Chapter Fifteen

October, 1935

 

There was an overpowering and familiar stench in the dining hall, a mixture of sweat, potato starch and grease. As Bill shuffled along in the dinner queue, he felt that instead of a lifetime behind bars, he’d been condemned for all eternity, and the treadmill walk of relentless boredom would go on after his death, . This is what had been drummed into his early years, the threats of limbo, payback for a life of crime. He held out his tray as a mushy pile of waterlogged mashed potatoes was slopped onto a plate, followed by grayish-brown unrecognizable meat, and inky-bright peas. The plate came down onto his tray with a clatter.

‘Bon appetit!’ said the convict serving. Bill gave him a weak smile and shuffled further along, where he was handed a rubbery rice pudding in a tin dish. He picked up a bread roll and a tin mug of water and went to see if he could find a seat near his friend Jerry O’Hagan. As he passed between the rows of convicts on benches, Danny Savino tried to grab his attention. Although he couldn’t focus on Jerry O’Hagan, Bill pretended not to see Danny Savino and found somewhere else to sit.

Because of his reputation as a bookworm, three months after his release from the isolation block, Bill had been allowed to work in the prison library. It wasn’t much of a library, just a small room with a dozen bookshelves, filled mostly with books that had seen better days; but Bill was grateful for this oasis of familiarity, and the books were his friends in this hostile environment. On his first day at the library, he was approached by Danny Savino, who didn’t strike Bill as much of a reader. And he knew that Savino had another four of a ten year sentence left to serve and would like to make a good impression with the parole board and get it reduced. Bill’s suspicions were aroused when the convict asked him if he could recommend any book to read, while glancing over his shoulder in a deliberately furtive manner. Then, lowering his voice, he offered his services to help Bill escape. Bill said adamantly that he wasn’t planning on escaping and was reluctantly prepared for a long stay. The convict told Bill that if he changed his mind, he could count on his help. But Bill suspected he was being tested by the warden and the prison authorities.

Over several months he was approached by numerous other convicts with offers of help, and each time Bill declined, knowing that it would get back to “Hard-boiled” Smith. He hoped it would convince the warden that he was resigned to serving his sentence. But when he thought of the punishing sentence stretching interminably across the century, he became more determined than ever to escape. Apart from the times when he vanished into the reassuring calm of an involving book, his thoughts were almost entirely consumed in hatching and plotting.

Like other convicts he mashed the meat and gravy into his potatoes, making them less starchy and watery, then chewed and swallowed hurriedly, and tried not to taste what he was eating. Halfway through he stopped eating and looked around the dining hall, trying to see where Jerry was. He eventually saw him three tables away, his bald head bobbing as he ate. He tried to catch his eye, but Jerry was obviously concentrating on getting over the odious task of eating, so that he could return to his cell and escape into his world of painting. Because he was a model prisoner, Jerry O’Hagan had been allowed to indulge his artistic skills.

Bill watched as Jerry finished his meal, returned his tray to the hatch, then quickly left the dining hall. Bill hurriedly finished his own dinner and went to look for him. When he got to Jerry’s cell, his friend had wasted no time in getting started on his latest painting, and stood behind a medium sized canvas on an easel, cleaning a long, thin paint brush.

‘Hello, Jerry,’ Bill said. ‘Hope I’m not disturbing you. Mind if I come in for a minute?’

‘Sure, Bill. As long as you don’t mind if I carry on painting. I can talk at the same time. ‘

Jerry O’Hagan finished cleaning the brush, dipped it gently into a light blue color on his palette and applied it delicately to the canvas. With the easel taking up room in the small cell, Bill squeezed himself between its back legs, and sat on the edge of Jerry’s bed. Fascinated, he watched his middle-aged friend for a while, his tongue protruding in concentration between his lips like a child. Both men were comfortable with the silence, but after a while Jerry sensed that Bill wanted to ask him something.

‘What’s on your mind?’ he said.

Although Jerry O’Hagan was serving life for first degree murder, Bill felt he could trust him. He wasn’t a violent man. Far from it. He was a thoughtful and gentle soul, and Bill sympathized with him when Jerry related his tragic history.

