Gun Lake (10 page)

But Harlan was no monster. That was what made the whole thing so difficult, why it took her so long to leave. The anger inside of him simply went off like a switch, like the crack of a bat hitting a baseball just right. You never knew when exactly it would come, but when it did you recognized it and felt it. And then it was gone, fading like headlights on the highway.

She glanced down at the diamond ring on her finger, the huge princess-shaped stone catching the lights of passing cars. Once this had represented their future. Now, she realized, it represented her future. She wondered how much she would get when she worked up the nerve to sell it.

Her heart beat faster, and she suddenly felt terrified of the night turning into the cold reality of the day. Right now it all seemed unreal, like a dream. When dawn arrived, she would know that the decision really had been made, that there was no going back.

And maybe, with that coming sunrise, Norah Britt would start living again.

HE HOISTED A BOX marked “Golden Delicious” onto several others and exhaled. His breath swirled upwards and disappeared. He peeked at the watch on his hairless, lean-muscled arm: eleven forty-five. Double-checking his cart, he pushed it through the doors of the cooler and past the kitchen that smelled of freshly cut strawberries and watermelon and cantaloupe. He’d spent the last forty-five minutes slicing, shrink-wrapping, weighing, and stamping outrageously expensive little parcels for those not so inclined to cut fruit themselves. Now he’d spend another hour stocking.

Ossie guided his full cart through another set of double doors that opened either way and entered the “farmstand” area of the grocery store. Music played in the background, a pitiful Musak version of a Beatles tune. It was one he knew: “Hey, Jude.” He wheeled the cart over to start by the Golden Delicious apples, picked over by the week night crowd. Ossie knew it would take him about ten minutes to put the newer apples on the bottom of the pile and shift the older apples to the front and center. Some of the younger guys simply organized them in a neat pyramid that was prone to scattering whenever a customer removed a single apple. Ossie knew what worked, the proper way. He’d take the time to do it right.

This early Thursday morning felt like every other shift he worked. He loved working these hours. He could take his two breaks whenever he wanted to, and even though he knew he could take much longer breaks than the allowed fifteen minutes, Ossie did his best to follow the rules. Stagworth had taught him well enough to do as he was told. Besides, he was thankful he had this job. He knew it was an answer to prayer—working on his own and making decent money, forty hours a week with time and a half. Every couple of weeks, he’d see his new schedule of night shifts written down on the sheet.

Ossie Banks: Monday 11-6, Tuesday 11-6,

Wednesday 11-6, Friday 12-8,

Saturday 11-6, Sunday 11-6.

He might get a day off a week, sometimes two, sometimes none. He didn’t mind. He told Dave, his boss, he simply appreciated the opportunity.

He could still smell Stagworth. He could close his eyes and smell it—that pungent, locker room, pit smell. The scent of fear and anger bottled into brick and metal. Sometimes he woke up around noon and would think he was still there, still in that cell, ready for morning call, ready for the rounds.

Thank you, Lord
.

In the silence, he could talk all he wanted with his Lord. Jesus Christ, his own personal Savior. He’d grown accustomed to talking to him at Stagworth and still liked to do it, even though things were different now. In prison, after he met Jesus, he’d had this desperate need to pray almost all the time. Sometimes he’d felt like there was nothing else he could do.

These days the need wasn’t as sharp, and that bothered him a little bit. But he knew he still loved Jesus. Knew without a doubt that he was saved. And even if he didn’t feel desperate to pray anymore, he still tried to keep thanking Jesus for every day of life and every night of responsibility and for giving him another chance when he’d messed up so bad and didn’t deserve it.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord
.

He knew that the other guys who occasionally worked with him, whether at the end of their night shift or at the start of the early one, thought of him as aloof. That was all right. He liked keeping to himself, keeping out of trouble. He also knew they thought he was an old guy, though he was only fifty-seven. What did they know, anyway? When he was their age, he’d thought everyone over forty was old too. So he just continued working while they cursed and talked about their girlfriends and the women they had sex with and the parties and bars they went to.

He wasn’t outspoken for the Lord. He knew he probably should be, but that wasn’t his calling, and he’d have to leave it at that. The Lord had seen fit to let him live a good forty-something years before bringing him to faith. Maybe it’d be another forty years before he could start witnessing. Maybe he’d never be able to. All he could do was be friendly and not curse like he used to
and not get caught up in their sinful talk and occasionally say a nice thing.

Another song played in the background. He didn’t recognize this one. He finished the box and broke it down, slipping it onto the ledge at the bottom of the cart. He moved on to the lemons, which were on sale four for a dollar. Dave usually put them on sale whenever they had too many in the back cooler and needed to get rid of them before they started going bad and turning into cocoonlike balls. Lemons were on one of the table displays. Again he put the lemons already on the table closer to the front, while he put the fresher ones on the bottom.

It wasn’t brain surgery, as the good ol’ saying went. But it was something. It paid the bills—rent for his little place in Chicago, food, gas, a few other things. He’d give some back to God too. More than just a tithe. The Lord Jesus gave him a lot more than 10 percent, so he figured he should at least give him back a little more too.

By one fifteen, Ossie had managed to work on almost everything on his cart. He left it beside some romaine lettuce and went to the bakery, where the few last remaining scraps from the previous day remained. He found a cheese Danish that was probably a little hard but could be microwaved in the break room. This and a cup of coffee—some of the dreadful stuff upstairs that would nevertheless gave him a needed jolt—would do the trick.

He paid for the Danish—sixty-seven cents with his discount—and took it to the break room. As he waited for it to cool, Ossie read the
Chicago Sun-Times
. He preferred the
Tribune
, but other employees usually took bits and pieces of the
Trib
throughout the day. The
Sun-Times
stayed together.

