Daylight then, slanting through the bars of the high windows as Grogan’s company enters the north wing again, and the crows, more crows than cons in the yard some mornings, ganging in the trees outside mocking the Rule of Silence. The men stand in formation till the Captain raps and they climb the iron stairs to their tiers, Shoe facing the cell at attention till the double rap and then stepping into his stone coffin, turning and pulling the grated door just short of closed. He waits till the footsteps come near and then gives the door a shake to prove the hinges are still good, and steps back. Chank! Chunk! the levers go down and he is double locked, standing with a checkerboard of light coming through the iron lattice and onto his body, waiting till whump! the long-bar falls into its brackets and seals the whole row before turning to check the mail. There is a kite, folded smaller than a dime and left between his pillow and blanket, written in haste with the char of a used matchhead, scrawled by Pete Driscoll and left by the other gallery boy, the Jew kid with the harelip. It is one short, shaky word and only that.
MACK, it says.
There is time for a coffin nail before First Work, and Shoe lights one from his boodle and stands blowing the smoke out through the grated iron. They say how Sitting Bull’s outfit and the rest of the horse Indians can write a telegram with a woodfire and a wet blanket, and Shoe wishes he could do the same when Grogan’s footsteps have faded and the tapping starts up. Tin cups on iron grating, nothing subtle, and all of them want to know the same thing. He uses his stool against the door to answer, thump, thump, thump, yeah, yeah, yeah to let them know he’ll find out what the rumpus was, what it meant, is there going to be a party in the shock shop, and then the bullpen door screeks open and it is Grogan back below them calling up.
“If I have to climb those feckin stairs an extra time,” he warns, “one of yez will pay for sure.”
And then even the crows are quiet.
There is Mack Crawford on the south wing and Mack something or other who works in the basket shop and any number of Irish and Scots cons, MacThis and MacThat, and there is Sergeant McCurran on the graveyard shift and Captain McManus who supervises the laundry. Pete’s message is like most prison dope, one-third bullshit and two-thirds speculation.
Shoe stabs out the cig and saves the butt in his boodle, never know when hard times will hit, and then the screws clomp up into the tiers again to make their music on the metal and it is First Work. Shoe jams his cap on this time and short-steps with the others to the iron stairs and down and out into the yard where the details are separated and marched away to their shops. Sergeant Kelso fingers him.
“Shoemaker.”
“Sir.”
“With me. Carpentry.”
Shoe falls out from his line and begins to full-step, slowly, toward the woodshop. Kelso strolls two steps behind him, waiting till none of the other bulls can see their faces before speaking.
“Opening day.”
It is Saturday, Shoe remembers, and the college boys will be knocking heads.
“They’re not giving anything on Princeton till they reach twenty-four fecking points. Can ye imagine that?”
Kelso smuggles Shoe the sporting pages from the Rochester rag and pumps him for advice on his wagers.
“Against Villanova?” says Shoe, eyes forward as he walks. “Take it.”
“Their first game of the season?”
“First game for Villanova too. They don’t belong on the same grass with the Tigers.”
“Same odds with Pennsylvania and Lehigh.”
“Take it. These are just warmup games for the big squads.”
“Harvard and Williams?”
Shoe considers for a moment. “Harvard takes their time on the field—”
“But Harry Graydon is fullback again.”
“I say they win by two, maybe three touchdowns. Be careful there.”
They pass the punishment cells and Shoe is aching to ask but that’s not how you play it with Kelso.
“I’ve got Cornell over Colgate—”
Kelso is a hopeless gambler, a pigeon born to be plucked. Shoe can only try to steer him away from his worst hunches.
“By a few maybe,” he cautions. “Starbuck is on the sidelines this year.”
“Then Yale, my God, they’ve only got three men coming back—”
“But their scrubs last year could lick most of the teams in the country, and this Chadwicke is the real article. Who’s the victim?”
“Trinity.”
“Trinity, right — they go down by at least three scores.”
They reach the carpentry building and wait at the door for the work detail to pass inside.
“I’ve got Army over Georgetown by four,” says Kelso when the gang has cleared.
“I’d steer clear of that. Georgetown is turning out a real eleven this year.”
“But Army—”
“—can’t bring their artillery onto the field.”
“Yer wrong about that, laddy.”
Shoe shrugs. “It’s your funeral, Sergeant. Personally, I’d run away like it was on fire.”
Lachman, the contractor, has the shop already banging away when they step in, cons at their benches sawing and staining, hammering together crates and coffins. Shoe worked here for a year, after they’d run him through the baskets and the horse collars, and he always loved the smell and having something to pound. Nose DiNucci is waiting by the chair on the keeper’s platform, his metal basin on a stool and his tools in a box on the floor. Kelso eyes the basin as he steps up.
“Is that water hot?”
“Hot as I can get it, Sergeant,” says the Dago, dipping a thin towel into the basin.
Kelso sits and leans back in the chair, sighing with pleasure as DiNucci wraps the hot, wet cloth around his beezer. Shoe stands on the floor next to the platform, by Kelso’s right hand, waiting. Runner duty is the beans — no heavy lifting, a chance to roam around the joint and poke your sniffer into things — but a lot of standing and waiting goes with it. Kelso starts to talk with the towel over his face while DiNucci makes with the brush and cup, working up a lather.