Gravewriter (17 page)

That's when Alec heard the blade click.

He whirled. The man's face was calm, his body language casual. Only the switchblade in his hand indicated evil.

“Your wallet,” the man demanded.

The knife paralyzed Alec. He blurted, “I'm fucking broke.”

The man never raised his voice. “Your wallet.” He gave a little nod. “Take out your wallet. I'm not going to hurt you.”

Alec caught himself blinking furiously at the man, and at the five-inch blade, which reflected the maroon ugliness of Alec's battered sedan. He drew his brown leather wallet from a back pocket. “I got, like, fifteen dollars here,” he said, holding the wallet in the space between them.

The man took a last puff of his free cigarette, dropped the stub on the floor, and twisted a toe over it. Then he took the wallet.

“My Visa is maxed out,” Alec said. Not even a lie.

From his own pocket, the man took a folded wad of white paper. He slid the paper into Alec's wallet and then handed it back to him.

Alec couldn't move. “What is this?”

“Take it.”

“Take it for what?”

“Take back your wallet,” the man ordered, “and put it away.”

What the fuck's with this guy?

Alec complied. He kept his eyes on the blade and slid the wallet back into his pocket.

If he had been a split second faster, he might have figured it out.

The man's forearm flashed up at Alec. The blow caught him square in the Adam's apple. Alec gagged, clutched his throat, and spun away, hitting the side of his car. His eyes watered from the pain. He tried to scream but heard only a dry whisper. By instinct, he staggered two steps away from the attacker, saw the railing, empty space beyond, and braked in terror.

Not that way.

A forearm into his spine drove Alec against the rail. He bent over it, looked straight down six stories to a bridge over the flaccid Woonasquatucket River flowing shallow and brown beneath the mall in a man-made trench of granite blocks.

He bounced off the rail. The man punched him in the lower back.

Alec tried to scream but managed only a wet gurgle from his bruised windpipe. The man rammed his shoulder into Alec and drove him back against the rail. Alec slapped an open hand feebly on the attacker's head. The man jammed a hand between Alec's legs, grabbed him under the groin, and lifted him.

He growled as he rolled Alec over the railing.

Alec slapped a hand on the rail and clung to life, dangling sixty
feet above the concrete. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see through a glass wall into the mall's food court. The lights were off and the place looked closed. Some janitor had leaned a mop against the glass.

Alec imagined the movie: The camera would start tight against the hand, close enough to see the tendons stretching and the little black hairs standing on end. Then the camera would pull back, revealing the arm, the body, the wall. Faster, the camera would retreat, the wall growing ever higher, until the ground appeared at the bottom of the frame. No good director would show the fall, of course. Instead, the camera would switch to the attacker showing him battering Alec's fingers on the rail with the butt of his knife, until one final blow dislodged the hand, and then—for only an instant—the camera would film a shadow on the wall, plummeting.

T
he jurors gathered as they did each morning in the jury lounge, sitting in the order of their numbers, around a long, crooked conference table shaped like California.

The seat next to Billy was empty.

At quarter past ten, a sheriff with a clipboard entered to take attendance. He reminded Billy of a buzzard—long neck tucked between hunched shoulders. His skin was gray and he smelled like cigar smoke.

“The lawyers have been arguing for an hour,” the sheriff told the jury. “We're, um, down one juror, and the judge had to consider whether we should go forward with just one alternate. He just ruled against declaring a mistrial, so we'll go ahead and resume the testimony this morning.”

He beckoned with a wave of his arm. The jurors got up and filed past him to the courtroom.

We're down one juror?

Where was Alec?

Billy was the last one out. He leaned toward the sheriff and asked, “What happened to Alec?”

“I'm not supposed to say. We should get moving.”

“Did he get kicked off the jury? What did he do?”

“Mr. Povich—” the sheriff began.

“I like the kid,” Billy said, interrupting. “I want to know what he did to get kicked off.”

The sheriff sighed. He peered down the hall, saw that it was clear. In a low voice, he said, “Alec Black killed himself last night.”

