The Glass Cell Read online

  “Yes, she has. I’m glad to hear you use the word “hope” at all. I can use some,” Carter said.

  “I’m sure you can. And I don’t want to hold out too much. But people have appealed successfully to the Supreme Court, and that’s what we’re going to try, if you’re willing.”

  “Certainly I’m willing.”

  “And face the fact that it may be a good seven months before we have an answer, and the answer may be no.”

  Carter nodded. Seven or six months, as Tutting had said, what was the difference?

  Magran questioned him from some notes he had brought.

  Carter replied, “As I said at the trial, I signed the invoices and the receipts when Palmer was somewhere out on the construction grounds. Lots of times he was away from the shed. I mean, where the truckers came in.”

  “Your wife said you had the idea Palmer was often deliberately away so you’d have to sign them. Is that true?”

  “Yes, that’s true. That’s the way I remember it.”

  Magran scribbled a few notes, then he stood up. He said he would write to Carter in a few days. Then, with a cheerful wave of his hand, he was gone.

  Carter felt cheered. Magran hadn’t mentioned the cost of anything, hadn’t extended a single false hope or even hope, really. “Get the doctor’s statement on your thumbs,” Magran had said, and that was all on the subject. Carter was walking past the visiting-room door guard, when the guard touched his arm and said:

  “You got another visitor.”

  “Thanks.” Carter looked toward the cage. Sullivan, he supposed. He turned and went down the steps to the visiting room.

  It was Gregory Gawill. Carter spotted him at once. He was heavy, dark-haired, about five feet nine, and he was wearing his oversized polo coat with white buttons. Gawill gestured with a forefinger to an empty chair, then sat down in it. Carter pulled up a chair opposite him. Gawill was a vice president of Triumph, Inc. It was the second time Gawill had visited him in prison. The first time, he had been breezy and cheerful, saying like everyone else that it was only a matter of reaching “the right people” and Carter would be out in no time. Today he was serious and commiserative. He had heard about the denial of a retrial and about Carter’s thumbs.

  “I happened to call your wife the same day she heard herself, about the denial. She sounded pretty blue and I’d have gone over to see her, but she said she had a date with David Sullivan that night.”

  “Oh.” Carter was on guard. Gawill’s speech sounded rehearsed.

  “Sullivan’s got a lot of influence over Hazel. He’s got her thinking he’s the next thing to God.”

  Carter laughed a little. “Hazel’s no fool. I doubt if she thinks anybody’s the next thing to God.”

  “Don’t be too sure. Sullivan plays it close to his chest. He’s pretty much in control of her now, don’t you realize that?”

  Carter felt rattled and angry. His left hand moved toward his cigarettes. “No, I didn’t realize that.”

  “For one thing, Sullivan’s investigating me. Surely you’ve been told about that.”

  Carter had a twinge of guilt, but he shrugged. He had suggested to Sullivan that Gawill might be as guilty as Wallace Palmer. “Sullivan carries on his own affairs. He’s a lawyer, I’m not. And he’s not my lawyer.”

  Gawill smiled, without amusement. “You don’t get what I mean. Sullivan’s trying to ingratiate himself with Hazel, and he’s doing damned well at it, by saying he’ll come up with something against me. In regard to the Wally Palmer business, of course. Lots of luck, Mr. Sullivan, is all I can say.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “People tell me. My friends are loyal. Why shouldn’t they be? I’m not a crook. I could punch Sullivan right in the mouth. It’s bad enough that he’s playing up to your wife. How low can a man sink, playing up to another man’s wife while her husband’s stuck in prison and can’t do anything about it?”

  Don’t believe half of it, Carter told himself, even a tenth of it. “What do you mean by playing up?”

  Gawill’s dark eyes narrowed. “I think you know. Do I have to go into details? Your wife’s a very attractive woman. Very.”

