They moved down Peachtree past closed, softly lit shops until they hit narrower streets, shabby little houses packed close together. In the fading evening, kids played ball in the street, running and shouting. The deputy honked impatiently at a bunch of Negro boys in a game of kick-the-can. Ahead loomed the penitentiary: thick concrete walls, one guard tower that Lee could see, the glint of rifles reflected from big spotlights glaring across the entry doors.
Belly-chained, Lee slid awkwardly out of the car and climbed the marble steps, aching tired. Once inside and through the sally port the deputy marshals freed him of the cuffs and chain. He stood rubbing his sore wrists where the cuffs had eaten in, rubbing his back, listening to the hum of the heavy barred gate sliding closed behind him.
Down both sides of the long passage were vaulted openings that led to the cellblocks. He followed along beside the uniformed admissions officer, a trim, dark-haired young man with a full mustache. Down at the end of the corridor he could see open double doors and could smell greasy dishwater and boiled cabbage, could hear pans clanging and male voices. The corridor was hung with inmates’ paintings, some crazy paranoid, some nostalgic. An oil painting of a cowhand riding across open prairie struck him hard.
When he had showered and been issued prison clothes he was led into a cellblock five tiers high. He had stuffed his savings book and Mae’s picture, which he was allowed to keep, into the pocket of his loose cotton shirt. He followed the officer up the metal stairs that zigzagged back and forth between metal catwalks. Some fifty feet above the main floor were barred clerestory windows, their glass arching up another thirty feet. He craned his neck to look up, the height dizzying him. “Some hotel, Lieutenant.”
“Sorry, no elevator,” the officer said in his soft Southern speech. “You’ll be on the third tier.” They climbed in silence as the rumble of a train broke the night from behind the prison, its scream shrill and demanding. By the time Lee reached his tier he was breathing so hard he had to stop twice to get enough air. “Long drop,” he said when the train had passed and he could talk again. “Anyone ever cash it in and jump?”
“It’s happened,” the guard said. “Not often.”
At midpoint of the catwalk he was ushered into a single cell.
“You’ll see Mr. Hamilton, the section custodian, in the morning. Then the classification officer. After that you’ll be able to move around the prison.”
His cell was no different than the others he’d lived in: stainless steel washbowl, stained metal toilet. A cot bolted to the wall, with a cotton pad, a worn-out pillow, and a gray prison blanket. He didn’t bother to undress. He pulled off his shoes, lay down and drew the blanket up around him, listening to the familiar prison noises, men snoring, metal clanging, the crinkle of paper as a candy bar was unwrapped. Maybe life was just one long cellblock after another until they planted you outside the wall.
But this thought brought a flurry of hissing. The cat leaped heavily onto the cot, right in Lee’s face, as solid as any living beast. Solid and very visible, shocking Lee. Quickly he looked up and down the corridor at the cells on the other side.
He saw no one looking back, and saw no guard near. Misto grinned, flicked his tail, and vanished again—but when Lee lifted the blanket the invisible cat crawled underneath, warm against Lee’s shoulder, the comfort of his purr easing Lee into sleep.
8
THE CLANG OF metal and the echo of men’s voices woke Lee. Morning light flooded the cellblock, striking down from the high clerestory windows. He staggered out of his bunk in automatic response to the wake-up call, stood at his barred door in his wrinkled prison clothes and stocking feet while the count was taken, then turned to the metal basin. He splashed water on his face, used the toothbrush and toothpaste he’d been issued. He was sitting on his bunk putting on his prison-issued shoes when a big-bellied custodian in blue pants and white shirt slid the barred door open. His nametag read HAMILTON. He stood looking Lee over.
“You sleep in those clothes?’
Lee pulled the shirt straight, tried to brush out the wrinkles.
“Once you’ve made up your bunk, Fontana, you can go from here to the mess hall. Then to classifications, then return to your cell. You’ll stay here until you’re notified, until you’re allowed to move around the prison and exercise yard.”
Lee listened to Hamilton’s directions to the various buildings, then followed him out, moving away along the metal catwalk among straggling inmates and down the iron stairs.
The prison cafeteria smelled of powdered eggs, bacon fat, and overcooked coffee. Inmates pushed in around him half awake, grumbling and arguing or shuffling along silent and morose. Again a train rumbled and screamed passing outside the wall. None of the men paid any attention. Lee guessed they were used to it. Maybe the siren’s call didn’t stir their blood the way it excited him, the way it made him want out of there, made him feel all the more shackled. He kept to himself in the crowded line until he was jolted hard from behind by two men horsing around, pummeling each other. Lee didn’t look at them, he left it alone, he didn’t want to start anything.
Not until one of them bumped him hard, did he turn. The man was right in his face. Lee stood his ground. The guy would be a fool to start something here, with half a dozen guards watching. He stared challengingly at Lee, his face hatched by deep lines pinched into a scowl. Dark hair in a short prison cut, a high, balding forehead. It was the look in his black eyes that brought Lee up short, a stare so brutal Lee paused, startled by the sense of another presence within that dark gaze.
But just as quickly the man’s look changed to the insolence of any prison no-good. Lee could see the guards watching them, ready to move in. He took a good look at the man’s companion: blond pompadour combed high above his weathered face, pale, ice-blue eyes. A pair of twisted inmates that a fellow wanted to avoid. Lee moved on with the line, picked up a tray and collected his breakfast. Turning away, he crossed the room to a small, empty table.
The two men joined a crowded table in the center of the big cafeteria and in a moment all seven inmates turned to watch Lee. He ate quickly, ignoring them, trying not to think about the spark he’d seen in those dark eyes, that quick glimpse of something foreign peering out.
He didn’t look at the crowded table as he left the mess hall. Pushing out into the prison yard, he headed for the counselor’s office. To his right rose the stone buildings that would be prison industries. Beyond, at a lower level, sprawled the exercise yard, surrounded by the massive stone wall that enclosed the prison grounds. The wall must be thirty feet high. From this position he could see only one guard tower, two guards looking down, rifle barrels glinting in the morning sun. He had started toward the classifications building when a short man crossing the yard stopped, stared at him, then approached Lee with a dragging limp, a stocky man with husky arms and shoulders. His voice was grainy. “Hey, Boxcar, is that you?”
Lee hadn’t heard that name in fifty years. “Gimpy, you old safecracking buzzard.”
Hobbling along fast, Gimpy joined him, his eyes laughing beneath bushy gray brows. His hair was gray now, and he was maybe some heavier. “When the hell did you get in, Boxcar?”
“Just transferred in from Springfield. How long have you been here?”