Billy chuckled. “All right, come on!” he begged. “Just tell me what he did to get kicked off, so I won't do the same thing.”

The sheriff stared at Billy.

“Oh Jesus,” Billy said.

The sheriff made the sign of the cross.
In the name of the Father
…
the Son
…
and the Holy Ghost
…

“How?” Billy demanded. “How could this happen?”

The sheriff shrugged. “He told his roommate he was going to the movies, and then he jumped from the top of a parking garage, late last night. He died instantly.” The sheriff turned away. Billy grabbed his arm and rooted him there.

“But why would he do that?” Billy stammered. “We're in the middle of this trial.… This kid had strong opinions.” Billy suddenly gasped. “Somebody killed him!”

The sheriff clapped Billy on the shoulder, a comforting gesture. “I guess Mr. Black had a lot of personal problems,” the sheriff said. “It was a suicide—they found a suicide note in his wallet.”

The sheriff paused a few moments and then urged him along. “We really need to get to the courtroom.”

Billy relented, nodding. He walked slowly toward to court. Alec Black… a suicide victim? Billy couldn't picture it. The kid was so cynical, such a pain in the ass. He had a sarcastic comment for everybody;
he loved sticking his thumb into the eye of the powerful. Why would he have killed himself and wasted fifty or sixty years of perfectly good scorn?

In the courtroom, the actors were at their marks.

Peter Shadd stared into outer space and absentmindedly cleaned his glasses with his necktie.

On the stand, his former cell mate Lawrence Home was ready to continue his testimony. Home shot nervous glances around the courtroom, like a rabbit that had wandered onto a greyhound track.

The night was mooniess. Garrett had insisted they wait for the new moon.

The dim glow from the yard lights put Garrett's face in silhouette in the window. He worked the shank around the metal frame, driving it in with the heel of his hand and then wiggling it out. “Like butter, baby,” he whispered.

“I can't
wait
for butter,” Larry moaned. “First meal I'm gonna get is a half-pound burger, real rare, so that the juice runs down your hand from the first bite. Cheese all over it. Cheddar. Real sharp. Mm-hm. Couple slices of Canadian bacon melted so deep into the cheese, they almost disappear. Sliced tomato. Some crunchy iceberg lettuce. Spanish onion. And butter, baby—both buns grilled crispy in butter.” He laughed and pumped his emaciated arms in the air. “The diet ends tonight.”

“My mouth is fuckin' watering,” Garrett said. “Thanks, asshole.”

“Say, Shadd? You coming?” Larry asked.

Peter sat up in the second bunk, swung his legs off the side, and rubbed his eyes. “I ain't been dieting,” he said.

“Skinny shit like you don't need to.”

“I can't handle any more years on my bid.”

“They can't jail what they can't catch,” Garrett said.

Larry asked, “How many years you got?”

Peter exhaled hard and then counted the years silently on his left hand—from pinkie to thumb, back down to pinkie, and back up again. “About fifteen,” he said.

Larry slapped a hand over his chest and staggered in a make-believe heart attack. “By the time a young guy like you does fifteen fuckin' years, there's no guarantee his dick would still work when he got out. Maybe you should come with us,” he advised.

A shard of metal from the window frame went
plink
on the concrete floor. Garrett snickered.

“Destroying state property is a crime,” Larry joked.

“A misdemeanor,” Garrett answered, never taking his eye off his work. He hummed a few bars of some hymn and then said, “Freedom lies in being bold.”

“Amen,” Larry said. “Book of Leviticus?”

“Gospel according to Robert Frost,” said Garrett.

Another shard went
plink.

“Where will you go?” Peter asked. He sounded flabbergasted, like he was trying to talk them out of something so
obviously
stupid, like cliff jumping without parachutes. “So maybe you get through the window and into the yard? So what? Say you get over the fence.
So what?
The guards never start the nighttime count later than one-thirty. You won't get two miles before they're after you. Every cop in the state will be working overtime. Your faces will be on TV, in the papers. How far can two guys dressed in orange get on foot? All this effort… seems like a lot for one night of exercise, and then three extra years on your bid. Three more years to listen to Larry mumbling about food in his sleep.”

