Kitabı oku: «Out of Sight / Вне поля зрения»

© Шитова Л. Ф., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2019

© ООО «Издательство «Антология», 2019

Chapter One

Foley had never seen a prison where you could walk right up to the fence without getting shot. He mentioned it to the guard they called Pup, making conversation: convict and guard standing between the chapel and a gun tower, both men looking toward the athletic field¹. Several hundred inmates along the fence out there were watching the game of football.

“You know what they’re doing,” Foley said, “don’t you? I mean besides working off their aggressions.”

Pup said, “The hell you talking about²?”

This was about the dumbest hack³ Foley had ever met in his three falls⁴, two state time, one federal⁵, plus a half-dozen stays in county lockups.

“They’re playing in the Super Bowl⁶,” Foley said, “pretending they’re out at Sun Devil Stadium next Sunday. Both sides thinking they’re the Dallas Cowboys⁷.”

Pup said, “They ain’t worth shit, none of ’em.”

Foley turned enough to look at the guard’s profile, the peak of his cap curved around his sunglasses. Tan shirt⁸ with dark-brown epaulets that matched his pants, radio and flashlight hooked to his belt; no weapon.

Foley looked at his size, head-to-head with the Pup at six-one⁹, but the Pup had about forty pounds more on him, most of it around the guard’s middle, his tan shirt fitting him like skin on a sausage.

Foley turned back to the game.

He watched shifty colored guys going for the ball. The few white guys, who had the nerve and the size, played in the line and used their fists on each other. No Latins¹⁰ in the game. They stood along the fence watching, except for two guys doing laps side by side around the field. The same two ran ten miles a day every day of the week. Coming to this end of the field now, getting closer, walking: Jose Chirino and Luis Linares, Chino and Lulu, husband and wife, both little guys, both doing a mandatory five for murder. Walking.

They hadn’t done anywhere near their usual ten miles and had Foley’s full attention.

A minute or so passed before he said, “Some people are going out of here. What if I told you where and when?”

The Pup was staring at him now, judging if a con was telling the truth or giving him a bunch of shit.

“Who we talking about?”

Foley said, “Nothing’s free, Pup,” still not looking at him.

“I get your liquor for you.”

“And you make a good buck.¹¹ No, what I need,” Foley said, turning to look at him now, “is some peace of mind. This is the most fucked-up joint¹² I’ve ever been in, take my word. Medium security and most of the cons here are violent offenders.”

The Pup kept squinting at him.

“So you turn fink?”¹³

“I give you”, Foley said, “the chance to stop a prison break, you make points, advance your career as a hack. I get peace of mind. I’d expect you to look out for me as long as you’re here. Let me run my business, keep me off work details…”

The Pup was still squinting.

“How many going out?”

“I hear six.”

“When?”

“Looks like tonight.”

“You know who they are?”

“I do, but I won’t tell you just yet. Meet me in the chapel going on five-thirty, right before evening count.”¹⁴

Foley waited, staring back at those slitty eyes¹⁵ trying to read him.

“Come on, Pup, you want to be a hero or not?”

Noon dinner, Foley took his pork butts and yams¹⁶ looking for Chino among all the white T-shirts and dark hair.

There he was, at a table of his countrymen eating macaroni and cheese. Jesus, eating a pile of it. The guy across from Chino giving him more, scraping macaroni from his tray on to Chino’s.

The man’s gaze raised to Foley, dark eyes beneath lumps of scar tissue¹⁷, all he had to show, for his career as a welterweight¹⁸ and killing a man put him out of business. Chino was close to fifty but in shape; Foley had watched him do thirty pull-ups on a bar.

Chino gave him a nod but didn’t make room¹⁹, tell any of his people at the table to get up. Lulu sat next to him with a neat tray of macaroni and Jell-O²⁰ and a cup of milk they gave inmates under twenty one years of age to build strong, healthy bodies.

Foley ate his noon dinner at a table of outlaw bikers²¹, cons who bought half-pint bottles of rum Foley sold for three times what he paid Pup to sneak the stuff in. He sat there listening to the outlaws having fun, comparing his rum to piss, enjoying their use of the word, speculating on what kind it was, dog piss, cat piss, how about alligator piss? They liked that one. Foley saw it had to be an uncommon kind of piss, said, “How about chicken piss?” and the table showed him bad teeth and the food they were chewing with grins and grunts of appreciation. Foley worked through his dinner and went outside to smoke a cigarette and wait for Chino.

Lulu tagging along when he came, Lulu with his girlish eyelashes and pouty way of looking at you. Chino had had to punch out many a suitor to keep Lulu for his own. He had told Foley Lulu wasn’t a homosexual before entering this life, but had become one and was good at it. Confiding things like that after Foley told Chino he was the most aggressive welterweight he had ever seen fight. Saw him lose to Mauricio Bravo in L. A²². when Foley was doing banks out there²³. Saw him lose to the Mexican kid, Palomino, in the sixth when Chino’s right eye closed and they stopped the fight. Foley said, “I never saw a fighter take as many shots²⁴ as you did and keep coming back.” Chino’s record was 22 and 17, not good if you were the fighter,not bad if you admired him for staying with it as long as he did. Foley was the only Anglo the Cuban allowed to get close.

He had his arm around Lulu’s shoulder as they approached, then let it slip down to hook his thumb in Lulu’s belt, the next thing to having him on a leash.

Foley said, “Today’s the day, huh? You excited?”

The man was cool, no expression.

“I told you, man, Super Bowl Sunday.”

“Yeah, but I see you moved it up.”²⁵

Now a glint showed in his eyes.

“Why you think is today?”

“You were out running this morning, sticking to your routine, anybody happened to notice. But you only did a couple of miles, saving yourself for the main event. Then I see you eating about ten pounds of macaroni. Carbohydrates for endurance.”²⁶

“You want,” Chino said, “I tole you you can come.”

“I would, but I can’t stand to get dirty.”

“Is finish. All we do now is go out.”

“You sure you’re past the fence?”

“Fifteen and a half meters.”

