Read Online Glass Cell by Patricia Highsmith - Free Book Online
Authors: Patricia Highsmith
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well. Who did it? Could you see?”
“All of ’em,” Carter answered drowsily. “Pete, I’ve got to get my stuff from number nine.”
“Okay, I’ll go down now.” Pete went.
Then Carter was alone with the dreams in his head. He saw Hazel in a blue and white bathing suit with a white cap on, as she had looked one summer in— Where? What summer? He saw a long, sunny beach, and they were going to take a run in a moment with Timmy along the sand at the water’s edge. The sky stretched endlessly blue above them. Afterward, they went to a restaurant on the shore and had broiled bass and especially good french fried potatoes, then they drove back to the cottage they had rented. Hazel took her bandana off and let the wind blow her hair. Carter remembered: that was in New Hampshire, two summers ago.
Later, still not quite waking up, Carter began to toss and turn as the pain seeped back. He saw Pete bending over him, his face and head very large, and though Carter always avoided looking at Pete’s pink, empty socket, he now stared straight into it as if it magnetized his own eyes. Pete smiled with pleasure and a strange amusement at Carter’s inability to take his eyes from his empty socket.
Then Carter woke up and looked straight into Pete’s face, into his empty eye, smaller now but real, and he screamed. Carter screamed a second time and twisted to get away from Pete’s restraining hands. Then Dr. Cassini rushed up, and Carter stopped his screaming, though his mouth stayed open. He was on his side now, propped on one elbow, one big bandaged thumb almost in his own face.
They gave him another needle.
“That’s not all morphine,” Dr. Cassini said cheerfully. “That’s mostly sedative. Boy, what a morning, eh, Philip? Ha! Mis-ter Cher-ni-ver got it.” He spat the words out with satisfaction.
The killing of Cherniver, the humming and the door rattling were discussed a great deal in the hospital ward in the following days by Pete, Dr. Cassini, and Alex, the sweep-up for A-block. It was agreed that the disturbance bore no resemblance to a riot. Riots generally had no causes, or the causes were pretty small, like a particularly bad meal in the mess hall. The killing of Cherniver was a little incident, and as the men talked, it seemed to Carter to become smaller and smaller.
Attendance at the 10 a.m. church service on Sunday was compulsory for every inmate who could walk, so Carter went. He was greeted, quietly, by more men than he had ever been greeted by before in the prison, but after all they were only twenty or thirty out of hundreds present. The chaplain, after the routine prayers and hymn singing, spoke about the guard Thomas J. Cherniver who lost his life on Monday in the course of his duty, and called upon the men to cleanse their hearts of guilt, to forgive those momentarily benighted and misguided men who had contributed to the deed, and to pray for the repose of Thomas J. Cherniver’s soul. Carter bowed his head with the rest of them. He was sitting near the back, and heard a few muttered remarks and some not at all repressed giggles.
6
I n the month that followed Cherniver’s death, Carter had two more interviews with Magran, who was now going over the ground that Tutting had, but in a more thorough manner. Magran had found one more witness, a certain Joseph Dowdy, a postal employee, who remembered assigning a post box to Wallace Palmer last July at a town called Pointed Hill, some sixty miles away from Fremont. Dowdy remembered Palmer from his photographs, though Palmer had taken the box out in another name. During the trial, there had been much talk of a Box 42 in Ogilvy and a Box 195 in Sweetbriar. Palmer had them noted on a card in his wallet. But no letters had come for him at those boxes after his death. Some of the supply companies that Triumph paid (with school board funds) did not exist. Palmer had invented the companies and the supplies from scratch, and received money for them at the
“All of ’em,” Carter answered drowsily. “Pete, I’ve got to get my stuff from number nine.”
“Okay, I’ll go down now.” Pete went.
Then Carter was alone with the dreams in his head. He saw Hazel in a blue and white bathing suit with a white cap on, as she had looked one summer in— Where? What summer? He saw a long, sunny beach, and they were going to take a run in a moment with Timmy along the sand at the water’s edge. The sky stretched endlessly blue above them. Afterward, they went to a restaurant on the shore and had broiled bass and especially good french fried potatoes, then they drove back to the cottage they had rented. Hazel took her bandana off and let the wind blow her hair. Carter remembered: that was in New Hampshire, two summers ago.
Later, still not quite waking up, Carter began to toss and turn as the pain seeped back. He saw Pete bending over him, his face and head very large, and though Carter always avoided looking at Pete’s pink, empty socket, he now stared straight into it as if it magnetized his own eyes. Pete smiled with pleasure and a strange amusement at Carter’s inability to take his eyes from his empty socket.
Then Carter woke up and looked straight into Pete’s face, into his empty eye, smaller now but real, and he screamed. Carter screamed a second time and twisted to get away from Pete’s restraining hands. Then Dr. Cassini rushed up, and Carter stopped his screaming, though his mouth stayed open. He was on his side now, propped on one elbow, one big bandaged thumb almost in his own face.
They gave him another needle.
“That’s not all morphine,” Dr. Cassini said cheerfully. “That’s mostly sedative. Boy, what a morning, eh, Philip? Ha! Mis-ter Cher-ni-ver got it.” He spat the words out with satisfaction.
The killing of Cherniver, the humming and the door rattling were discussed a great deal in the hospital ward in the following days by Pete, Dr. Cassini, and Alex, the sweep-up for A-block. It was agreed that the disturbance bore no resemblance to a riot. Riots generally had no causes, or the causes were pretty small, like a particularly bad meal in the mess hall. The killing of Cherniver was a little incident, and as the men talked, it seemed to Carter to become smaller and smaller.
Attendance at the 10 a.m. church service on Sunday was compulsory for every inmate who could walk, so Carter went. He was greeted, quietly, by more men than he had ever been greeted by before in the prison, but after all they were only twenty or thirty out of hundreds present. The chaplain, after the routine prayers and hymn singing, spoke about the guard Thomas J. Cherniver who lost his life on Monday in the course of his duty, and called upon the men to cleanse their hearts of guilt, to forgive those momentarily benighted and misguided men who had contributed to the deed, and to pray for the repose of Thomas J. Cherniver’s soul. Carter bowed his head with the rest of them. He was sitting near the back, and heard a few muttered remarks and some not at all repressed giggles.
6
I n the month that followed Cherniver’s death, Carter had two more interviews with Magran, who was now going over the ground that Tutting had, but in a more thorough manner. Magran had found one more witness, a certain Joseph Dowdy, a postal employee, who remembered assigning a post box to Wallace Palmer last July at a town called Pointed Hill, some sixty miles away from Fremont. Dowdy remembered Palmer from his photographs, though Palmer had taken the box out in another name. During the trial, there had been much talk of a Box 42 in Ogilvy and a Box 195 in Sweetbriar. Palmer had them noted on a card in his wallet. But no letters had come for him at those boxes after his death. Some of the supply companies that Triumph paid (with school board funds) did not exist. Palmer had invented the companies and the supplies from scratch, and received money for them at the
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