Garrett stopped work for a moment. He looked at Larry. “In the month he's been here, that's the most I ever heard him say.” He went back to work on the window.

“How far can you run?” Peter asked.

“Not
running
anywhere,” said Garrett.

“You think you can moon-walk to Mexico?”

“I can crawl as far as Pontiac Avenue, and that'll be far enough.”

“And then we'll get my stash,” Larry said.

“You hush about your stash,” Garrett ordered.

Nobody said anything for a while. Peter and Larry watched Garrett work the pick around the window. Every half minute or so, Garrett stopped for a few seconds and all three men strained to hear danger in the silence—the boom of a distant door, the clink of a key, a guard's footsteps.

They heard nothing.

Garrett attacked the window with persistence. He was like a battlefield surgeon—not fancy, but quite skilled with a knife, like Jack the Ripper.

Peter broke the silence, “What do you mean? Crawl to Pontiac Avenue? That's right outside—what happens when you get to the street?”

Garrett chuckled. He said to Larry, “Notice how he says
when
we make it to the street, not
if.
Interesting, huh?”

“He's getting religion,” Larry agreed.

After another minute, Peter demanded, “Are you getting help from the outside? A car? Somebody picking you up?”

Garrett snorted. “ ‘And some believed the things which were spoken—' “ he said, glancing at Larry.

“ ‘—and some believed not,'“ his longtime cell mate replied, completing the verse from the Acts of the Apostles.

Garrett wrenched the tool with sudden violence.

A chunk of metal went
clank
on the floor.

“Yahtzee!” he said.

He put the shank aside and wormed his fingertips into a crack between the window frame and the wall. With a foot braced against the wall, he steadily pulled. His body quivered. He pulled without success
for nearly a minute, and then the metal frame squeaked faintly in surrender and abruptly tore off in Garrett's hands. He held it to his face and grimaced at Peter, showing off his canine teeth like two fangs.

He looked like the devil in a picture frame.

Larry clapped lightly, excited. “I'm gonna dig up my stash, buy a bottle of Crown Royal and a crystal glass,” he promised.

Garrett flipped the frame on the bottom bunk, grabbed the shank, and went to work on loosening the window glass. “The seal is all dried out,” he said. “This won't take long.”

He worked in silence for ten minutes.

Larry watched over his shoulder.

Peter lay on his bunk and stared at the ceiling. Eventually, he asked, “Who on the outside would ever help you get out of here?”

“I don't care if you come or not,” said Garrett. “But if you stay, you better keep your fucking mouth shut.”

“I'm wondering why anyone would help you.”

Garrett paused a moment and wiped the back of his hand over his brow. He was breathing heavily from his struggle with the window. “I'm not without certain talents,” he said to Peter. Then he laughed and got back to work.

He jammed the tool in the crack above the window and pried. The glass suddenly fell inward, like a tree toppling without sound. He caught the glass, whisked it across the cell, and propped it against the door.

“Holy Jesus,” Larry said.

Peter roused from his bunk and climbed to the floor. “I never thought…” he said, trailing off as a breeze carried the scent of freedom into the cell, which chased away the stink of body odor and despair.

The three cell mates inhaled deeply, standing spellbound and silent, smelling grass that had been cut that day, and a blend of summer
pollens. They found joy in a whiff of ragweed. They heard distant cars on the highway, a trailer truck burping between gears. Crickets cheered for them to escape.

Garrett finally broke the spell of the outside world. He slid Larry's mirror from his Bible, eased it through the opening, and peered around.

“Well?” Larry asked.

“Paradise lost,” replied Garrett. He stripped off his jumpsuit and pushed it out the window, then his shoes, socks, and underwear. Naked, he grabbed a can of petroleum jelly and smeared it over his ears and his torso.

Larry, too, began to strip.

“Grease my back,” Garrett ordered.

Larry shuffled to him, pants at his ankles, and quickly slathered the gel over Garrett's back and shoulders. He slapped Garrett's flesh. “You're good to go,” he said. Then he kicked off his pants and shoved his clothes out the narrow window.