From the covered space beneath the prison chapel to the grass just beyond the razor wire²⁷ perimeter fence. They had been digging since before Christmas with their hands and a broken shovel, using scrap lumber from the construction site of a new wing being added to the chapel to support the walls of the tunnel. It was Christmas Day Foley happened to see Chino and Lulu come out of the bushes in front of the chapel, their faces streaked with black dirt, muck, but wearing clean blues.

What were they doing, making out in the bushes? And Chino said that time to his Anglo friend, “You want to go with us?”

Foley said he didn’t want any part of it – only three feet of crawl space underneath the chapel, pitch-dark in there, maybe run into fucking mole rats face-to-face. No thanks. He’d said to Chino, “Don’t you know you’re digging through Everglades²⁸ muck? I’ve talked to people. They say it’s wet and’ll cave in on you.” Chino said, yeah, that’s what people thought, but the tunnel only caved in once. If they were careful, took their time²⁹, the muck stuck together and became dry and was okay. He told Foley they had dug down four feet and then out toward the fence, the tunnel a meter wide and a meter high. They worked two at a time in dirty clothes they kept there and put on clean ones before coming out.

Foley said to Chino that Christmas Day, “If I caught on, how come none of the hacks have?”³⁰

Chino said, “I think they believe like you no one can dig a tunnel in muck. Or they don’t want to crawl in there and find out. They see us dirty they think we work construction.”

It was that day Chino said they were going out Super Bowl Sunday, when everyone would be watching the game, six o’clock.

But now they were going out five days early.

“You finish ahead of schedule?”

Chino looked toward the fence along the front of the yard, between the administration building and the gun tower close to the chapel.

“You see what they doing, those posts out there?

Putting up another fence, five meters on the other side of the one that’s there. We wait³¹ until Super Bowl Sunday they could have the second fence built and we have to dig another nine ten days. So we going soon as it’s dark.”

“During the count.”

“Sure, and when they get the wrong count,” Chino said, “they have to start over. It give us some more time to get out of here. You want – I mean it – you can still come.”

“I didn’t help dig.”

“If I say you can come, you can come.”

“I appreciate the offer,” Foley said, looking toward the fence and the visitors’ parking area just the other side, a few cars in the front row facing this way, not yards from the fence.

“And it’s tempting. But, man, it’s a long run to civilization, a hundred miles to Miami? I’m too old to start acting crazy.”

“You no older than I am.”

“Yeah, but you’re in shape, you and little Lulu.” Foley winked at the queer³² and got a dirty look for no reason.

“I ever make it out and have no idea where I’m going. Shit, I’m fairly new here, still feeling my way through the system³³.”

Chino said, “You do okay, man. I’m not going to worry about you.”

Foley put his hand on the little guy’s shoulder.

“I wish you luck, partner. You make it out, send me a postcard.”

Some of the newer white boys doing time for drugs called home just about every day after noon chow³⁴. There they were lined up by the phone outside the captain’s office. Foley went in to put his name on the list, came out and went to the head of the line saying, “Fellas, I got an emergency call I have to make. Y’all don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

He got hard looks but no argument. These boys were fish³⁵ and Foley was a celebrity hard-timer who’d robbed more banks than they’d been in to cash a check. He gave talks at AA³⁶ meetings on self-respect, how to stay alive in here without taking too much shit.

If you saw it coming, hit first with something heavy. Foley’s choice, a foot or so of lead pipe, never a shank³⁷, a shank was crude, sneaky, it put you in the same class as the thugs and hogs³⁸.

A woman’s voice accepted the charge, Foley’s ex-wife now living in Miami Beach. He said, “Hey, Adele, how you doing?”

She said, “Now what?” Not with any kind of attitude, asking a simple question.

Adele had divorced him while he was doing seven years at Lompoc³⁹ in California and moved to Florida. Foley never once held it against her⁴⁰.

They’d met in Vegas where she was working as a cocktail waitress in a skimpy sequined outfit, cut low on top and high up her legs, got married one night when they were both feeling good, and it was less than a year later he went up to Lompoc. They hadn’t even kept house, so to speak. A few months after he got out, Foley came to Florida and they seemed to pick up where they’d left off⁴¹, drinking, going to bed… Adele telling him she still loved him, but please don’t talk about marriage again, okay? It made Foley feel guilty that he hadn’t been able to support her while in prison, and it was this feeling that got him sent up again. He robbed another bank intending to give Adele the entire proceeds – show her his heart was in the right place⁴² – but was caught and ended up at Glades⁴³ doing thirty to life. But now he knew he’d be here at least four years before he was eligible for parole⁴⁴.

He said to Adele, “You know that Super Bowl party? They changed the date. It’s on tonight, six o’clock.”

There was a silence on the line before Adele said, “Didn’t you tell me one time calls aren’t monitored?”

“I said not as a rule.”

“So why don’t you come right out and tell me what you’re talking about?”

“Listen to Miss Smarty Mouth,”⁴⁵ Foley said, “out there in the free world.”

“What’s free about it? I’m looking for work. The son of a bitch, Emil the Amazing, fired me and hired another girl, a blonde.”

“He must be crazy.”

“Emil says I’m too old.”

“Anyway,” Foley said, “the reason I called…”

“I’m listening.”

“It’s today instead of Sunday. About six, like only a few hours from now. So you’ll have to get hold of Buddy, whatever he might be doing…”

Adele said, “And the one driving the other car.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Buddy wants to use two cars.”

“You said he might.”

“Well, he’s going to, so he got this guy you know from Lompoc. Glenn Michaels?”

Foley didn’t say anything, picturing a young guy who wore sunglasses all the time, even watching movies.

He remembered the guy in the yard always working on his tan. Glenn Michaels. The guy stole expensive cars on special order and delivered them all over, even Mexico. Told stories about women coming on to him, even movie stars, but none Foley or Buddy had ever heard of. They called him Studs⁴⁶.

“You met him?”

“Buddy thought I should, just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“I don’t know, ask him. Glenn said he thought you were real cool.”

“He did, huh. Tell Buddy I see this guy wearing sunglasses I’ll step on ’em. I might not even take ’em off him first.”

“You’re still weird,” Adele said.

