Picturegoer (Jul-Dec 1937)

PICTUREGOER Weekly September II, 1937 San Quentin — Continued Before he could report, grumbles from old-timers broke out. Regardless of Druggin's attempts to break up knots of dissentients, grouses could be heard on all sides. When the siren blew for "up tools," the workers stood stock still. The captain's entry, unarmed, but escorted by a couple of armed guards, in spite of Red's inward fight against sentiment, fanned his admiration to the heights of heroworship. Briefly the captain addressed the strikers, telling them if they didn't want to work to go back to their cells and do without extra grub and tobacco. In spite of Druggin's exaggerated report which he handed over by telephone to the newspapers, the strike proved a mere flash in the pan. Red counted the men's return to work the following morning as one more up to the captain. Later he hugged it to himself that his hero, in spite of adverse criticism from the parole board, had succeeded in his claim to be allowed to stay at San Quentin and do his iob as he thought best. Meanwhile Red became daily more pleased than ever he could have pictured at handling pick and spade in the open. Knowledge that the road he was helping to make connected up with a public highway became a fascination, only because he hoped one day to earn the right to pass along it. Sailor Boy, who, by reason unaccounted for, had joined the road gang, voiced other ideas to Red. "I don't suppose you'd like to make a break and be outside the walls for ever," he suggested one morning, while Red paused to wipe off sweat. "And spend the rest of my life hiding out? Not much. My term isn't as long as yours. Sailor. A couple of years of behaving myself and I'll be on the right side." Talk that night in the bunkhouse where the privileged convicts slept, instead of in the cells, went on so that Red could hear. Tired though he was with manual work, he listened. A particularly objectionable road-gang member, also a second-timer, by name Fink, remarked something about "big shot pals outside," adding, "Red's got a lot better pal than the captain. He's got a good-looking sister. I saw her to-day bein' taken along to the Cap " Red was up, holding the speaker by the throat. " Crack all you want to about me, but lay off my sister," he advised. "Take your ugly hands off of me. I didn't mean anything; that is no more than the prison knows. You think Captain Jameson's swell to you, because he's a great guy. You don't know he's calling on your sister, having meals at her place, drinking her coffee, making up to her " You " If it hadn't been for Sailor Boy, Red would have throttled the wind out of Fink. "You zra.zy fool! You'll only get in the can that way," Sailor Boy threatened, adding as the guard appeared, demanding to know the cause of the disturbance, "It's nothing, mister. We was just clowning." Red, trying to settle in his blankets 22 couldn't rest. "Was that crack about my sister on the level, Sailor ?" he whispered across the darkness between their beds. "Sure. I wonder you ain't wise to it. Captain sees her every time she visits the prison." Hatred overflowed in Red, obliterating everything but desire to be revenged. " I'll give these guys something to talk about," he muttered. "One day Jameson'U leave San Quentin and never come back. When do we break. Sailor?" "Now you're talking, Red." In the night the second-timer outlined his scheme. His girl, Helen, would drive her tourer to the point where the public highway merged into the new road. She would draw up and, when told to move on, would discover a tyre, from which she had let out the air, conveniently flat. A request to the guard for help should ensure Red and Sailor Boy being told to manipulate the jack, if they were lucky. "And then," as Sailor Boy said, "we're practically on the outside for keeps." Yesterday the plan of action would have seemed full of holes as mice-ridden cheese. To-day, with all Red's hero-worship exploded by rumour, it appeared sound as a bell. Strangely enough, the initial stages were actually carried through without rehearsal or mishap. A guard in charge of the road-gang succumbed to Helen's plea of puncture trouble and for help in changing the wheel. "You two, over here and change tyres," he ordered. Willingly Red and Sailor Boy, abandoning tools, got down to the job while the guard pocketed the car key. A duplicate key passed from Helen's to Sailor Boy's hand. Next minute, on the side of the car not surveyed by the guard, he was withdrawing a couple of revolvers from the undershelf of the tool box. Meanwhile, Helen played her part. Engaging the guard in conversation, she saw that he had his back to Druggin, whose appearance on the scene was a signal for Sailor Boy to shout : "Stick 'em up, Druggin! Come on, Red. Get in the car and keep moving." Hauling Druggin and keeping him covered, Sailor Boy forced his prisoner on to the back seat. Helen occupied the front, while Red trod on the accelerator. The heavy, hooded tourer, safe from open attack by the guards, roared on to the highway. A couple of miles from San Quentin, at a point where the road shelved away on one side to a steep bank covered with flints, Sailor Boy opened the car door. To Red, driving, the cries of the terrified Druggin at realising his end was in sight had no reality. Not until Druggin's body had rolled down the merciless slope did Red shiver. Too late now for xegret. Feeling sick, he opened throttle, forcing his thoughts to the matter in hand and experiencing a heightening of tension as