description they’d been given but the sheriff was sure he was their man. The suspect looked up and down the tracks and peered hard at the woods flanking both sides of the rails and then set out at a quick pace along the tracks toward Jacksonville.
They followed at a distance but kept to the edge of the woods and faded into the cover of the trees every time the suspect turned to look over his shoulder. As they drew close to town the man veered from the tracks and took to a narrow dirt path through the pines and the sheriff and his deputy closed their distance from him now that they were better hidden in the shadowed woods. The suspect seemed less wary and but infrequently looked back anymore.
When they got into town they kept a couple of blocks back of him. Then he went into a drug store and they quickly closed the distance and the deputy took up a position on the opposite side of the street and from there watched the front door. The sheriff lit his pipe and casually strolled past the drug store and glanced in the window as he went by the he saw the suspect talking on the telephone and smiling and saw that he fit exactly the description he’d been given by the Palm Beach sheriff. A minute later the man was outside again. He looked at a piece of paper in his hand and looked around and got his bearings and set out toward the river. The sheriff and the deputy, one on either side of the street, followed at a block’s distance.
Forty minutes later they were in a residential neighborhood near the river and the man stopped before a large Victorian house that had been converted to rooms to let. He checked the piece of paper in his hand once more and then went up the front steps and onto the porch and knocked on the door. The main door opened and he spoke to someone just the other side of the screen door. Now the door swung open and he went in and the screen door closed and then the main door behind it.
They waited ten minutes and then went around to the kitchen side door and knocked and the sheriff showed his badge to a shapeless woman who said she was the cook. She let them in and went to fetch the house manager. He was a bespectacled man of middle years and in answer to the sheriff’s question said that the man who’d come in just ahead of them had been expected by one of the tenants, a young woman who’d received a telephone call from him a little earlier. Her room was on the second floor, number 222.
They ascended the stairs and moved softly down the hall and stopped at room 222 and drew their pistols. The sheriff put his ear to the door and listened for a moment and grinned at the deputy. He backed away from the door and mouthed the question “Ready?” and the deputy tugged his hat down and gripped his gun tightly in both hands and nodded. The sheriff raised his booted foot and delivered a powerful kick to the door that burst it off its lock and they rushed into the shrieking room.
“They say the Matthews boy went ten feet straight in the air when the door bust open,” the day jailer said. He was a fat man named Glover who never stopped sweating. He was leaning on the cell bars and fanning himself with his hat. “They say he stood there with his hands stickin up in the air and his dick stickin out in front of him all shiny with pussy juice.”
Hanford Mobley sat on his bunk smoking a cigarette and grinned. It galled him plenty that Matthews was the only one of them to escape being caught at Plant City, especially since it had been the bigmouth’s fault that him and Clarence had been taken. If Matthews hadnt told that bitch in Sebring about Lakeland the cops never wouldve known where to hunt for them. Hanford couldnt help feeling a little lowdown for taking pleasure in a partner getting caught, but he didnt really mind the guilt. He was glad Roy Matthews had been caught while humping some whore and no use to deny it. The jailer had said Matthews would arrive at the Broward jail tomorrow. Hanford Mobley expected to be long gone by then.
“They sky ever man in the house come into the hallway and all of em crowdin at the door and makin fun of the nekkid fella and gawkin at the girl in the bed with the sheet up to her chin and just cryin her eyes out,” Glover said. “That sheriff up in Duval, he can be a good old boy or he can be one mean sumbitch, all depends, and this time he was feelin mean. Told the both of them to get their clothes on and never made a move to close the door to give them the least bit of privacy from the them old boys lookin on. They say the gal really got to cryin then and said would they turn they backs and the men all just laughed. The sheriff told her it was the price a person paid for a life of crime. She said she aint never led no life of crime and he said they’d see about that. Hell, he knew she wasnt no member of you all’s gang, he was just blackassed about havin to foller Matthews over half of Duval County in the blazing sun and sweatin like a hog.”
“Figured he’d make her blush some, hey?” Hanford Mobley said, He began to roll another cigarette.
“Made her damn good and mad too is what he did,” Glover said. “At
Mobley laughed. “That’s the way it is with whores aint it—cant trust a one of them. I bet the sheriff made her get out of bed nekkid anyhow.”
“Damn sure did. She tried to keep her arms crossed over her titties, but hell, she couldnt keep everthin covered all at once and get herself dressed too, could she now? Right goodlookin too, they say. Nice jugs on her. Real nice ass.”
“You best quit tellin me such,” Hanford Mobley said with a chuckle. “It aint polite to get a man all hot and bothered when he’s in the can and cant do nothin about it.”
“I wouldnt of minded seein that show my ownself,” Glover said. “They say she was a
Hanford Mobley sat with the cigarette to his mouth and a ready match in his hand and stared hard at something that was not there.
When Hicks the night jailer came on duty Hanford Mobley called him over to the bars and said he wanted to postpone things till the following night, His partner was being brought in tomorrow and he wanted to take him out with him.
“Whoa now, bubba,” Hicks whispered, looking about and leaning against the bars. “That aint the deal. Old Joe paid me just for you. He didnt say nothin about nobody else.”
“You’ll get paid for it,” Mobley said.
“How I know that?”
Hanford Mobley stared at him. Hicks licked his lips. “You’ll tell Old Joe
Hanford Mobley turned and spat on the stone floor and then looked at him again.
“Goddamn, man, I just wanna be sure I get paid for it is all I’m sayin.”
They brought Roy Matthews into the jail that afternoon and put him in a cell at the far end of the lockup. As Matthews went past Hanford Mobley’s cell they looked at each other but neither said anything.
That evening W. W. Hicks came into the cell block with his heels clacking on the stone floor and a clipboard under his arm. Besides Hanford Mobley and Roy Matthews, there were but five other inmates in the lockup this night and some of them observed the proceedings with idle curiosity. Hicks went to Hanford Mobley’s cell and called out loudly in his official jailer’s voice, “All right, Mobley, you’re on cleanup detail tonight and I dont want no fucken argument about it and no slackin on the job neither! You and…” He made a show of looking at his clipboard, of running his finger down a sheet of paper. “You and the fucken new fish…Matthews.” He unlocked Hanford Mobley’s cell and Mobley followed him down to the end of the block where Roy Matthews sat on his bunk and stared out at them. “Get on out here, new fish,” Hicks said. “Dont nobody get free room and board, not in this jail. You gone earn you keep with a bucket and mop.”
He led them to a closet just outside the barred door to the row and from it they took a broom and a mop and a bucket. “Now I want you boys to start out here in the store room where they was unpacking stuff this week and it’s a real mess,” Hicks said, still addressing them in his official voice as he guided them down the hall to a thick door he unlocked with his ring of keys. They went in and he closed the door behind them. The room was littered with broken boxes and small crates and baling wire and torn canvas tents.
“All right, you boys,” Hicks said, “there it is.” He pointed to a skylight nearly ten feet over the center of the room. The glass was thick and iron-framed and locked shut with a padlock through an eyering. A slim crowbar about two feel long lay on a box and Hicks took it up and said, “This oughta do for her.” Roy Matthews took the crowbar from him and tested its heft.
