Chapter Three

“Virgil Ballard! Well, I’ll be damned!” The short, broad-shouldered con held out a callused hand as Virgil entered the cell. “How are ya, kid?”

Virgil transferred the wooden cane to his left hand and grasped the one extended him. The cell door clanged shut behind him. “Ralph!” he exclaimed happily. “Ralph Moss! I haven’t seen you since we ran moonshine together.”

“Two years ago,” beamed the older man.

“I thought you was too smart to end up here.”

Moss shrugged his bull-like shoulders. “Tell that to the cops in Kansas City. Me ’n’ Floyd was takin’ off from a bank job downtown, when boom!” He clapped his hands. “We run smack into a police roadblock. Whattaya gonna do in a situation like that?”

Virgil laughed heartily. “How is your brother?”

“Floyd? Ornery as ever. They let him go a coupla months ago, on accounta no previous record. I got eighteen months to go.” He eyed the cane on which Virgil was supporting himself. “What’s with the gimp? Catch a bullet?”

Virgil shook his head. “I busted my legs. Doc took the casts off a month ago, but they’re still weak. I been in the prison hospital since I got here.”

“Both legs?” Moss’ piggish eyes narrowed. “That’s pretty rare, ain’t it? Both of ’em?”

The younger man met his stare. “I fell down two flights of stairs.”

They remained silent for a long moment, looking into each other’s eyes. Then Moss exploded into laughter and punched Virgil in the shoulder. “That’s rich, kid. You oughtta be in vaudeville!”

“That’s what everybody says,” agreed Virgil, laughing and massaging his arm.

“Two legs! Jeez!” The stout convict wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes. “You must be the original Hard Luck Harry! Imagine! Two bustid legs ’n’ prison besides! How long you got?”

“Three years, if I behave myself.”

“Hell, that’s nothin’! When the screws talk, just smile and nod. Take whatever they got to give. It’s a waltz.”

“Some waltz. They tell me the guards beat a guy to death in the shower room just last month.”

Ralph Moss laughed, but it was an embarrassed laugh. “Yeah. Well, that was his own fault. A screw told him to go back in and take another bath, he was filthy, but he told him to go to hell. He just didn’t play by the rules, that’s all.”

“For that, they killed him?” Virgil was more afraid than angry.

“I guess they got carried away. But that’s just what I told you about. You leave them alone, they leave you alone. Be amiable. Follow the rules. You’ll be out like that.” He snapped his callused fingers.

Virgil sat down on the edge of the bottom bunk of the ugly double-decked bed. His gray prison uniform hung on him like a sack. “Two years, or one, or six months, what’s it matter? It’s just too damned long! I only been here a little while, and it’s driving me crazy. Now I find out that they’ll kill you if you act like a man. I want out, Ralph. I want out now.”

Moss laid a rough hand on the youth’s shoulder. “You’ll make it, kid.” He sat down beside him. “You think this is my first time? Listen, I been in and out of these joints all my life, ever since I was old enough to lift a gun. It passes, believe me. You just got to wait it out.”

“That’s not it,” insisted Virgil, shaking his head. “As soon as I get out on the street, I’m gonna get picked up again. I just know it. And then I’ll land right back here, or someplace like it, and that’ll be it.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Figure the odds.” Virgil began counting on his fingers. “I’m a crook. I don’t know how to do anything else, it’s all I been doing since I was a kid. I’m also a con. When I get out, I’ll be an ex-con. No difference. The state has my prints and picture. I been netted, labeled, and pinned to a board, just like a butterfly. There just isn’t any job I can pull that’s safe.”

There was a twinkle in the older man’s eye. “It don’t have to be that way, you know.”

Something in Moss’ voice made Virgil turn his head to look at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean this,” said the other, spreading his hands as if to pick something up. “There’s this little bank, see, in Dawes. I been thinkin’ about it ever since I met this guy who come from there. It’s a small town. The only law around is one old constable, and he’s nothin’. It won’t take but five minutes to pull up in front, hit it, and tear out again. Lead pipe.”

“So? What’s that got to do with me?”

“That’s where you come in. We need a good, reliable wheel man. I seen you handle them big trucks back in Oklahoma. If you can still roll like that, you’re the man we want.”

Virgil shook his head. “It’s no good. I’m gonna be in here for the next three years.”

“So what?” Moss was annoyed. “I got two and a half to serve myself. Nobody’s gonna move on accounta this plan is all mine. I ain’t told nobody about it, ’cept you.”

“You’ll still be out six months ahead of me.”

“So we’ll wait.”

“We?” Virgil raised his eyebrows.

“Sure, we. Me an’ Floyd an’ Roy.”

“Roy?”

Moss looked surprised. “Roy. Roy Farrell.” He said it as if it were supposed to mean something.

Virgil shook his head, uncomprehending.

“Roy Farrell,” began Moss pompously, “is only the biggest bank robber in Oklahoma. My brother’s with him now, and Roy sends word that he needs all the good men I can get. You’re the first. Whattaya say, kid? You in?”

Virgil thought it over. Bank robbery. That was one he’d never considered. Well, why not? It was a step up. “Okay,” he said, cheerfully resigning himself to his cellmate’s hands. “Deal me in.”

“Great!” Moss took aim to punch him in the shoulder, but Virgil dodged it. The older man gave it up and squatted on the floor, signaling for Virgil to join him. He began tracing the plan of Dawes bank on the concrete floor. “This is the front door,” he said, drawing a thick thumbnail across the thin layer of dust, “and this is the vault, about fifteen feet in. Now, there are never more’n five or six people in there at one time.…”

Virgil watched intently as the plan began to take shape. There, on the floor of his cell, the young Oklahoman studied the diagram that was to remain in his head for the next three years.