“A quarter to six the latest. But don’t call him on your phone.”

“You tell me that every time,” Adele said.

“Will you be careful, please? And don’t get shot?”

Five, in the chapel, Foley turned the lights off and went along the row of windows pulling the shades down halfway, keeping it just light enough in here to see the shapes of the pews. He walked around to the other side of the chapel now and stepped through an opening to the wing they were adding on.

He looked around at the mess of scrap lumber. A piece of two-by-four⁴⁷ tapered to a thin end, like a baseball bat, caught his eye and he picked it up.

It was going dark now, the sky showing a few last streaks of red, and there it was, the whistle: everybody back to the dorms for evening count. It would take a half hour, then another fifteen minutes to do a recount before they’d know for sure six inmates were missing. By the time they got out the dogs, Chino and his boys would be running through sugar cane⁴⁸.

The lines of inmates were coming from the athletic field now, passing through a gate to the prison compound.

Foley watched them thinking, You’re on the clock now, boy⁴⁹.

In the chapel again he placed his baseball bat in one of the pews, on the seat, and took off his denim jacket to lay over it.

Chino would be down there in the muck telling his boys to be patient, making sure it was dark before they came out.

Foley turned, hearing the chapel door open. He watched the Pup come in and glance around before closing the door. No weapon on him, just his radio and flashlight, the peak of his cap down on his eyes, the man anxious. His hand went to the light switch on the wall by the door and Foley said, “Leave it off.”

The Pup looked at him and Foley put his finger to his lips. It was happening now and he took his time.

“They’re right underneath you, Pup. They dug a tunnel.” Now the guard was unhooking the radio from his belt.

Foley said, “Wait. Not just yet.”

Chapter Two

Karen left west Palm⁵⁰ at five, drove past miles and miles of cane and had her headlights on by the time she turned into the parking area of the prison. From the car, she could see a strip of grass, a sidewalk, the fence with sound detectors and razor wire, dark figures in white T-shirts inside the fence, brick dorms that looked like barracks, and picnic tables used on visiting days.

Lights were coming on, showing the compound⁵¹ with its walks and lawns; at night it didn’t look all that bad. She lit a cigarette and dialed a number on her car phone.

“Hi. Karen Sisco again. Did Ray ever get back? … I tried, yeah. He calls in, tell him I won’t be able to meet him until about seven. Okay?”

She watched prisoners moving toward their dorms in the spotlight beams. She picked up the phone and dialed a number.

“Dad? Karen. Will you do me a big favor?”

“Do I have to get up? I just made myself a drink.”

“I’m out at Glades. I’m supposed to meet Ray Nicolet at six and I can’t get hold of him.”

“Which one is that, the fed guy⁵²?”

“He was. Ray’s with the state now, Florida Department of Law Enforcement⁵³, he switched over.”

“He’s still married though, huh?”

“Technically. They’re separated.”

“Oh, he’s moved out?”

“He’s about to.”

“Then they’re not separated, are they?”

“Will you try calling him, please? He’s on the street. Tell him I’m gonna be late?” She gave her dad Ray’s number.

“What’re you doing at Glades?”

“Serving process, a Summons and Complaint⁵⁴. Drive all the way out here …” Headlights hit Karen’s rear view mirror⁵⁵, a car pulling into the row behind her. The lights went off, then came on again.

“I have to drive all the way out here because some con⁵⁶ doing mandatory life⁵⁷ doesn’t like macaroni and cheese. He files suit,⁵⁸ says he has no choice in what they serve and it violates his civil rights.”

Her dad said, “What’d I tell you? Most of the time you’d be serving papers or working security, hanging around courtrooms, driving prisoners to hearings…”

“I’m giving the West Palm office a year. They don’t put me back on warrants, I quit.”⁵⁹

“My daughter the tough babe.⁶⁰ You know you can always step in here, work with me full time. I just got a case you’d love, the rights of the victim at stake⁶¹.”

“Dad, I have to go,” Karen said.

“When am I gonna see you?”

“I’ll come Sunday and watch the game with you, if you’ll call Ray.”

“You get dressed up for this guy?”

“I’m wearing the Chanel suit – not the new one, the one you gave me for Christmas a year ago.”

“With the short skirt. You want him to leave home tomorrow, huh?”

“I’ll see you,” Karen said and hung up.

Her dad, seventy, semi-retired after forty years in the business, ran Marshal⁶² Sisco Investigations in Coral Gables. Karen Sisco, twenty-nine, was a deputy marshal⁶³, recently transferred from Miami to the West Palm Beach office. She had worked surveillance jobs for her dad while in college, the University of Miami, then decided she might like federal law enforcement. She thought about Secret Service, but the agents she met were so fucking secretive – ask a question and they’d go, “You’ll have to check with Washington on that.”

She got to know a couple of marshals, nice guys, they didn’t take themselves as seriously as the Bureau⁶⁴ guys she met. So Karen went with the Marshals Service and her dad told her she was crazy, have to put up with all that bureaucratic bullshit.

Karen was five-nine⁶⁵ in the medium heels she wore with her black Chanel suit. Her marshal’s star and ID⁶⁶ were in her handbag, on the seat with the court papers.

Her pistol, a Sig Sauer.38, was in the trunk with her ballistic vest⁶⁷, her marshal’s jacket, several pairs of handcuffs, leg irons⁶⁸ with chains, an expandable baton, and a Remington pump-action shotgun⁶⁹. She had locked the pistol in the trunk so she wouldn’t have to check it inside the prison. The Sig Sauer was her favorite; she didn’t want to have to worry about some guard fooling with it.

Okay, she was ready. Karen took a final draw on the cigarette and dropped it out the window. She straightened the rear view mirror to look at herself and right away turned her face from the glare: the headlights of the car behind her still on high beam⁷⁰.

Chapter Three

Buddy saw the mirror flash and blond hair in his headlights, a woman in the blue Chevy Caprice⁷¹ parked right in front of him, Florida plate⁷².

He didn’t see anyone in the other cars in the first row. Good.

Cons were coming in from the athletic field, but he didn’t see any hacks running around like crazy or hear any whistles blowing.