  Carter remembered the evening Gawill had made a pass at Hazel, at a party at Sullivan’s house. Gawill had had several too many that evening and made a lunge at Hazel, upsetting somebody’s plate (it had been during a buffet supper), grabbing her around the waist so roughly that a snap had come open at the back of her white dress. Carter felt again the impulse he had had to pull Gawill away from her and hit him with his fist. Hazel had been furious, too, but she had given Carter a glance that said, “Don’t do anything,” so he hadn’t. Carter was bending and unbending a matchbook cover.

  “Well—why don’t you go into details? If you have any,” Carter said.

  “Sullivan’s there all the time. Do I have to be any plainer? The neighbors’re talking about it. Hasn’t any of them dropped you a hint in a letter or something?”

  The Edgertons hadn’t. He’d had two letters from them. The Edgertons lived next door. Their house was within sight of the Edgertons’ house. “Frankly no.”

  “Well—”Gawill shifted, as if the subject were too distasteful to go on with.

  Carter pressed the matchbook cover harder. “Of course, when you say all this, you’re making quite a judgment on my wife, too.”

  “Aw, no-o.” Gawill drawled the word in his New Orleans accent. “I’m making a judgment on Sullivan. I think he’s a slimy bastard and I don’t mind saying so. He’s got a nice exterior, that’s all. Well brought up, dresses well. Subtle.” He gestured. “And I say he’s working on your wife. In fact, I know it.”

  “Thanks for telling me. I happen to trust my wife.” Carter meant to smile a little, but he couldn’t.

  “Hm-hm-hm,” Gawill said in a manner that made Carter want to sock him through the glass wall. “Well—to get on to a pleasanter subject, Drexel’s going to pay you a hundred dollars a week of your salary while you’re in this clink. Retroactive and continuing as long as your contract would have gone on. I had a long talk with Drexel on Friday night. About you.”

  Carter was surprised. Alphonse Drexel was the president of Triumph. He had stood by in cold neutrality during Carter’s trial, and when pressed had put in the barest of good words for him: As far as I know, he’s done a good job for me with what he had to work with. If you ask me if I think he took the money or part of it, I just don’t know. Carter said, “Very nice of Mr. Drexel. What happened?”

  “Well, I did a lot of talking,” Gawill said, smiling. “I’ve practically convinced Drexel that Wally Palmer was the crook and the only crook in this thing, so—I made him feel he didn’t say enough at the trial to help an innocent man out of the jam you were in, so he feels guilty about it, naturally. Paying you some salary’s one way of making him feel better. Anyway, I suggested it to him, and I thought you could use it.”

  Had it been that simple and direct, Carter wondered. Obviously, Gawill wanted all the credit for it. Why? Because Gawill was as guilty as Palmer? Carter simply didn’t know. Palmer and Gawill had never been particularly chummy as far as Carter knew, or anybody at the trial had known, but that proved nothing at all. Nothing proved anything except little pieces of paper, checks or banknotes, that might have passed between Palmer and Gawill.

  “Thanks a lot,” Carter said. “Hazel’ll be very pleased, too.”

  “Wasn’t the first time I’d talked to him about it,” Gawill murmured. He looked at Carter’s bandaged thumbs and shook his head. “Your wife said your thumbs still hurt.”

  “Yep,” Carter said.

  “That’s a hell of a thing. They give you painkillers for it?”

  “Morphine.”

  “Oh. It’s easy to get hooked on that stuff.”

  “I kn
ow. The doctor here’s going to give me something else. Demerol or something.”

  Gawill nodded. “Well, there’s always a fall guy, I guess, and you sure were it this time.”

  Carter frowned at the dirty metal ashtray in front of him. What did it all mean? Did Drexel now think he was absolutely innocent or what? Half innocent? Why didn’t Drexel write him a letter about it, or was he afraid of putting anything down on paper? Carter suddenly realized who Drexel reminded him of: Jefferson Davis. A wizened, gray old man with an unpredictable temper.

  “It’s good Hazel’s going to get away for a few days. She must have had a pretty rough time these last months.”

  “Away?”

  “Up to Virginia with Sullivan for Easter. Didn’t she mention it? You saw her today, didn’t you?”

