“I figured there would be a phone in the back someplace. I could call from there. I shoved the rest of the stuff on the floor into a pile with the side of my foot. I went back looking for the phone. It was inside a wire cage, in back of a counter. I saw it when I held the lighter up high. I went around behind the counter. I’d shoved some of the watches and things in my pocket to keep my hands free. I should have laid them down. I guess I was nervous. I was being a hero or something. I never thought about how it would look. Then somebody comes to the open door, and they put a big bright light in my face.”
“And you raised the gun, Rainey.”
“No. I started to say something. I think I said, ‘Somebody broke in here and—’ But I didn’t get any further, because a gun went off and the bullet hit my chest and knocked me down. I hit my head when I went down, I guess.”
“You ought to put that act in Hollywood. You ought to get an agent.”
“He had no reason to shoot me.”
“No, that’s right. He was right unreasonable, wasn’t he? Nice fella like you, gun in his hand, door busted, pry bar on the floor, watches and diamond rings in your pocket, aiming your gun at a cop. You better see your alderman, Rainey. You’ve been imposed on.”
“I tell you it was another guy. Look, I haven’t got any record. I own a gas station. I own my own home. Where’s my wife? Talk to her. Good Lord, this is a mess. It’s a mistake.”
“We’ve talked to your wife. You got a payment due on the station. You got a payment due on the house. You couldn’t have covered them both.”
“I was going to get an extension.”
“You were walking home. And left your car at the station. Why?”
“There was a chatter in the back end I didn’t like. I didn’t want to run it until I had a chance to take it down.”
“You’re exciting the patient,” the nurse had said.
“Where did you get the Luger, Rainey? When you were in the Third Army? Little souvenir?”
“I’m sorry. You’ll have to leave.”
It had been a nightmare, all of it. Mary, white-faced, grimly loyal. The lawyer she’d gotten for him, barely able to conceal his bored skepticism. The deal the lawyer had tried to make for him. But he would not plead guilty. He did not think it could be happening to him. It had not seemed real, even when Canelli had been on the stand, young and dark-haired and handsome, saying, “My partner and I were driving by. I spotted the light. It was his lighter flame. I told Gorman to pull over. I ran back. Gorman was behind me. The door was open. I’d grabbed a flashlight out of the car. I put it in his face. He pointed the gun at me. I fired first.”
“The defendant says he spoke to you.”
“He didn’t say a word. He just aimed.”
Canelli had gotten a citation from the department. Rainey had gotten six and a half years, the sentence prescribed by law for a first offense for armed robbery. He could not believe it. He still had the idea that all of a sudden the enormous mistake would be discovered and everybody would start shaking hands.
But the big doors had closed behind him, and for a few months, knowing the station was gone, the house was gone, the good years were gone, he had been dangerously close to insanity. The assistant warden had straightened him out.
He could not forget what the lawyer had said. “Patrolman Canelli’s testimony is what made the difference. If he had testified you had started to say something and had not pointed the gun, we would have had a chance. A small chance, but a chance. But he couldn’t testify without sounding trigger happy. I think he actually believes you pointed the Luger at him. You can appeal. You can always appeal, but it is too open and shut. It won’t work. You’ll just spend money, get so deep in hock you’ll never get out.”
“Doesn’t a clean record count at all?”
“Not in a case like this. For just breaking and entering, it might be a suspended sentence. But when you carry a gun, you’re licked.”
So at last he had made a stolid adjustment to the immutable fact of prison, the unchangeable days, the stone, the walls, the marching, the silences.
Now he was out, and coming back to life was a painful thing, like blood flowing into a leg that had been asleep too long.
He stood, his back to Mary, and said, “I want him to know what he did to me.”
“Don’t go near him. Please. Promise me you won’t.”
He didn’t answer. And in that way, their first weekend together was flavored by tension. The strangeness came back. They walked in the sunshine in the city because that was something he had thought about doing. But something was spoiled. He sensed the fear in her. But it was blunted against the anger he had nurtured for five years. So there was no true closeness. He was a stranger. She wanted him to give up. But you could not give up and remain a man.
Monday morning he reported to Laurts, found him to be a mild round man, a pipe smoker, quiet and unexpectedly friendly. “You’ve got good friends, Mr. Rainey. It’s a better job than most of the men I deal with manage to land. And that wife of yours is special, too.”
He appreciated being called Mr. Rainey. “How often do I report to you?”
“Come in and chat if you have anything on your mind. Any problem that bothers you. Let me know if you want to move or change jobs. I might look in on you at that trucking outfit sometime. I won’t, though, if you think it would hurt you there.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I want to give you as much freedom as I possibly can. The reports I have on you indicate I can do that. But I want to know one thing, Mr. Rainey. Do you think your sentence was just?”
“No, sir.”
“Could you tell me why?”
“I was convicted because a cop lied. I was innocent.”
Laurts examined the bowl of his pipe, tamped the coals with a yellowed thumb. “I see. And just what do you intend to do about that?”
“Nothing. That’s the way the ball bounced.”
“You’re not bitter about it?”
“Of course, I’m bitter about it. Wouldn’t you be?”
“I guess I would be. Just why don’t you want to do anything about it?”
Rainey shrugged. He hoped he was convincing. “What can I do? Beat him up? Kill him? Go back to jail? What’s the use? I’m out now. I want to stay out.”
Laurts gave him a long look. It made Rainey uncomfortable. “I really want to believe your adjustment is that mature, Mr. Rainey.”
“It is. I had a long time to think.”
“An innocent man in prison is one of the most dreadful things I can imagine, Mr. Rainey. But it happens sometimes. Usually when it happens it is due to an unfortunate physical resemblance, to false identification made in honest error. I went over your case carefully. I do that with every parolee.”
“And what do you think, Mr. Laurts?”
“Do you want me to say what I think?”
Rainey closed his fist slowly. “I guess not.”
“When do you go to work, Mr. Rainey?”
“I phoned Mr. Janson yesterday. I go over there right from here.”
Laurts stood up and held his hand out. “Good luck on the job, Mr. Rainey. I should give you some sort of pep talk about not letting your wife down, or me down, or your friend Mr. Janson down. I’m sure you don’t need or want that sort of thing. So just good luck.”