‘Stay with Lacey, will you?’
Slape looked unhappy with the prospect.
‘Here, sir?’ he asked.
‘Here.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’m relying on you, so don’t let me down.’
‘No, sir.’
Redman turned to Lacey. The bruised look was a wound now open, as he wept.
‘Give me your letter. I’ll take it to the Office.’
Lacey had thrust the envelope into his pocket. He retrieved it unwillingly, and handed it across to Redman.
‘Say thank you.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
The corridors were empty.
It was television time, and the nightly worship of the box had begun. They would be glued to the black and white set that dominated the Recreation Room, sitting through the pap of Cop Shows and Game Shows and
Wars from the World Shows with their jaws open and their minds closed. A hypnotized silence would fall on the assembled company until a promise of violence or a hint of sex. Then the room would erupt in whistles, obscenities, and shouts of encouragement, only to subside again into sullen silence during the dialogue, as they waited for another gun, another breast. He could hear gunfire and music, even now, echoing down the corridor.
The Office was open, but the Secretary wasn’t there. Gone home presumably. The clock in the Office said eight-nineteen. Redman amended his watch.
The telephone was on the hook. Whoever had called him had tired of waiting, leaving no message. Relieved as he was that the call wasn’t urgent enough to keep the caller hanging on, he now felt disappointed not to be speaking to the outside world. Like Crusoe seeing a sail, only to have it sweep by his island.
Ridiculous: this wasn’t his prison. He could walk out whenever he liked. He would walk out that very night: and be Crusoe no longer.
He contemplated leaving Lacey’s letter on the desk, but thought better of it. He had promised to protect the boy’s interests, and that he would do. If necessary, he’d post the letter himself.
Thinking of nothing in particular, he started back towards the workshop. Vague wisps of unease floated in his system, clogging his responses. Sighs sat in his throat, scowls on his face. This damn place, he said aloud, not meaning the walls and the floors, but the trap they represented. He felt he could die here with his good intentions arrayed around him like flowers round a stiff, and nobody would know, or care, or mourn. Idealism was weakness here, compassion and indulgence. Unease was all: unease and —Silence.
That was what was wrong. Though the television still popped and screamed down the corridor, there was silence accompanying it. No wolf-whistles, no cat-calls.
Redman darted back to the vestibule and down the corridor to the Recreation Room. Smoking was allowed in this section of the building, and the area stank of stale cigarettes. Ahead, the noise of mayhem continued unabated. A woman screamed somebody’s name. A man answered and was cut off by a blast of gunfire. Stories, half-told, hung in the air.
He reached the room, and opened the door.
The television spoke to him. ‘Get down!’
‘He’s got a gun!’
Another shot.
The woman, blonde, big-breasted, took the bullet in her heart, and died on the sidewalk beside the man she’d loved.
The tragedy went unwatched. The Recreation Room was empty, the old armchairs and graffiti-carved stools placed around the television set for an audience who had better entertainment for the evening. Redman wove between the seats and turned the television off. As the silver-blue fluorescence died, and the insistent beat of the music was cut dead, he became aware, in the gloom, in the hush, of somebody at the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Slape, sir.’
‘I told you to stay with Lacey.’
‘He had to go, sir.’
‘Go?’
‘He ran off, sir. I couldn’t stop him.’
‘Damn you. What do you mean, you couldn’t stop him?’
Redman started to re-cross the room, catching his foot on a stool. It scraped on the linoleum, a little protest.
Slape twitched.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t catch him. I’ve got a bad foot.’
Yes, Slape did limp. ‘Which way did he go?’ Slape shrugged. ‘Not sure, sir.’ ‘Well, remember.’