That was even better. He was on time. He still couldn’t believe his luck, getting hold of Glenn and telling him it was on. Not Sunday, today, now.

Glenn wanting to know how come. Buddy said, “We don’t have time to chat, okay? Pick up a car and be waiting where I showed you. Sometime after six. Glenn? A white car.”

Glenn didn’t see what difference it made.

“So we’re fairly sure it’s you,” Buddy said, “not some cop sitting in an unmarked car with a radar gun. And don’t wear your sunglasses.”

Glenn argued about that, too, and Buddy told him, “Boy, do as I say and you’ll get by⁷³.”

Buddy had to hurry to pick up a car himself, a white one Foley would spot without looking all over the parking lot, then drive most of three hours to get here from the Miami area.

As minutes passed he wondered if the woman in the Chevy was sitting there waiting for Cubans to come crawling out of a hole. He knew Latins liked Chevys and this woman could be Latina herself with dyed hair. Buddy turned his head this way and that looking around, wondering if there were other cars here waiting to pick up convicts.

Like a commuter station, wives come to pick up their hubbies.⁷⁴

The blonde was in the right spot. Foley had told Adele the second fence post from the gun tower by the chapel, that was where they’d come out.

Buddy hated gun towers⁷⁵, even from outside the fence, the idea of a man up there with a high-powered rifle watching every minute you’re in the yard.

This was when they first met, found they’d both been doing the same kind of work and became friends for life at Lompoc.

They got their release three months apart.

Buddy, out first⁷⁶, stayed in L. A. with his older sister, Regina Mary, an ex-nun who lived on welfare⁷⁷, drank sherry wine and went to Mass every day to pray for Buddy. When Buddy was on the road doing banks he’d call her every week and send money.

In the joint all he could do was write, since Regina wouldn’t accept charges if he phoned.

Foley came out with his fifty dollars and took a bus to L. A. where Buddy was waiting for him in a car he’d boosted for the occasion.

That same afternoon they hit a bank in Pomona – the first time either one had worked with a partner – cleared a total of fifty-six hundred from two different tellers at the same time, and drove to Las Vegas where they got laid and lost what was left of their fifty-six hundred. So they went back to L. A. and worked southern California a few months as a team: two tellers at the same time, seeing who could score more than the other without setting off alarms. Buddy sure missed his partner.

When Foley first called him about this business, Buddy was still out in California staying with his sister. He said, “For Jesus sake, what’re you doing back in the can⁷⁸?”

“Looking for a way out,” Foley said. “A judge gave me thirty years and I don’t deserve to be here. It’s full of morons but only medium security, if you get my drift⁷⁹.” The reason he was in Florida, he said, he’d come to see Adele.

“Remember how she wrote the whole time we’re at Lompoc?”

“After she divorced you.”

“Well, I was never much of a husband. Never helped her out with expenses or paid alimony.”

“How could you, making cents an hour?”

“I know, but I felt I owed her something.”

“So you did a bank in Florida,” Buddy said.

“It reminded me of the time in Pasadena, I come out and the goddamn car wouldn’t start.”

“You talked about it for seven years,” Buddy said, “wondering why you didn’t leave the engine running. Don’t tell me the same thing happened in Florida.”

“No, but it was like that. Like my two biggest falls were on account of cars, for Christ sake.”

“You got in an accident?”

Foley said, “I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”

From then on it was Adele who called, always from a pay phone, to speak about this business with the Cubans.

Then she had called to say it was tonight and, man, he’d have to move. Got Glenn off his ass⁸⁰, then went out to look for a car and found the ideal one in a Dania mall: white Cadillac Sedan. Buddy was about to jimmy the door when he saw a woman coming from the store, middle-aged, wearing pearls and high heels in the afternoon, but pushing the cart full of groceries herself. Buddy stuck the jimmy in his pants. He waited until the woman was opening her trunk before coming forward with, “Here, lemme help you with those, ma’am.” She didn’t seem too sure about it, but let him load the groceries in the trunk and take the key out of the lock. The woman said, “I didn’t ask for your help, so don’t expect a tip.”

Buddy waved it off.

“That’s okay, ma’am.” He said, “I’ll just take your car.” Got in and drove off. The woman might’ve yelled at him, but with the windows shut he didn’t hear a thing. It was the first time he’d ever picked up a car this way, sort of like what they called car-jacking.

A quarter to six. If it was going to happen the way Foley said, it should be any second now.

Now Buddy was watching the woman in the Chevy again. He saw her hand come out the window to drop a cigarette and it made him think she did know about the break and was getting ready. Moments later the Chevy’s lights were turned off. Buddy was pretty sure she’d be getting out of the car now. He waited, anxious to see what she looked like.

Chapter Four

Foley watched the Pup creep up the aisle toward the front of the chapel, eyes on the floor, listening for sounds from below. Sure enough, he said, “I don’t hear nothing.”

“They’re not digging now, Pup, they’re done. Six of ’em in the tunnel as we speak, ready to go.” Foley thought of something he might need to know and said, “What do you say when you’re reporting a break?”

“That’s an amber alert⁸¹,” Pup said. “You sure they’re down there?”

“I saw ’em duck into the crawl space.”

“Where’s the tunnel come out?”

“Second fence post from the tower out there. Go on, take a look.”

Pup turned his back, walked up the aisle and across the front of the pews to a window.

“I don’t see nothing there.”

Foley, picking up his jacket with the two-by-four baseball bat, moving through the pews to the window aisle, said, “You will directly. Keep watching.”

Pup said, “They’s nobody in tower six this time of day – if they do come out.”

Foley said, “You think they don’t know that?” moving up behind Pup, seeing the guard shirt stretched tight across the man’s back. Foley let his jacket slip to the floor; he held the two-by-four in his left hand now, down against his leg.

Pup said, “There some car headlights out there …” Now he was pulling his radio from his belt saying “Jesus Christ…”

Saying into the radio, “Man outside the fence! By tower six!”