  A painful emotion exploded in him—composed of jealousy, anger, a childlike feeling of having been left out. “Yes, I saw her. We had so many other things to talk about, she didn’t mention it.”

  Gawill watched him carefully. “Yeah. Sullivan has some friends up there with a big house. An estate, horses, and a swimming pool and stuff. The Fennors.”

  Carter had never heard of the Fennors. Had Hazel not mentioned it, Carter wondered, because she thought such a pleasant prospect might make him feel worse, sitting in prison?

  “Sullivan’s very thoughtful about her,” Gawill went on. “I don’t think he’ll have much luck, but I think he’s really in love with her. Well, she’s pretty easy to fall in love with.” Gawill grinned. “I remember the night I was loaded and made a pass at her. Hope you weren’t too sore about that, Phil. You know it never happened again.”

  “No, no, I know.”

  “I’m sure Sullivan has a subtler approach,” Gawill said, and chuckled.

  Carter tried to show no concern at all, but he squirmed in his chair and inwardly he writhed. Sullivan was very smooth, he was very civilized, his passes would be civilized. He was quite a lot of things that Hazel liked. If nobody else was around, mightn’t Hazel have a very discreet affair with him? Hazel could be very discreet. She might never tell him, because she knew it would kill him. And they were getting started early, Carter thought, after he’d been only three months in prison. That was the way such things had to start, early or not at all.

  Their time was up. Carter jumped to his feet at the sight of the approaching guard. Gawill got up, too, made a bad joke about bringing him a file the next time he came to see him, waved a hand and was gone. Carter walked stiffly out of the visiting room.

  When he arrived at the ward, supper was being served. Pete was collecting the trays as they came up on the dumbwaiter beside the elevator. The food came from a long way and was always cold.

  Carter ate his dinner sitting sideways on his bed, because there was no table at the end of the ward big enough for the tray plus a book. He put the open book on the bed, and propped himself up on his left elbow. It was a large mediocre historical novel which at first he had not liked, but which he later found passed the time very well, because of its complete difference of scene from his own. Now he stared at the book between bites without seeing a word of it. The meal on his tray consisted of hamburger that gave off a smell of putridity, and some lima beans and mashed potatoes that had swum together in pale gray gravy, now stiffened with cold grease. There was no plate. The food was held in depressions in the tray. The only really edible part of the food was the bread, and there were always two slices and a thin pat of butter. He ate with a spoon. The inmates were not permitted knives or forks. He gulped the weak coffee from the plastic cup, and took the tray to the hall and set it on the floor near the dumbwaiter. Later Pete would chuck trays and cups and spoons down a chute.

  Carter went back to his bed and from his night table got his pen and the letter he had begun to Hazel yesterday. He added below what he had written:

  Sunday 4:25 p.m.

  My darling Hazel,

  Was very impressed by Magran as you said I would be. I am so sorry I was gloomy today. Can you forgive me? You were right my thumbs were hurting (I hadn’t taken any shot for them before I saw you) and it is sort of like a toothache that keeps on and on at you till it gets on your nerves. Things are much better now.

  G. Gawill came bringing good news: Drexel has decided to pay me $100 of weekly salary retroactive and for the duration of contract. G. also said you were going away Easter with David S. A good idea no doubt.

  Bless you, my darling. I love you and miss you. No more room here. P.

