The Red Debt Part 15

Burton grabbed one shoulder with a snort, the deputy the other, and they led him out.

As the door closed, the blonde typist resumed her machine, and her chilly eyes were moist. She glanced covertly at the commissioner. His downward drawn mouth was ajar, and he was gazing blankly at a familiar ink spot on his desk.

Once again Lem found himself marching through the rain between his captors, and all the unknown strange noises of a city consolidated and merged into a tumult that harried his very soul. His next distinct impression came when he realized that Burton was unlocking his handcuffs.

He was now inside of a jail. He stood before a desk and a man in uniform was putting various questions to him in a curt and gruff voice, concerning his age and residence, to which Lem answered in an apathetic, dazed way. The man made a record of these responses in a book. While he was thus occupied, Lem was eyeing his awesome surroundings.

Now for the first time, he was conscious that Burton and his deputy had disappeared, and another man in uniform stood at his side. The desk-man presently handed this officer a pink slip, and he in turn told Lem to follow, leading the way across a big rotunda of concrete to a huge iron-barred gate which he unlocked. He ushered the prisoner into a long corridor, and transferred him to the care of a second uniformed guard, who proceeded to search Lem's clothes with a skill and deftness that would have inspired envy in the bosom of a professional pickpocket.

The guard seated Lem on a bench which was already occupied by two men in blue cotton s.h.i.+rts, and the perversely striped trousers of convict garb.

"Blinky," said the guard, "where's Last Time?" addressing a huge convict with red hair, a mop and a bucket.

"He's over at the bath house."

"Send him front when he comes back. And you," turning to Lem, "sit there till you're wanted."

Whereupon, with the pink slip in his hand, he walked to a small desk at the farther side of the corridor and sat in an arm-chair with his back toward the three now on the wooden bench, waiting for Lem knew not what.

In the meantime, Lem's eyes roved about making a grim inventory of this great merciless cage that had engulfed his body. He was inside a mammoth arcade-like structure that stretched its repellent length out a thousand feet and more to a blind, sinister end. Along its sides, equi-distant, appeared high arched double windows, bolted and barred with a lattice-work of iron. Wherever Lem perceived a spot of G.o.d's light, a cold, forbidding hand lay across it like a blasphemy, spreading out its unyielding, black, skeleton fingers to enmesh a human soul.

Moreover, this stupendous, invulnerable sh.e.l.l incased and jealously protected a second structure equally strong and grisly, for as Lem looked, he noted this other structure occupying the center of the arcade. It was a tomb within a tomb, and the boy's already heavy heart sickened as his eyes slid down the seemingly interminable vista of small iron-barred doors, some four feet apart, that diminished in perspective toward the distant end until they shrank to the size of a newspaper.

The doors in this cunning edifice were accessible by means of a steel skeleton-work forming lengthwise porches five stories high, where even a sluggish imagination could visualize convenient gibbets stationed just outside these black, mysterious doors, awaiting the condemned necks of the inmates.

While Lem made further notations in undisguised wonderment, convicts were constantly pa.s.sing to and fro. They were "short time" men who had their allotted duties, working about the tiers and corridors.

Presently, Lem became suddenly conscious that the two men at the other end of the bench were eyeing him curiously. Their interchange of looks and low words to each other made it obvious that Lem was a subject of comment. Now that Lem was looking straight at them, the man nearest slid along the bench, smiled good-humoredly, then whispered:

"What did ye draw, bo?" The man watched Lem's mute lips for response.

"What did they give ye, pal?" he repeated, while the second man slid over and craned his neck for the answer. Lem still looked puzzled, but finally answered.

"Nothin'."

The other started a laugh which was squelched with an elbow punch in the ribs from his companion.

"I mean, pal," pursued Lem's inquisitor, "did ye git a sentence in this jail, er did they bind ye over?"

"I air continued," replied the boy gloomily, "wherever thet takes me."

"Oh, yes--is this your first pinch?"