Foley edged in closer to see the car headlights in the parking lot shining on the fence, a dark-blue car and a white one behind it that had to be Buddy. Foley on his toes⁸² now looking at freedom, feeling it as the Pup was identifying himself, saying this was Officer Pupko and where he was, sending out the word too soon, before Foley was ready. He saw a figure by the fence now, as Pup was yelling into his radio, “I’m looking at him, for Christ sake!”

Foley took a moment to remind himself not to hold back. Hold back, you make a mess. He got the angle he wanted, stepped in and laid the two-by-four smack against the side of Pup’s head.

Dropped him clean⁸³ with the one swing, without a sound coming from him.

Foley took another look outside, saw two figures now by the fence, before he stooped down to get Pup undressed. Undo his shirt buttons and then roll him face down, the Pup alive but dead weight⁸⁴. Man, it was work getting the shirt off, Pup not helping any. Foley quick put it on over his T-shirt. He heard a car horn blowing now, maybe Buddy trying to tell him something. Like come on, move. He saw he wouldn’t have time for the pants; he hoped his prison blue wouldn’t be noticed in the dark. Foley pulled Pup’s cap, too small for him, tight over his eyes, picked up the flashlight and slipped out the front door into the bushes.

Karen had the court papers in her hand, ready to get out of the car.

She saw prisoners still coming in from the athletic field, passing left to right in her view, all of them some distance from the fence. She opened the car door…

Wait a minute.

One of the guys, a figure she hadn’t noticed before this moment, was right by the fence. Close enough to touch it. The guy crouched… or on his hands and knees. Karen popped on her headlights again and saw him clearly.

Not crouched.

The guy was coming out of the ground.

On this side of the fence.

Another one came out of the ground.

Right in front of her. Not yards from the car. Two guys breaking out and no siren or whistle going off, prisoners still crossing the compound, not even aware…

Karen pushed the horn, held it down and saw the two guys by the fence, both Latins, looking into her headlights, stopped there for a moment before taking off in the dark. By the time the third one appeared, came out of the hole followed by another convict on his heels, Karen was out of the car.

Buddy didn’t see them right away. The woman began blowing her horn and that got him sitting up. He still didn’t realize the break was on until the woman was out of the car. By the time he saw the two cons they were running away from the fence, cutting across the road, the guard in the far tower trying to gun them down as they ran for an orange grove and disappeared from sight.

When Buddy looked for the woman again she was right in front of him – her blond hair in his headlights, long slim legs, hell, a girl – at the trunk of her car raising the lid.

Buddy’s first thought, She’s gonna put a con in there, help him escape.

He watched her duck her head in the trunk and come out with a pistol, what looked like some kind of automatic.

But then she threw the pistol in the trunk, ducked in there again and came out this time with a pump-action shotgun.

Buddy watched her hurry to the front of her car and raise the shotgun, but the two cons were gone. Now a whistle was blowing inside the compound.

Buddy saw convicts in there gathering, looking this way, hundreds of them bunched in groups, but no hacks in sight. He told himself he’d better get out of the car, be ready.

Once he was out he saw the girl, still by the front of her car, had the shotgun on two more cons, both filthy dirty, standing by the hole they must’ve come out of, the girl telling them to get their hands in the air. She wasn’t here to help anybody escape. So who was she? Buddy could see the two cons making up their minds, couple of Latinos, already. They took off toward the road. Buddy saw the woman, this good-looking girl in a short skirt, put her pump gun on them and knew she couldn’t miss, but she didn’t fire. No, the hacks coming from the main gate, five of them with rifles and shotguns, opened up all at once and kept firing and Buddy saw the two convicts cut down as they ran.

The hacks were looking this way now; they couldn’t miss seeing the girl standing there in her headlights, but they didn’t bother with her – Buddy realizing they knew who she was. They were more interested in the hole the convicts had come out of. Now they were standing by it peering in, coming closer with their weapons ready, then all stepped back at once, bumping into each other.

A head appeared wearing a guard’s baseball cap, head and shoulders now coming out of the hole, the guy saying something to them, his face beneath the cap smeared with muck, shaking his head now, excited. One of the hacks was speaking into his radio. Another extended his rifle for the one in the hole to grab the barrel and get pulled out. But the one in the hole kept yelling and pointing out at the dark, toward the orange grove. Finally when the hacks moved off they checked the two convicts they’d shot, kicked at them to see if they were still alive and then kept going, and the one in the hole climbed out.

Buddy knew it was Foley, taking his time now to put on a show⁸⁵, standing with his hands on his hips like an honest-to– God hack, the cap down on his eyes. Buddy, raising his arm and waving at Foley to come on, saw the girl turn enough to put the shotgun on him. He raised the palm of his hand to her saying, “It’s okay, honey, we’re good guys.”

She said, “What’re you doing here?” Not so much asking, already pretty sure of what they were doing. She glanced around to include Foley. She knew, all right, that with the two of them to watch it was too late making her move. She saw Foley coming at her filthy dirty, giving Buddy time to take her around the neck. She fought him, jabbing him in the gut with the butt end of the shotgun, before Foley got in there to wrench it from her grip⁸⁶. They dragged her to the rear end of the Chevy, the trunk lid still up, and crouched there as some hacks came running along the fence past the dark gun tower and crossed the road toward the orange grove. Pretty soon they heard bursts of gunfire, then silence.

Foley said, “I bet that’s all the hacks they send out. Otherwise nobody’s left to mind the store.”⁸⁷

Buddy said, “Why don’t we talk about it later.”

He turned his head to see Foley and the young woman staring at each other in the Cadillac headlights, Foley saying to her, “Why you’re just a girl. What do you do for a living you pack a shotgun⁸⁸?”

She said to him, “I’m a federal marshal and you’re under arrest, both of you guys.”

Foley kept staring like he was giving the situation serious thought, deciding now what to do with her, Jesus, a U.S. marshal. But what he said was, “I bet I smell, don’t I?” And then he said, “Listen, you hop in the trunk and we’ll get out of here.”

Chapter Five

Karen thought they’d put her inside and leave and she felt around to find her handgun, the Sig Sauer, before they closed the trunk lid and she’d have to kick at it and yell until someone let her out.