Sailor Boy, keeping an eye on the back window, shouted : "Step on it, Red! Police are picking up on us." The roar of the engine, responding to Red's touch, drowned the noise of revolver shots, but, catching sight of the petrol indicator, he turned to Helen. "How much petrol did you put in?" "The tank was full." " Gauge shows empty. They must have hit the tank." As though in confirmation of Red's thought, the engine missed fire and began to peter out. "Here comes a car," Sailor Boy called. "Let's grab it." A couple of shots missing the wings, and orders shouted for the occupants to pull up, brought the oncoming coupe to a standstill. "Come on ! Leave your motor running and get outside; you, too, sister," Sailor Boy ordered. Leaving two terrified young women in their wake in charge of Helen, Red and Sailor Boy embarked on the coup6. With a grinding of gears and skidding of corners, they forged ahead. On a flat stretch with an unprotected level crossing in sight, police cycles could be seen coming up behind. A train was on its way to cross the road. Could Red make it? He did, with not a moment to spare ; heat from the locomotive, which towered above him like a monster, touched his cheek as he shot past. Along line of cars and trucks, passing between him and the dreaded cycles, did not give Red all the ground for which he had hoped. Where track and road ran alongside, another level crossing came into view. "Come on. Red ! Beat that train. If we get across this time first, we'll make it," Sailor Boy called. Red set his teeth, letting Again Red was obliged to look into dark eyes subjecting him to peculiar scrutiny. the car do all it knew. For a time it was neck and neck; then Red saw to make the necessary gain was hopeless. The train roared on, engaging the level crossing. Jamming on his brakes. Red swerved, trying to guide the coupe' down the steep bank at the roadside. It overturned. He felt a crashing weight on his head and knew nothing more. Coming to very rapidly, he managed to extricate himself from the wreckage. Strange that he could move ; that apparently no bones were broken. Through mud and dust he saw Sailor Boy lying in a heap, and bent over him, straightening the inert limbs, looking at the eyes closed as if in sleep. "Sailor! Sailor I" he cried in panic, and saw that he was dead. Even then his nerve held. At any moment now the police would be upon him. Scrambling up the bank on to the track, he waited for the oncoming train. As the first police cycle turned in to investigate the smash, Red, taking advantage of the locomotive's slow down, managed to board a cattle truck. Late that evening he arrived, by way of the bedroom window. at May's apartment. He had scarcely thought to find the man he wanted at a first attempt, but there he was in the living-room — Jameson, in mufti, talking to May on friendly terms ; talking, moreover, about Red. "He was so happy when I last saw him. He was going straight, and he meant it. They'll get him now, and he won't have another chance. What reason did he have ?" May was saying. "I don't know. I can't figure it out." "I'll tell you, copper." Red thought nothing of his dramatic entry into the living-room, nothing of May's terrified cry and attempt to seize the revolver levelled at Jameson. He only thought of killing Jameson, his god with clay feet. " You shut up. May !" Red ordered. "You've been giving me favours, Jameson, so you could kick my sister round in the gutter. You thought you had her in a swell spot with me locked up. Thought it was safe for you to come here. Well, here's your second pay-off." "That's a lie. Red. You're talking out of your head." "Give me that gun." Snatching it from May, Red fired three times. His aim was wild. One shot entered Jameson's arm. but he remained as before. Something in May claimed Red's attention. Her words were tumbling out, her eyes on fire. "We're in love, Red. We've been in love since we met, the night you were arrested. He wants to marry me. He did everything he could to help you — to make a man out of you — in spite of Druggin." "Perhaps it never occurred to you," Jameson added, " that Druggin got Sailor Boy on the road-gang hoping he'd break and ruin my chances with the prison authorities." The swift inner conviction that he had been a fool changed in Red to alarm as footsteps outside were followed by a peremptory knocking. "Coppers !" he gasped. "Let us handle this," Jameson ordered. " In there, quick I" May added, opening the bedroom door. Red, hurrying in, heard her say, "You're hurt, Steve." "No, I'm all right. What is it, boys ?" "We heard some shots. We're on special patrol looking for Red Kennedy, escaped convict." "That's what I'm here for. too; but there weren't any shots. Must have been a backfire in an alley or something. Red Kennedy's not here. I'll be responsible for this end of it. I want him a lot more than you. I'm Jameson, captain of the yards, San Quentin." Red waited to hear no more. When the special patrol, for a matter of form, entered the bedroom, only the open window showed by which way Red Kennedy had gone. Halt ! Who's there ? Who is it?" " Kennedy." Obeying orders to shoot the gaolbreaker on sight, the guard on duty at the entrance to San Quentin fired at the thin, haggard figure whose eyes, in the half-dark, loomed up in his white face. "Get a doctor !" ordered a second guard, kneeling by the prostrate figure. Red looked up. "Its no use. Tell him I don't need him," he whispered. "Tell Jameson I came back. Tell the convicts to play ball with him. He's a great guy."