Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 77, No. 4. Whole No. 451, March 25, 1981
Top Con
by Clark Howard
“Hanley, younger but still not young, had flat, dangerous eyes and no conscience. Dwyer, older, seasoned by years behind prison walls, had the look of a fox in its own forest.” Dwyer was the top con in the precisely structured social strata of the prison — the man to go to for such indispensables as a forged pass...
Max Hanley made his way slowly across the big prison yard, walking around groups of blue-clad men who were congregating to play dominoes or lift weights or dope out next Sunday’s football parlays or just rap about their latest never-ending gripes. He moved gradually over to the bleachers, lighting a cigarette as he went. The man he wanted to see was sitting alone on a low bleacher bench and reading a newspaper. He was an older con, in his late fifties, a lifer; he wore bifocals under a gray receding hairline.
“Frank Dwyer?” Hanley said, sitting down beside him.
“That’s me,” the old con replied, glancing at his visitor, then resuming his reading.
“I’m—”
“I know who you are,” Dwyer said before Hanley could tell him. “You’re Max Hanley. Former public enemy number one. Doing sixty-five years for bank robberies all over the midwest. You cell over in south block. Work in the dry-cleaning plant. What’s on your mind?”
Hanley smiled. “You sure you don’t already know that too?”
Dwyer looked at him, squinting. “I could probably guess. Been here about a year now, haven’t you?”
“A year too long,” Hanley said tightly.
“So you’re thinking of hanging ’em on a limb,’ is that it?”
“ ‘Hanging ’em on a limb?’ What’s that mean?”
“Means hanging your shackles on the limb of a tree and running away,” Dwyer explained. “Old chain-gang expression.”
Hanley studied the older man. “You were on a chain gang?”
“For over a year. Until I hung ’em on a limb and escaped. I did time on the Rock, too. Alcatraz. You didn’t think you were the only public enemy in here, did you?”
“I never thought about it one way or the other,” Max Hanley said with an edge. “But you’re right — I am looking to bust out of here. I asked around about some things I’ll be needing. Everybody said to see Frank Dwyer. They said Frank Dwyer was a lifer who knew this joint better than anybody. They said Frank Dwyer was the top con in here when it came to getting anything done. Were they right?”
“I’ve got a connection here and there,” Dwyer admitted. “But I don’t work for nothing.”
“Nobody asked you to. I’ve got friends and money on the outside. It just so happens that the things I need are on the inside.” Hanley leaned forward, elbows on knees, and dropped his cigarette butt on the ground. Dwyer eyed him distastefully.
“You’re not supposed to do that with your cigarette butt,” he said. “You’re supposed to tamp it out, peel the paper back, and roll it into a little ball, and spread the loose tobacco on the ground. Keeps the litter down. That’s the rule.”
Hanley grunted softly. “If I was interested in rules I wouldn’t be in here, old man. And I wouldn’t be sitting here planning a break.” “That’s the trouble with you young people,” Dwyer complained. “You got no respect for anything. This may be a prison, but it’s where you live. That’s good enough reason to keep it clean.”
“Climb down off your soapbox,” Hanley said flatly. “I didn’t come over here for no lecture. Are you open to making some money or aren’t you?”
“I’m open,” Dwyer said with a sigh. “A man’s got to get along somehow.” He folded his newspaper, carefully and neatly, and put it in the pocket of his denim jacket, which was also carefully and neatly folded on the bench next to him. “What’s your plan?” he asked.
Hanley shook his head. “You don’t have to know the plan. All you have to know is what I need from you. Then we’ll talk price.”
Dwyer shrugged. “Suit yourself. Shoot.”
“I want three yard passes from the dispensary to the kitchen. I want them signed by a doctor, so they won’t be questioned. Can you handle that?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Next I want three white bake-shop uniforms. Just the pants and shirts — I don’t need the hats. One size medium and two larges.”
“Three bake-shop uniforms, okay,” Dwyer said, nodding.
“Last, I want a package moved from the shoe shop over to the waste bins behind the sheet-metal shop. It’ll have to be moved on the exact day I say, no earlier and no later.”
“How big a package?”
“Shoe-box size.”
Dwyer nodded again. “No problem. Okay. That it?”
Hanley studied the old con for a long moment. Then he said, “I’m going to have a pretty involved plan going here. I’d like to have some idea who your contacts are, how you’re going to arrange all this—”
Dwyer was already shaking his head. “Sorry. That’s my business. I’ll give you a guarantee that everything you want will be done. But that’s all. No details. My guarantee will have to be enough.”
“Personal guarantee?” Max Hanley asked.
“Personal guarantee. Absolutely.”
That satisfied Hanley. He and Dwyer both understood that Dwyer had just put his life on the line to guarantee his performance.
“Let’s get to the price now,” the old convict said. “We’re talking some pretty heavy money here.”
Hanley feigned a surprised look. “For what? For stealing a few passes and some bake-shop uniforms?”
Dwyer shook his head and smiled. He knew when someone was trying to handle him. “No,” he said easily, “for moving that package from the shoe shop to the sheet-metal waste bins. I mean, I have to assume that package ain’t somebody’s lunch. You want to tell me what’s in it?”
Hanley shook his head. “No.”
“Then I’ll tell you. Guns.”
A moment of silence fell between them. They sat there side by side, both leaning forward with forearms on knees, looking at but not really seeing the mass of blue-clad men milling about in the yard. Hanley, younger but still not young, had flat, dangerous eyes and no conscience. Dwyer, older, seasoned by years behind prison walls, had the look of a fox in its own forest. In the silence that pervaded the moment, each decided that he did not like the other. But that didn’t matter. It wasn’t necessary for them to be friends in order for them to strike a deal.
“Look it,” Dwyer finally said, “let’s stop playing games with each other. Here’s my position. Forget the signed passes and the bake-shop uniforms — those are nothing and we both know it. I just happen to be able to get them and you don’t. If you were bringing a break down on the joint, I’d get them for you and we’d be talking favors instead of cash money. But you’re not going to be around to pay back favors, so we’ve got to deal in terms of cash money.
“Now what you’re really buying is moving guns around inside the walls. You know as well as I do that’s about as heavy as it can get. We’re not talking dope or stolen canteen supplies or such. We’re talking guns. Get caught and it’s a formal felony charge that’ll bring another ten-year sentence — and it’ll be consecutive, not concurrent, tagged onto the end of the present sentence. Plus which you know how it’ll be served — in the hole. I’ve done hole time in D Block on Alcatraz, and in the SHU — the Security Housing Unit — at Folsom. Neither one was no picnic, and I was a lot younger then too. So you’re gonna have to decide if you’re willing to pay the freight or not. I’ll get your artillery moved for you, but I want a grand for doing it.”