There, she felt the holster, took the pistol out and closed her hand around grip ready to come around shooting if she had to. But now the one in the filthy guard uniform pushed her and was getting in with her bringing his arm around now to hold her to him, and she didn’t have room to turn and stick the gun in his face.

The trunk lid came down and they were in darkness, dead silent until the engine came to life, the car moving now, turning to the road that went out to the highway. Karen pictured it, remembering the orange grove, then farther along the road frame houses and yards where some of the prison personnel lived.

His voice in the dark, breathing on her, said, “You comfy?”⁸⁹

The con acting cool, nothing to lose. Karen was holding the Sig Sauer between her thighs, protecting it, her skirt hiked up around her hips⁹⁰.

She said, “If I could have a little more room.”

“There isn’t any.”

She wondered if she could get her feet against the front wall, push off hard and twist at the same time and shove the gun into him.

Maybe. But then what?

She said, “I’m not much of a hostage if no one knows I’m here⁹¹.”

She felt his hand move over her shoulder and down her arm.

“You aren’t a hostage, you’re my zoo-zoo⁹², my treat after five months of servitude. Somebody pleasant and smells good for a change. I’m sorry if I smell like a sewer, it’s the muck I had to crawl through.”

She felt him moving to get comfortable.

“You sure have a lot of shit⁹³ in here. What’s all this stuff? Handcuffs, chains… What’s this can?”

“For your breath,” Karen said. “You could use it. Squirt some in your mouth.”

“You devil, it’s Mace, huh⁹⁴? Where’s your gun, your pistol?”

“In my bag, in the car.” She felt his hand slip from her arm to her hip and rest there and she said, “You know you don’t have a chance of making it. Guards are out here already, they’ll stop the car.”

“They’re off in the cane by now chasing Cubans.”

His tone quiet, unhurried, and it surprised her.

“You’ve ruined a thirty-five hundred-dollar suit my dad gave me.”

She felt his hand move down her thigh, fingertips brushing her pantyhose, the way her skirt was pushed up.

“I bet you look great in it, too. Tell me why in the world you ever became a federal marshal, Jesus. My experience with marshals, they’re all beefy guys.”

“The idea of going after guys like you,” Karen said, “appealed to me.”

“To prove something? What’re you, one of those women’s rights activists? I haven’t been close to a woman like you in months, good-looking, smart… I think, man, here’s my reward for doing without, leading a clean, celibate life in there.”

“How would you know if I’m smart or not?”

“But, listen, just ’cause I’ve done without doesn’t mean I’m gonna force myself on you. I’ve never done that in my life.”

It amazed her, the guy trying to make a good impression.

“You wouldn’t have time anyway,” Karen said. “We come to a roadblock⁹⁵ they’ll find out in about five seconds who it belongs to.”

His voice breathing on her said, “Even if they get set in time, they’ll be looking for Cubans, little fellas with black hair, not a big redneck⁹⁶ driving a Chevy. I’m leaving this trip in the hands of my Lord and Savior⁹⁷ and my old pal Buddy. He’s pure redneck. You know how you tell? He never takes his shirt off.”

Feeling free and talkative. Karen kept quiet.

“I mean in the sun, like when we’re in the yard. Has one of those farmer tans⁹⁸. You see Buddy in the shower, his face and arms have color but his body’s pure white. Good guy, though, wrote to his sister every week without fail. He’d tell her what the weather was like. She’d write back and tell about her weather, which wasn’t that different. His sister used to be one of those nuns who never spoke. Buddy says she still doesn’t talk much, but now she drinks.”

Riding in the trunk of a car with an escaped convict, chatting, passing the time, the car bumping over back roads, the floor beneath them hard. Finally when they picked up speed and were moving in a straight line, Karen believed they were on 441 now, heading for West Palm and probably the interstate⁹⁹.

She felt his hand patting her thigh, inches from her hand gripping the Sig Sauer.

She said, “Buddy. That’s his given name?”

“One I gave him, yeah.”

“Well, what’s yours? It’ll be in the paper tomorrow anyway.”

He said, “Jack Foley. You’ve probably heard of me.”

“Why, are you famous?”

“The time I was convicted in California? They said, ’How about telling us some of the other banks you’ve done?’ This was the FBI. I started listing the ones I could remember. After I was done they checked and said I’d robbed more banks than anyone in the computer.”

“How many was it?”

“Tell you the truth, I don’t know.”

“About how many?”

“Well, going back thirty years, subtract nine years state and federal time served. I started out driving for my uncle Cully when I was eighteen, right out of high school. Cully and a guy used to work with him. When they went in a bank, the guy jumps the counter to get to the tellers and breaks his leg. All three of us went up. I did two months and learned how to fight for my life. Cully did seven years before he came out and died not too long after. My other fall, I did seven years, that was at Lompoc, federal prison camp, the one they used to call Club Fed. No fence, no guys with shanks or razor blades stuck in toothbrush handles. The worst that could happen to you, some guy hits you over the head with a tennis racquet.”

“You were in Lompoc USP, the federal penitentiary,” Karen said. “I’ve delivered people there.”

“Handcuffed to some moron?”

“We have our own plane. It still isn’t any fun.”

“So that’s nine years. Add county time awaiting hearings, and that hole we just left, that’s more’n a decade of correctional living. I’m forty-seven years old and I’m not doing any more time.”

Karen said, “You’re sure about that?”

“If I go back I do a full thirty years, no time off. Could you imagine looking at that?”

“I don’t have to,” Karen said, “I don’t rob banks.”

“If it turns out I get shot down like a dog it’ll be in the street, not off a goddamn fence.”

“You must see yourself as some kind of desperado¹⁰⁰.”

He said, “I don’t know,” and was quiet for several moments.

“I never actually thought of myself that way.” He paused again. “Unless I did without knowing it.”

“How’d you get the guard uniform?”

“Took it off a hack.”

“You killed him?”

“No, hit him over the head – the most ignorant man I ever met in my life.” He paused and said, “I better keep quiet¹⁰¹.”

She felt Foley’s fingertips moving idly on her thigh, his voice, quiet and close to her, saying, “You’re sure easy to talk to. I wonder – say we met under different circumstances and got to talking – I wonder what would happen.”