On page four, he found the headline he was looking for: “Stagworth Five suspects in murder, still on the loose.”

He scanned the article and discovered that a forty-two-year-old single woman from Louisiana, the manager of a Harman’s sporting-goods store, had been shot in the head and died almost instantly.

She had two children from her first marriage.

Ossie spent a couple of moments praying for the woman’s soul,
for her family, for this awful, traumatic event. He’d learned it was better to pray about such things when he first found out about them. Otherwise he tended to forget.

He thought he’d better pray for the convicts’ souls too—Lord knew they needed saving. But Ossie had trouble praying this way because he kept getting distracted by thinking about the ones whose names he recognized.

Sean Norton, for one.

He thought of the first time he ever spoke to the guy, years ago. He still thought of that conversation all the time.

The article made the assumption that Sean and the others still at large were heading west. Possibly toward California, or possibly even going down to Mexico.

I wouldn’t assume anything with Sean. He could be here for all they know
.

Ossie wasn’t afraid. Even if he saw the whole gang walk into his farmstand and start messing up his works of produce art, Ossie wouldn’t run or fear for his life. He knew Sean, knew a little about the others. He remembered Wes Owens, probably the dumbest of the lot. A big guy with a lot of muscle and heart but not much else. Not really dangerous—unless provoked, of course. Just like all of them surely were.

The article detailed how the group ended up taking close to forty guns, most of them handguns, with boxes of ammunition, clothing, and supplies. The safe had not been broken into because the manager hadn’t known the combination.

The entire operation had Sean Norton’s fingerprints all over it, and the
Chicago Sun-Times
along with the rest of the media were already calling Sean the ringleader. Sean probably enjoyed hearing that. And he had surely already heard it.

Ossie finished eating his Danish and saw he had three minutes left, so he sat and sipped on his bitter coffee. Sometimes it seemed like the stocker who made this stuff had worked hard to perfect the art of brewing bad coffee. To make it taste this awful took time and talent, Ossie thought. He had tasted much better coffee at Stagworth.

He closed the paper and stood up. He enjoyed having breaks
on his own, without anybody around to make small talk or give him curious glances. As he headed back down to the farmstand department, his department, he finally managed a simple prayer.

Lord Jesus, be with them. Help ’em find you, Lord. Reveal yourself the way you revealed yourself to me, Lord. I pray they get caught and you give them justice as you see fit and that there is no more harm done to anybody with their hands. Let your will be done, Lord
.

Ossie wouldn’t say amen. Not yet. He had a lot more talking left to do with Jesus tonight.

The really amazing thing was knowing that Jesus listened. He didn’t have to. Ossie knew for sure, without a doubt, that he didn’t deserve to be listened to—not after all he had done. But he could still offer his thanks and ask for forgiveness for the mistakes he kept on making and know that both of those things were heard.

Have mercy on them, Lord
.

And have mercy on me, a wretched sinner no better than the rest
.

SEAN STARED OUT THE WINDOW, watching the lines beside the car. Yellow, solid, striped, cutting, hypnotic, moving underneath then beside them again.

“There’s a killer on the road.”

He breathed in, then out. Slowly and steadily. His shoulder throbbed.

Daylight would be coming and so would the miles, and all he could do was play the jukebox in his mind and keep his thoughts away from the rushing, numbing waves of pain.

You can make it through
, he told himself, his eyes closing.

He knew this was small stuff in terms of pain. He remembered his first beating, his first
real
beating at Stagworth. The guy named Kuger. Pronounced just like the animal. He got through that and others and would get through this.

“Riders on the storm…”

A voice sounded from far away. He was drifting now, coasting over clouds.

The plan was still in place, and everything was still working according to that plan.

The others didn’t know. They didn’t need to know.

His mind began to play
Break on Through
, and he continued wallowing in these seas of sleep and hurt.

Daylight’s coming
, he thought.

So am I.

So am I
.

THE CON HAD a mass of dark brown hair, wavy unless pulled back in a ponytail like today, matching eyes that lit up in a wicked smile, and a cigarette in his mouth when he came up to him in the courtyard.

“Kurt Wilson, huh?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m Sean Norton.”

Kurt nodded, wondering why the guy was talking to him. Kurt kept to himself, did his duties, talked to Craig, who helped him stay clear of trouble. He knew this guy had come in several years ago and quickly gotten himself into ad seg, or administrative segregation, as the officials called it. Inmates called it being in the hole. At Stagworth, there were about two hundred of these individual cells—extreme isolation for extreme troublemakers. Norton had grabbed a prison guard by the throat and had landed up in ad seg for several months. He’d come out with the newly gained respect of the other inmates and carried an attitude in a smug, wild way.

“Smoke?”

Kurt shook his head.

“That’s right—you’re the ball player. Gotta keep in shape. I hear you’re pretty good.”

“I hold my own.”

“That’s a smart way to make friends around here. That and other extracurricular activities.”

“Like?” Kurt asked, feeling threatened.

“You’re the dude that gave it to Lopez, right?”

Kurt didn’t say anything, just held his ground, staring at Sean. He’d heard mixed things about the guy and didn’t know where he stood. People could take things the wrong way, seeing him talking with an inmate like Sean.

“I heard about that in the hole. That guy was one of the worst. No one’s messed with you since, huh?”

“What do you want?” Kurt asked.

Sean took a drag and then laughed, looking around to see who was near.

“Tell me something. You ever dream of gettin’ out?”

Was this guy actually going to talk to him about breaking out of Stagworth? Kurt found that amusing.

“Me and everyone else in here.”

“How serious is that dream?”

“Just like any dream,” Kurt said. “You wake up and see the same wall you fell asleep looking at. The same old slab of concrete.”

“That so, huh?”