F.B.I. Showdown: A Classic Suspense Novel. Gordon Landsborough

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СКАЧАТЬ fight-marred countenance was better with his fists than with his brains.

      “We still give it him in the back of the head,” Egghead growled. “I ain’t comin’ back into this place, Johnny, no, not never. So I guess this time it don’t matter what I do when I tote a gun.”

      Johnny said, savagely, “Bud, I’m right with you! This babe’s another they won’t bring back alive. Another five years in this place? Guess I’d be screwy as heck by that time, Eggy, just as you say, we go out together an’ we don’t ever come back, no, not never!”

      When they were told to stand back of their benches and march off to the blocks, Louie Savannah got a whisper across the table. “What’s cooking, you guys? You doin’ a lotta talkin’ just now. Shoot the works?”

      Johnny looked quickly at Egghead. It was only a fractional glance, but it told Louie they were up to something and were hiding it from him. Johnny came back across the table as they picked up the mark-time with their ill-fitting prison boots. “Aw, gee, Louie, it ain’t nothin’. Just a ball game we’d like to see in Charleston.”

      Louie said, “Yeah?” and then again, softly, “Yeah?” and then turned to look for Joe Guestler. He was arrogant, young Louie, and no sort of man. Now that Erd was gone he thought he should be boss of the outfit, and he tried to say what should be done in their planning. But he wasn’t like his brother when it came to organising, and that was why they hadn’t got anywhere with the breakout to date.

      Egghead saw the look and said. “He’s on to us, damn it. Fer crissake play the dummy or we’ll be in jake with the Savannah boys!”

      They made their break seven weeks later. Seven weeks isn’t a long time, but seven weeks in jail can seem an eternity, and after a time Johnny got tired of waiting and wanted to try for a break over the wall, just as the Savannah boys were urging.

      But Egghead said no, a wall break was no dice, and he talked Johnny out of it. Acting on Egghead’s instructions, when the Savannah mob got impatient and wanted to start things, Johnny told them he hadn’t got enough guns in for them yet. But to keep them quiet, he got in three guns and then some ammunition for the Savannah boys, with the promise of another couple to follow. He and Egghead already had flat .38 automatics....

      A man was gassed in the lethal chamber after three weeks of waiting—he had croaked a young girl who wouldn’t play the game as he wanted her to—but neither Egghead nor Johnny Delcros got on the working party to clean up the place.

      They were more fortunate when it was Parry Galowen’s turn to take the last walk. Parry was a man thoroughly respectable at heart. He believed in the institution of marriage, and in fact had had several wives. The trouble was, they had insisted on remaining well and healthy when it would have suited the elegant Parry to have been a widower. So, Parry eased them into a happier world.

      Now Egghead Schiller and Johnny Delcros were helping to ease Parry out of the world, and by all accounts Parry wasn’t liking the idea.

      As they shuffled off to get some cleaning materials, Johnny said, “I just bin talkin’ with old Rocky.”

      Egghead kept his mouth shut and said, “What about old Rocky?” shuffling along. Rocky—Philip Whitwam, nicknamed Rockefeller because he was forever babbling about the millions that had passed through his hands—was Johnny’s cellmate.

      “Rocky’s got on to the breakout.”

      Egghead jerked round quickly, surprised. “Ours—on the laundry truck?”

      “Naw!” Johnny drew his share of the cleaning rags and tramped out of the room and along the corridor to the lethal chamber. When it was safe he continued, “He’s heard about the Savannah boys’ plan. He thinks we’re goin’ out with them. So he wants us to do something when we get out.”

      “Yeah?” They were marking time in the corridor outside the chamber while an officer came up with the keys.

      “He’s mad at his brother. Old Rocky says he look the rap because there wasn’t no sense in his brother comin’ with him. But he says his brother ain’t makin’ no attempt to spring him from jail, like it was arranged. So he’s mad at him, an’ he wants us to look up his brother and beat him around the head a bit until he starts to do something.”

      Egghead said, “Like hell we’ll beat anyone around the head unless there’s dough in it for us!”

      Johnny Delcros got in a final whisper before the guard came along. “Old Rocky says he an’ his brother have got a million greenberries stashed away!”

      Egghead was saying, “Hell, he always talks in nice round figures,” when the guard was among them, bellowing to them to keep silent. They stopped marking time. In the distance a thin high wailing floated up to them from Death Row.

      The guard grinned a big grim and said, “Jeeze, the fuss dat guy kicks up. You wouldn’t think we wus preparing his suite for him, would ya?” Some of the working party gave back the big laugh he was expecting, and that put him in good spirits.

      They went in, and the screams of a man who had less than a day to live were lost as the soundproof door closed behind them.

      There were really two rooms inside that soundproof door. One was a big room with a long glass observation panel all along one wall. Here the prison doctor, the Governor, various officials of the State, and even a few Pressmen sat and watched while the prisoner took the last step out of this world. That room had to be prepared, too.

      On the other side of the observation panel was a room not much bigger than a closet. One wall was perforated with pipe-inlets, which led to a battery of carbon monoxide cylinders outside. There was one easy chair in the room, with wooden armrests to which the prisoner would be strapped when they brought him in. There was also a small but very heavy table screwed to the floor.

      No one knew why there was a table inside the gas chamber, but it appeared to be there out of custom, a relic of the days when a man was supposed to write his last letters before being taken out and hanged. Possibly the table was retained so that the solitary death chair wouldn’t look quite so alone and sinister and so disturbing to the incoming candidate for death.

      But Johnny and Egghead weren’t interested in the fittings. They had been here before—many times. On average that gas chamber was used every four or five weeks; for murder was a hobby to some and a profession to many more in North Carolina.

      They were taut, now that the moment had arrived. Inside their prison shirts were their guns. They were watching all the time, waiting for the opportunity to get out to the laundry chute.

      Then they realized that Joe Guestler, who was in the party, was watching them closely, and they guessed that they must be giving the show away somehow. Egghead was gathering the wall and furniture covers together. He whispered, “Let’s go now. This is our chance. Ef Joe Guestler follows, throw him down the chute, but he ain’t goin’ with us so knock him on the head first, see?”

      They went past the guard and started the trek down the corridor to the chute. This was the big moment. Their mouths were dry, and a cold sweat had broken out over their bodies as they walked the long corridor that would seem so short to Parry Galowen the following morning.

      After they had shuffled a distance, they heard footsteps behind. Out of the corner of his eye Egghead looked at Johnny, Neither turned; their faces might have given the show away.

      They СКАЧАТЬ