Lem risked a nod, with only a vague notion of what "pinch" meant.

Presently the man spoke again.

"Say, pal, you ain't never been in jail before, have ye?"

"Naw," responded Lem without hesitation, "an' I 'low I want out o' heah, too."

He delivered this earnest sentiment with such guileless sincerity that both men snickered.

"Don't you care. You'll feel dopy for a day er two--then ye won't mind it. It'll git your nanny the first time. This is my fifth time in this joint," he volunteered. "I got eight spots ahead of me. Say, pal, sneak me th' makin's, will ye?"

Lem did not answer.

"Have ye got any tobacco on ye?"

"Ef I had, yo'd be welcome to hit--I never use hit."

The man looked disappointed.

"Say--when the bull frisked ye--did he git all your matches--ain't ye got no matches either?"

"I haint got nary a match."

Here a big, husky fellow in stripes, who walked as if he had springs for shoe-soles, pa.s.sed by. Then he stopped, and turning back, looked keenly into Lem's face. Lem met his gaze and noted that he wore a livid scar from the right cheek-bone down to the chin. He did not appear to see the other two men on the bench, but stood looking with open interest at Lem.

"h.e.l.lo, Last Time," greeted the man next to Lem. Wherefore, the newcomer s.h.i.+fted his gaze searchingly, then grinned. With a furtive backward glance toward the guard's desk, he thrust his hand out.

"What did you draw, Rox?" he probed.

"Eight."

"A mere speck--I could stand on my head that long. I may see you to-night." He hurried on with his elastic tread toward the guard's desk.

"I'm dead sure we'll git some tobacco now," predicted the man beside Lem. "That's 'Last Time'--he's a time-lock expert--believe me, gents--he's some cracker, too. I met him in Joliet, and I met him agin in San Quinten. Say, Monk, do ye remember readin' about that back-track stunt Last Time pulled off five years ago? No? Well, that was a funny caper. You see, Last Time touched a big joint in Cincy and got four thousand bucks. Then he beat it west. Two days later he got stewed in Chi--then he boarded a train with a bottle of booze, thinkin' he was bound fer Omaha; but he woke up that night and walked smack into the arms of the fly cops in Cincy. What do ye think of that? They didn't prove it on him very strong, but he drawed two spots at Columbus on general principles. I wonder what he turned this time. I met him last winter in St. Louis and I was up aginst it good and strong, too, but Last Time slipped me fifty as easy as dirt. He's got a heart as big as a cow's. Don't you worry--we'll git tobacco now. I wonder how much longer they'll keep us here," he faced about and addressed Lem. "I'm waiting to git my top-knot clipped--I reckon ye wouldn't want to lose your hair, would ye, pal?" he observed, regarding Lem's flowing locks.

"I reckon he will lose 'em, though," projected a raspy voice.

The three looked up. Blinky was standing over them with a pair of clippers in his hand.

"What are you, anyhow," chided Blinky, sneeringly. "Are you a cowboy or a preacher?"

Lem felt a warm sting rise to his cheeks, as he fixed his eyes inquiringly upon Blinky's insolent face.

"What else could he be," interposed a new arrival, "but a preacher? He ain't no convict--the Captain jest sent fer him. He's goin' to live here amongst us and reform a lot of you bad guys."

At this juncture, still another convict came up, bearing a blue cotton s.h.i.+rt and a pair of prison trousers over his arm.

"Is this the new duck?" he queried.

"Duck--duck," echoed Blinky. "Ain't ye got no manners? I'm ashamed of ye--ain't ye got no respect for a preacher? This is Brother Silsand--he got a call--here."

"Oh, excuse me. Well, Brother Silsand, you'll carry these elegant pants and this fancy s.h.i.+rt on your arm when Last Time comes to escort you to the beach. When you come back, you'll feel like a gentleman sure enough."

Other men were attracted, and now a little group cl.u.s.tered around the bench, all eyes turned upon Lem, as though he were some strange animal.