  There was so little room, his initial was tiny. He twisted around on the bed and lay down with his face buried in the pillow, exhausted with the effort of writing, exhausted, too, by what he recognized as self-pity. He felt heroic in having said he was glad she was going away with Sullivan, and yet quite obviously he was not heroic. He was quite the opposite of heroic. What was heroic about doing a favor for Hanky, and for the purpose for which he had done it, to be on a slightly more friendly footing with a slob? Mightn’t he have suspected that Hanky had some trick up his sleeve? It was simply stupid of him that he hadn’t suspected. And to go a little farther back, didn’t any idiot know enough not to sign something that he hadn’t read or checked on, such as the receipts for the Triumph Corporation? The prices could as well have been upped when he signed them. He wouldn’t have known the difference. And to go still farther back, to sheer carelessness, he had answered only two questions out of three on his final examination at Cornell, because he had not read the instructions thoroughly, or had not turned the page. He had graduated with quite a good rating, though not what he would have had if he had answered all three questions. One of his professors had written a complimentary statement about him which he said Carter might find of use in getting a job, but Carter had had a job arranged before he graduated. It had all been so easy for him. All his life he had simply fallen into lucky, comfortable spots—until now. His parents had died, first his mother shortly after his birth and then his father when Carter was five, but there had been his affectionate, childless, and well-to-do Uncle John to take him in in New York. John’s wife Edna had been even more indulgent than a mother, Carter felt, because she had no children of her own and because he was a handsome, bright little boy related to her husband. The money of his parents had been put into a fund for him, and had been more than enough to see him through school, to provide him with plenty of clothes, a car when he was eighteen, money for dates. He had never had to work during summers. There had been many girls, once he was out of school and had his own apartment in Manhattan, affairs which now seemed very juvenile to him and which he realized had done nothing to him but feed his vanity. Then he had met Hazel Olcott, who had been engaged then to someone called Dan, an exporter with a plantation in Brazil. Carter had met her at a party given by a friend in New York, he had immediately noticed her and asked his host about her and learned about the exporter named Dan, who in fact was at the party, a very self-confident fellow of about thirty. Then Hazel the same evening had asked him if he would like to come to a surprise birthday party that she was giving for her mother, and Carter with his usual good cheer had accepted, thinking the fiancé was going to be there, too, the mother, too, and that it was the most unpromising of invitations. But the fiancé had not been there, and Carter had got along very well with Hazel and her mother and her mother’s middle-aged friends. One meeting had led to another, because her fiancé always seemed to have business engagements, though they were supposed to be married in August and it was then July. And though Carter felt that Hazel was giving him some encouragement, he had been afraid to tell her that he was in love with her, because for the first time in his life he felt he was going to be unlucky. And Hazel, he thought, would have considered such a declaration in poor taste, since he knew she was engaged. Then as July came to an end, and Carter thought he had nothing to lose, he had stammered out that he was in love with her, and Hazel, not at all surprised,
had said, “Yes, I know, but don’t worry, because I broke it off with Dan three weeks ago.” The incredible ease of it, the miracle! Carter had begun to be really happy for the first time in his life. His happiness had lasted exactly seven years and two months, until the month Wallace Palmer had fallen off the scaffold.

  Carter and his Aunt Edna wrote to each other only about twice a year now. Since Uncle John died, Aunt Edna had lived with a sister in California. He had not written to her since before the trial had begun. For one thing, he had thought the nightmare would pass, would be straightened out somehow, and he had not wanted to burden and confuse Edna with it. She was now in her seventies. But the nightmare was not blowing over. Carter supposed he ought to write to her. There were several New York friends who had seen small items in the paper and written him friendly notes that he should have answered, but hadn’t. The prospect of writing them now was dreary indeed. And yet not to write, he felt, was like an admission of guilt.

  Carter awakened from a dream, tense with anxiety. He half raised himself in bed and looked at the clock over the door. 10:20. He lay down again. A light sweat covered his face, and he was breathing rapidly. He swallowed, twisted to reach his water glass and found it empty.

  A movement in the corner of the room caught his eye. Dr. Cassini stood up from a straight chair and came toward him, smiling, his dark eyes distorted and enlarged by his glasses.

  “No, I don’t need another shot,” Carter said.

  “Oh, I didn’t say you did,” said Dr. Cassini. “Had a bad dream?”

  “Um-m.” Carter got out of bed to get a glass of water. He carried it back in a cat’s cradle of his two little fingers and his forefingers. His method of carrying glasses had ceased to be amusing to him or to anyone else. The most difficult task for him was fastening the buttons of his shirt and trousers.

  Dr. Cassini was still standing by his bed. “I was thinking you could go back to the cell block tomorrow, if you’d prefer it.”