ankle and told the warehouse guard he’d caught them on some bailing wire and, man, it had almost fixed him good. The guard said to get another pair out of stores. Shelby said all right, and he’d leave his ripped pants at the tailor’s on the way back. The guard knew what Shelby was up to; he accepted the sack of Bull Durham Shelby offered and played the game with him. It wasn’t hurting anybody.

So he got his new pants and headed for the tailor shop. As soon as he was inside, Norma Davis came off the work table, where she was sitting smoking a cigarette, and went into the stock room. Shelby threw the ripped pants at the tailor, told Tacha to watch out the window for Bob Fisher, and followed Norma into the back room, closing the door behind him.

“He’s not as sure of himself as he used to be,” Tacha said. “He’s worried.”

The tailor was studying the ripped seam closely.

Tacha was looking out the window, at the colorless tone of the yard in sunlight: adobe and granite and black shadow lines in the glare. The brick detail was at work across the yard, but she couldn’t hear them. She listened for sounds, out in the yard and in the room behind her, but there were none.

“They’re quiet in there, uh?”

The tailor said nothing.

“You expect them to make sounds like animals, those two. That old turnkey makes sounds. God, like he’s dying. Like somebody stuck a knife—” Tacha stopped.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the tailor said.

“I’m talking about Mr. Fisher, the turnkey, the sounds he makes when he’s in her cell.”

“And I don’t want to know.” The tailor kept his head low over his sewing machine.

“He sneaks in at night—”

“I said I don’t want to hear about it.”

“He hasn’t been coming very long. Just the past few weeks. Not every night either. He makes some excuse to go in there, like to fix the lantern or search the place for I don’t know what. One time she say, ‘Oh, I think there is a tarantula in here,’ and the turnkey hurries in there to kill it. I want to say to him, knowing he’s taking off his pants then, ‘Hey, mister, that’s a funny thing to kill a tarantula with.’ ”

“I’m not listening to you,” the tailor said. “Not a word.”

In the closeness of the stock room Shelby stepped back to rest his arm on one of the shelves. Watching Norma, he loosened his hat, setting it lightly on his forehead. “Goodness,” he said, “I didn’t even take off my hat, did I?”

Norma let her skirt fall. She smoothed it over her hips and began buttoning her blouse. “I feel like a mare, standing like that.”

“Honey, you don’t look like a mare. I believe you are about the trickiest thing I ever met.”

“I know a few more ways.”

“I bet you do, for a fact.”

“That old man, he breathes through his nose right in your ear. Real loud, like he’s having heart failure.”

Shelby grinned. “That would be something. He has a stroke while he’s in there with you.”

“I’ll tell you, he isn’t any fun at all.”

“You ain’t loving him for the pleasure, sweetheart. You’re supposed to be finding out things.”

“He doesn’t know yet when we’re going.”

“You asked him?”

“I said to him, ‘I will sure be glad to get out of this place.’ He said it wouldn’t be much longer and I said, ‘Oh, when are we leaving here?’ He said he didn’t know for sure, probably in a couple of months.”

“We got to know the day,” Shelby said.

“Well, if he don’t know it he can’t hardly tell me, can he?”

“Maybe he can find it out.”

“From who?”

“I don’t know. The superintendent, somebody.”

“That little fella, he walks around, he looks like he’s lost, can’t find his mama.”

“Well, mama, maybe you should talk to him.”

“Get him to come to my cell.”

“Jesus, you’d eat him up.”

Norma giggled. “You say terrible things.”

“I mean by the time you’re through there wouldn’t be nothing left of him.”

“If you’re through, you better get out of here.”

“I talked to Virgil. He doesn’t know anything either.”

“Don’t worry,” Norma said. “One of us’ll find out. I just want to be sure you take me along when the time comes.”

Shelby gave her a nice little sad smile and shook his head slowly. “Sweetheart,” he said, “how could I go anywhere without you?”

Good timing, Norma Davis believed, was one of the most important things in life. You had to think of the other person. You had to know his moods and reactions and know the right moment to spring little surprises. You didn’t want the person getting too excited and ruining everything before it was time.

That’s why she brought Bob Fisher along for almost two months before she told him her secret.

It was strange; like instinct. One night, as she heard the key turning in the iron door of the cellblock, she knew it was Bob and, for some reason, she also knew she was going to tell him tonight. Though not right away.

First he had to go through his act. He had to look in at Tacha and ask her what was she doing, reading? Then he had to come over and see Norma in the bunk and look around the cell for a minute and ask if everything was all right. Norma was ready. She told him she had a terrible sore ankle and would he look at it and see if it was sprained or anything. She got him in there and then had to slow down and be patient while he actually, honest to God, looked at her ankle and said in a loud voice it looked all right to him. He whispered after that, getting out of his coat and into the bunk with her, but raising up every once in a while to look at the cell door.

Norma said, “What’s the matter?”

“Tacha, she can hear everything.”

“If she bothers you, why don’t you put her some place else?”

“This is the women’s block. There isn’t any place else.”

Norma got her hand inside his shirt and started fooling with the hair on his chest. “How does Tacha look to you?”

“Cut it out, it tickles,” Fisher said. “What do you mean, how does she look?”

“I don’t know, I don’ think she looks so good. I hear her coughing at night.”

“Listen, I only got a few minutes.”

Norma handled the next part of it, making him believe he was driving her wild, and as he lay on the edge of the bunk breathing out of his nose, she told him her secret.

She said, “Guess what? I know somebody who’s planning to escape.”

That got him up and leaning over her again.

“Who?”

“I heard once,” Norma said, “if you help the authorities here they’ll help you.”

“Who is it?”

“I heard of convicts who helped stop men trying to escape and got pardoned. Is that right?”

“It’s happened.”

“They were freed?”

“That’s right.”

“You think it might happen again?”

“It could. Who’s going out?”

“Not out of here. From the train. You think if I found out all about it and told you I’d get a pardon?”

“I think you might,” Fisher said. “I can’t promise, but you’d have a good chance.”

“It’s Frank Shelby.”

“That’s what I thought.”

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