Breakout (6 page)

Turley looked at Parker without expression. He said, “Come in, Kasper. Sit down.”

Parker entered, the guard following, shutting the door, leaning against it. Parker sat in the same chair as before. Turley
looked at him, waiting, and then said, “You do remember me, don’t you?”

“Two weeks ago,” Parker said. “In here.”

“I told you your friend Armiston would talk if you didn’t,” Turley said. “Remember that?”

“Game theory,” Parker said.

Turley started to smile, proud of his student, then frowned instead, realizing the student wasn’t a student. He said, “Armiston’s
coming around, I have to tell you that.”

Parker nodded.

“Nothing to say?”

“Not yet.”

“All right,” Turley said. “I’ll tell you what the situation is, so you don’t think I’m trying to play off one fella against
another fella.” He cocked his head, bright-eyed. “All right?”

“Fine,” Parker said, because some sort of statement was required.

“So here’s the situation,” Turley said. “Armiston’s beginning to make noises like he’d maybe come around, but so far, it’s
just negotiation, you know what I mean? Jerking off, in other words.”

Parker didn’t really care what Armiston did, because it wouldn’t affect what he himself was going to do. It would be better
for Armiston, maybe, to make a deal with these people, tell them whatever he knew about the guys with the plane, the customer,
and then the customer’s customer; though Parker doubted Armiston knew enough to be really useful.

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.

W
e’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.

L
ooks 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.

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.”