Jerry once ran his own small business, mending clocks and watches. He was deeply in love with his young wife and wanted to start a family. But one lunchtime an important customer asked him to deliver a watch, which was not usually part of the service. Seeing this as an opportunity to surprise his young wife, he readily agreed to deliver the watch and miss out on lunch. But when he went home, and on hearing noises coming from the bedroom, at once he knew something evil was happening, taking possession of his soul. Instantly, he was no longer a rational, loving human being. Something was about to destroy him. The noises coming from the bedroom penetrated him like sharp instruments of torture. By now he was out of control and ran crazily to the bedroom. He wanted it to end, the painful sound of all that pleasure. When he saw them together, he went berserk, picked up a crowbar and bludgeoned his wife and her lover to death. Had the crowbar not happened to be where it lay on top of the chest of drawers in the bedroom, things might have been different. There would have been a fight, vicious and violent, but not an extremely bloody murder, with two corpses bleeding profusely like a busy day at the abattoir. But the crowbar was convenient, lying there in the bedroom as though it was meant for this incident. Fate. And what was it doing there? Unfortunately, they had wooden shutters on their windows, and a few nights prior to the murder, one of them had become seriously jammed, and Jerry used the crowbar to pry it out of its socket. At his trial, the District Attorney said he found the crowbar story difficult to believe. He insisted there was a time difference between the accused finding the lovers in bed, then rushing downstairs, going out to his workshop, fetching the crowbar, and returning to the house to kill the lovers. It was, insisted the D. A. , a premeditated act. And as Jerry had a poor lawyer, did little to defend himself, he was sentenced to die in the electric chair. But later on, after a meeting with his parents, he agreed to appeal, got a better lawyer, and his sentence was commuted to life.

Bill felt sorry for Jerry, who had lived an honest, unblemished life up until the incident that was to destroy him. Now, as he was about to ask for help, knowing his friend was unlikely to refuse, he worried about involving him, in case something went wrong. The only escape for Jerry now was his art, and if he lost those privileges it would surely kill him. But when Bill thought about his sentence, stretching to infinity, he knew he had no choice but to ask the favor.

‘Jerry,’ he began. ‘I’d like your help. ‘

Jerry stopped painting and peered over the canvas. ‘I don’t see how I can help you to escape. ‘

‘How did you know I was planning to escape?’

Jerry smiled a secret smile and resumed painting. ‘You managed to escape once, you’re a great lock artist - it’s doesn’t take much to work that one out. ‘

Bill sighed and frowned. ‘Yeah, and the warden can work that one out. ‘

‘But the warden’s got to look after hundreds of convicts, not just thinking about one man,’ reasoned Jerry. ‘So what is it you want me to do?’

‘Before I tell you, let me ask you something. Why don’t you come with me?’

Without taking his eyes off the painting, Jerry shook his head slowly. ‘You know better than to ask, Bill. I killed two human beings. I’m here because I deserve to be here. ‘

‘You can’t keep torturing yourself about it. You’ve got to let it rest.’

‘I can’t, Bill. There’s not a day goes by I don’t think about it. I’m here for life. ‘

‘As long as you’re sure. ‘

‘Oh, I’m sure. Now what is it you want me to do?’

‘I want the odd bit of paint - certain colors. A tiny bit at a time. And I know artists sometimes use plaster of Paris for making models and things. I need you to give me small amounts - say, over a year. ‘

‘Okay,’ Jerry agreed. ‘I’ll do it. ‘

‘Thanks. I really appreciate it. ‘

Jerry threw a glance at Bill. ‘It’s what friends are for. ‘

Bill smiled back at him as he got up from the bed. ‘Thanks, Jerry, you’re a good friend. I’ll leave you in peace now to get on with your painting. ‘

As he was leaving the cell, Bill turned back. ‘Don’t you want to know what the stuff is for?’

Jerry grinned. ‘I think it best I don’t know. Total ignorance is safer. For us both. ‘

‘Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Jerry. See you later. ‘

‘Oh, I’ll still be here. ‘

Bill walked thoughtfully along the corridor past the other cells, towards his own. He was not only going to need Jerry’s help, but others as well. But who could he trust? He needed some new friends, men with access to some tools; convicts who were allowed to work in the printing, woodworking and maintenance shops. He could exclude anyone who approached him planning a breakout. It would be certain to be a trap laid by the warden. He needed to be very selective in his choice of conspirators. Then there was the cost. The prison currency was tobacco, so he would have to give up smoking.

‘Sutton! I was looking for you. ‘

It was Skelton, a weasel-faced guy of whom Bill was always wary.

‘Something wrong?’ Bill asked cautiously.

Skelton grinned. ‘I heard you worked for the Dutchman. ‘

Bill nodded.

Skelton’s grin widened as he relished his tale. ‘Schultz ain’t with us no more. Gone to that speakeasy in the sky. ‘

Skelton paused dramatically, savoring the effect.

‘What happened?’

‘Shot at the Palace Chop House in Newark. He was still alive when the cops got there. They took him to the hospital, then he died almost a day after the hit. So they took him to the morgue and laid him out on the cold slab. So long, fucker!’

Skelton laughed, slapped Bill on the arm, and walked off.

Bill thought about Dutch Schultz. Tried to picture the scene in vivid detail. The Dutchman’s bullet riddled body slumped over a restaurant table, blood seeping from his wounds. Like Johnny Eagan at that speakeasy. And Doc Tate, knifed in a senseless brawl. The endless list of the people he’d worked with, all met with a violent end. And poor old Eddie Wilson. He’d heard Eddie was in Sing Sing, and was blind. A blind prisoner.

Jesus! It didn’t bear thinking about. The jinx. It had to be the jinx. Everyone he touched. Even his women friends. And his beautiful daughter. He’d brought them nothing but bad luck.