“Nothing,” Karen said.

“I mean if you didn’t know who I was.”

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

“See, that’s what I mean you’re easy to talk to. There isn’t any bullshit, you speak your mind. Here you are locked up in the dark with a guy who’s filthy, smells like a sewer, just busted out of prison and you don’t even seem like you’re scared. Are you?”

“Of course I am.”

“You don’t act like it.”

“What do you want me to do, scream? I don’t think it would help much.”

Foley let his breath out and she felt it on her neck, almost like a sigh. He said, “I still think if we met under different circumstances, like in a bar…”

Karen said, “You have to be kidding.”

After that, for a few miles, neither of them spoke until Foley said, “Yeah …” and she waited for him to go on, but now the car was slowing down, then bumping along the shoulder of the road¹⁰² to a stop.

Karen got ready.

Foley said, “I don’t know anymore’n¹⁰³ you where we are.”

Still out in the country, Karen was sure of that. Maybe halfway to West Palm, or a little more.

She heard the other one, Buddy, outside, say, “You still alive in there?”

The trunk lid raised.

Karen felt Foley’s hands on her, then didn’t feel them and heard him say, out of the trunk now, “Where in the hell are we?”

And heard Buddy say, “That’s the turnpike up there. Glenn’s waiting with a car.”

Glenn.

Karen said the name to herself and stored it away.

As Foley was saying, “How do we get to it?”

“Over there, through the bushes.” Buddy’s voice.

“You have to climb up the bank.”

And now Foley, sounding closer this time, saying, “Come on out of there.”

Karen pushed off, rolled from her right side to her left bringing up the Sig Sauer in both hands to put it on them, both standing in the opening, in the dark but right there, close. She said, “Get your hands up and turn around. Now.”

They were moving as she heard Foley say, “Shit,” and saw the trunk lid coming down on her as she fired the.38 pointblank¹⁰⁴, fired again and fired again through the trunk lid slamming shut, locking her in with the deafening sound, again in the close dark.

They had moved so fast in opposite directions she didn’t think she’d hit either one. She listened, but didn’t hear a sound now, pretty sure they were getting her shotgun from the car and would be right back.

Chapter Six

Buddy said he forgot she had a piece¹⁰⁵ in there even saw her throw it back in the trunk when she brought out the shotgun. He said to Foley they may as well leave her, what was the difference where?

It was already set in Foley’s mind¹⁰⁶ she was going with them.

He wasn’t finished talking to her. He wanted to sit down with her in a nice place and talk like regular people. Start over, let her get a look at him cleaned up. Even if he had time he wouldn’t be able to explain why he wanted to talk to her some more, that wasn’t clear in his mind, so all he said was, “She’s going with us.”

Buddy gave him a funny look, a frown. He said, “Jesus Christ, what were you doing in there? I can understand you need to get laid, but you have Adele, don’t you?”

“Get the shotgun,” Foley said, “and her purse. I’d like to know who she is.”

“I already looked,” Buddy said. “Her name’s Karen Sisco.”

Headlights would come at them from the direction of West Palm and they’d keep to the narrow space between the car and the overpass. A sheriff’s green and-white car went screaming past, then another one and another, a string of green-and-whites in the space of a minute, going out to chase after escaped convicts.

When the road quieted down Foley stepped up to the Chevy’s trunk, keeping to the side of it, and banged on the sheet metal once with his fist.

“Karen? Be a good girl now, you hear? I’m gonna let you out.”

Foley jumped at the sound of a pistol shot, the bullet ripping through metal.

He yelled at her, “You’re putting holes in your car!” and looked up to see Buddy, with the shotgun and a black leather handbag, staring at him.

Foley took a moment to settle down before saying, “We’re not leaving you. I’m gonna open the trunk enough for you to throw the gun out. Okay? You shoot – Buddy’s got your shotgun, he says he’ll shoot back if you do and I can’t stop him. So it’s up to you.”

Foley put his hand out and Buddy, still looking at him funny, gave him the keys.

They heard a voice yell “Hey!” Not from the trunk, a clear sound coming from somewhere above them.

“It’s me, Glenn.”

They looked up to see a figure, head and shoulders against the evening sky, leaning on the rail.

“Hey, Jack, good to see you, man. The fuck’re you guys shooting at?”

Buddy raised his voice saying, “We’ll be there in a minute.”

“I don’t mean to complain,”¹⁰⁷ Glenn said, “but you know how long I’ve been here? Florida Highway Patrol comes by and I’m fucked.”

Foley looked at Buddy.

“Do we need him?”

“Three green-and-whites saw us,” Buddy said. “One of ’em starts thinking, What’s that car doing there? Ties it to the break and turns around… We got to get out of here.”

Foley walked back to the Chevy and banged on the trunk.

“You coming out?”

He stuck the key in the lock, standing right in front of the trunk, and turned to Buddy. Buddy walked up to the trunk and racked the pump on the shotgun¹⁰⁸. Foley said, “You hear that?”

He turned the key and raised the trunk lid.

Karen, hunched in there, extended her arm, her hand holding the Sig Sauer.

She said, “You win, Jack¹⁰⁹.”

Buddy gave him another funny look.

If he leaned out over the rail Glenn could see part of the open trunk, Foley reaching a hand in to help someone get out.

Jesus, a girl. Standing by the car now smoothing her skirt, touching her hair.

Now they were crossing the ditch; he wouldn’t see them again until they came up the slope. Or, she worked at the prison and Foley grabbed her, used her as a shield going out.

Glenn thought about it returning to the car he’d left on the grassy side of the road, trouble lights¹¹⁰ blinking just in case.

Or, Buddy brought her for Foley and he couldn’t wait, gave her a jump¹¹¹ in the trunk of the car. Not in the backseat with Buddy watching. It was a possibility.

Glenn had gotten to know them at Lompoc USP. Buddy asked him what he was doing and Glenn said networking, trying to find out who he should know and who he should stay away from. Buddy said he meant how much time was he doing. Oh, two to five, Glenn said, for grand theft auto. What he told them was he stole Porsche and Mercedes top of-the-line models he picked up on special order and delivered anywhere in the U. S. with clean titles¹¹². See if that impressed them.

