stared at the heavy shadow. “What do you want with Blake?”

“I want him to trust you in all matters, to follow you unquestioningly. In return, I will let up on you, Fontana. I will make your life easier. Blake is already your friend, you are special to him because of his child. Now he must seek your wisdom in whatever he undertakes. It should be easy enough to manipulate him in this way.”

“Why? What do you mean to do?”

“Blake thinks you can help him, Fontana. And you can help. When you do so, my pressure on you will ease. The wound will heal, the pain will be gone. So easy to do, to gain Blake's absolute confidence no matter what you might ask him to do . . . A fine bargain,” the devil said. “Think about it, Fontana . . .” And the voice faded, the shadow faded, the dark wraith was gone. Lee was left only with questions.

I
N THE NEXT
days, as prison authorities investigated Delone's murder, Lee's wound continued to throb; everything
he did, even eating a meal, left him chilled and weak. He didn't change his work routine, he took painkillers, went to the kitchen as usual and pulled his shift. The pain came bad when he carried the heavy trays. The third afternoon near the end of shift, as he hoisted a stack of trays, cold sweat beaded his face, and he saw Bronski watching him. Bronski stepped over and took the trays from him. “Go sit on the steps, Fontana. I'll take care of these.” It was the only indication he ever had that Bronski knew how Delone died.

By the time security dropped back to normal, Lee's wound had begun to heal. Gimpy passed by the back door of the kitchen twice, slipping Lee more aspirin, iodine, some sulfa powder, and fresh bandages, turning away quickly as Lee slipped the package under his shirt. Lee and Gimpy went back a long way, and Lee was mighty thankful for his friendship. He had no idea that, within only a few days, he would abandon Gimpy, that the Atlanta pen would be the last time he would ever see the old safecracker.

L
EE HAD STARTED
down toward the big yard, meaning to sit quietly in the thin morning sun and try to ease his hurting side, when he saw something that stirred a shock of challenge—but sent a jolt of fear through him, too. He was heading down the hillside steps when he noticed something different about the thirty-foot wall towering over him. The way the sunlight fell, he glimpsed a hint of shadow running up the concrete, the faintest blemish. Not a cloud shadow, it was too thin and straight. Some imperfection in the wall? He paused to look, leaning casually on the metal rail.

In the yard below, half a dozen younger inmates were jogging the track. Two men were playing handball against the wall itself, and beyond them three convicts were throwing a baseball, the figures dwarfed by the giant wall. He looked carefully at the thin line but when he started down the stairs for a closer view it disappeared, was lost in the way the light fell.

He moved on down, trying to recapture the shadow, but not until he reached the lowest step did he see it again. A
thin vertical line running from the ground straight up thirty feet to the top. When Lee moved, the line disappeared. He moved back a step, and there it was. He propped his foot on the lower rail, looking. It must be an interlocking joint, though he couldn't find another like it. This was the only flaw he could see along the bare expanse between the near tower and the distant one, away at the far corner. Could this be a defect when the forms were up? So faint a blemish that when the forms were removed it was missed, had been left uncorrected with no last-minute touch of the trowel to smooth it away? His gaze was over halfway up, following the line, when he saw something else.

Some six inches on either side of the line he could see a small round indentation, the faintest dimple picked out by the slanting sun. Following the line itself, he found two more dots, and two above those, blemishes so indistinct that his slightest move made them vanish.

He noted where the line struck at the base of the wall in relation to the curve of the jogging track. Taking his time, he moved on down the stairs, across the yard and the jogging track. He sat down against the wall just at the joint, casually watching the joggers and ballplayers. No one paid him any attention. When he ran his hand behind him he could feel the joint. When he felt up and down, he found the lowest small dimple. He scraped it with his thumb, then pressed it hard and felt the heavy paint break away. He pushed his finger into the hole. A snug fit, but so deep he couldn't touch the end.

If all the dimples were this deep, a man had only to figure out how to use them. He found the chip that had fallen behind him, and took a good look. Layer after layer of dried paint hinted at the venerable age of the wall. He visualized it being built. First, a metal interstructure, then the plywood or metal forms both inside and out to receive the wet cement. The line had to be a joint between two sheets of the form. The forms themselves, angled in from the thicker
base, would have had supports to keep the cement from collapsing as it dried.

There had to be other lines and other groups of holes. Or did there? Maybe the other holes
had
all been carefully filled, the lines smoothed away and plastered over. How could this one joint have been overlooked? Maybe this was where two workers met at quitting time? Maybe they had applied one coat of spackle, and the next day they moved on, forgetting to finish this joint? Soon it was painted over by other, uncaring workmen? Leaning back against the wall, he looked up its great height to where it rounded at the top.

If a fellow were to push an iron bar into each hole, he could climb this baby, easy as going up spikes in a telephone pole.

Except, the guards in the tower would pick you off like a cockroach on a barn door.

But when he looked up toward the tower, he couldn't see the windows that circled it, not from where he was sitting. He could see just a little of the room's base flaring out atop the wall. Frowning, he glanced toward the farther tower down at the end but couldn't see any more of that one. If he couldn't see the windows, the guards inside couldn't see him, unless they leaned dangerously far out.

Maybe they wouldn't see a climber scaling the wall until he got near the top, and that thought ripped a thrill of challenge through Lee.

When he looked down the full stretch of the wall, sighting in both directions, he could see that it bowed in. The forms had been bowed here, something had gone badly awry. Either no one noticed or no one wanted to take responsibility. No one had wanted to tear out the forms or maybe tear out part of the wall itself and rebuild it. Maybe some foreman thought no one would ever notice, and that it wouldn't matter anyway. Once the cement was dry and painted over, why would such a tiny flaw matter? Excitement made his hands tremble. Had he stumbled on something that maybe
no one else in this entire prison knew or didn't think important? Sitting there against the wall, Lee had to smile.

You wouldn't need a bar at each hole. All you needed was three short iron rods to push in and out. One to hold on to, one to stand on, the third to set for the next step. Lean down, pull the lower pin, insert it over the handhold pin. Step higher, pull out the bottom pin, and replace it in the hole above you. At the top where the guards could see you, you'd have to be quick. You'd leave the last pin in, hook the looped end of a rope over it, and slide down the outside. Slide to freedom.

Lee's own time was so short that he had no need to escape. But Blake, if his appeal was denied, could be looking at the rest of his life in this trap.

If Blake was to get out of here, if he and Blake together left this joint and could find Brad Falon and get new evidence, maybe make Falon tell where he'd hidden the bank money, Blake would have a chance. The chance he'd never had when, before he knew there'd
been
a bank robbery, before he knew anything about the crime, he was handcuffed and hauled off to jail.