Foley said between him and Buddy they’d boosted three to four hundred cars in their time, but never sold any or kept them for more than a couple of hours.

These were cool guys, both fairly tall and stringy, Buddy with dark curly hair that was always slicked back – he kept a comb in his pocket. Foley’s light-brown hair was short and thick enough he could do okay combing it with his fingers. They didn’t seem in great shape – they’d rather watch than work out¹¹³ – but both had that hard-boned look, like they’d worked construction or in oil fields all their lives instead of robbing banks. Easygoing but looked you right in the eye when you spoke to them or they had something to say.

Glenn stayed close to them and was never seriously approached by any perverts or butt fuckers¹¹⁴. Foley said, “Don’t take it up ’less you think you might like it.” Buddy said, “What you do, just say no, then kill the guy.”

Glenn believed they let him hang around because he was from L. A., West Hollywood, he knew what was happening. He’d tell them stories about when he was in the car-dealing business and got laid a lot: how he’d work on cars at these multimillion-dollar homes in Beverly Hills and wait for the lady of the house to make the move¹¹⁵. Get asked in for a cold drink, a dip in the pool? It happened, man, more often than you’d think, couple of times even with movie stars.

This was when they started calling him Studs¹¹⁶.

One day in the yard Glenn said, “I’m gonna tell you guys something only one other person here knows about. I was originally at FPC, the camp over there? And was transferred here with another guy for trying to escape.”

“You know Maurice Miller in the boxing program they call Snoopy¹¹⁷? Fights lightweight? He was at FPC¹¹⁸ doing a gig¹¹⁹ for fraud, I think credit cards. Anyway, we went out one night jogging, like Snoopy’s doing road work and I’m his trainer. We made it almost all the way to Vandenberg and got picked up by air base MP¹²⁰ s. They thought we were awol¹²¹.

“I knew if we didn’t make it Snoopy and I’d get sent here or some other joint. But at the time I didn’t worry about getting caught. See, what happened, I got next to a guy over at FPC doing three years on a felony conspiracy¹²² thing, strictly white collar. He got the three years and was fined fifty million dollars and wrote ’em a check. Like that, fifty mil, signed his name.”

Foley said, “One of the Wall Street scammers,” and he was right. He said, “I remember reading about the guy. Went up for insider trading¹²³. Paid off snitch brokers to give him information on stock deals before they went down.”

“That’s basically what he did,” Glenn said, “made a fortune¹²⁴.”

“Everybody thought the guy was a genius,” Foley said, “till they found out he made it the old-fashioned way, he stole it.”

“Anyway,” Glenn said, “here’s a multimillionaire making eleven cents an hour mopping floors, sweeping the tennis courts. Guy that used to be on the phone he said eighteen hours a day, had over a hundred extensions in his office, now has to stand in line to make a call. But the thing I’m getting at, the guy loved to talk.”

“Yeah, to the U. S. attorney,” Foley said.

“He blew the whistle on all the snitches¹²⁵ he was doing business with and got ’em brought up¹²⁶. I can’t think of the guy’s name.”

Glenn waited.

And Foley said, “Ripley. Richard Ripley. Called Dick the Ripper¹²⁷ on account of how he ripped off the stock market. Big good-looking guy.”

“He was vain, though. What he talked about most of the time, was himself, and I listened. I was all ears.¹²⁸ See, my bunk was right above his. I was polite, I played kiss-ass to a degree, I’d stand in the phone line for him; we’re out gardening I’d do the stoop work¹²⁹…

All this time he’s talking about what a high roller¹³⁰ he is and I’m taking it all in. I learn he’s got money in foreign banks, plus, around five mil in hard cash, plus, loose diamonds and gold coins. The man actually told me, five mil in cash. Nothing to it.”¹³¹

Foley said, “He keeps it at home?”

Buddy said, “Yeah, where’s the guy live?”

Glenn hesitated and Foley said, “He must’ve been getting out soon.”

“He’s out now. It was in the paper.”

“But you didn’t make it,” Foley said, “you and Snoopy.”

“Maurice happens to live in Detroit, the same place Ripley has his home. And he knows the Motor City.”

“So does Buddy,” Foley said, “if a guide’s all you need.”

Neither one of them showing much interest, that time in the yard at Lompoc USP¹³², five years ago.

Glenn got his release and moved to Florida, second only to California in the number of cars stolen.

He tried to keep in touch with the bank robbers, still at Lompoc, wrote to them a few times but never heard back, not a word. So when Buddy called a few weeks ago it came as a total surprise.

Buddy saying it was a small world: he’d just arrived in Florida and Foley was here, at GCI¹³³ the past five months. The way Buddy put it, “He don’t like it there and sees a way to bust out. If you aren’t doing anything, you want to drive one of the cars? Take a few hours of your time is all.”

Glenn said, well, he’d been up to Detroit on a deal, but at the moment was free. He said, “Yeah, I think I can make it.”

You had to be as cool as these guys.

“How about if I go see Foley?” Glenn said. “You talk to him, see if he remembers Dick the Ripper. I’d still like you guys to go in with me. You think you might be interested?”

Buddy didn’t comment right out and say if they would or not.

Glenn had seen him three times since that phone call. At a bar in West Palm near Glenn’s apartment. A hotel in Miami Beach where Foley’s ex-wife lived. Adele. About forty but not bad looking. And the third time when Buddy drove him out to Glades Correctional, showed the route he’d take once he had Foley in the car, and where Glenn would be waiting with the second car.

Right here with the Audi parked off to the side of the turnpike, trouble lights blinking, a note stuck in the side window that said GONE TO GET GAS¹³⁴, Glenn waiting now among pines and palmettos a good fifty feet from the car. If any approaching headlights turned out to be a trooper, Glenn would be out of there, through the trees and down the grade¹³⁵ – about where they should be coming up now, with the girl Foley must’ve used as a hostage. But what good was she doing him now? He should’ve left her in the trunk of the car.

A few more minutes passed before he heard them coming.