If he made it down to the sixth floor.

Harvey kept playing that fiddle. The wind pounded the jail, rain pinging the lone window. The light outside was a queer purple, and that made it all the harder to guess the time, as if time itself had stopped, caught in the blurred picture from an old-time camera.

The last bar fell as he heard the gears and pulleys of the elevator going to work, groaning and straining down the shaft. He reached for the razor blade he’d hid under a stained pillow and stuck his head through the gap, facing the open row, and then inched his body through, letting out every drop of air till he could snake out, cutting the hell out of his shoulder before tumbling to the floor and finding his feet.

He hit the ground with such a thud that he wondered if he hadn’t been heard ten floors down.

Harvey inched back, watching the barred window of the door. He hoped it would be only one man, like yesterday, unarmed, as was their procedure, and holding cold biscuits, colder coffee, and shithouse gravy.

He found the next cell’s door open, and Harvey slipped inside and slid under the bunk. It was very dark, blacker than night, and the storm-it must be a hurricane now-beat the hell out of the tall building, almost feeling like it just might decide to topple all the concrete and steel and make all this effort for naught.

Harvey held on to the rusted blade and just listened to that beautiful storm, the single bulbs hanging from the ceiling flickering off and on, the rain coming down on a parched country like some kind of unnatural act.

He smiled. He hoped that Manion at least had enough sense to pick out a stylish suit and shine his shoes.

30

The guard walked the row, whistling and jangling a set of keys, an old colored trusty at his heels holding a breakfast tray. The whistling stopped when the guard reached the death cell, Harvey inching out from the open cage behind him, the guard stooping to inspect the filed-off bars and yelling at the trusty to put down them eggs and go fetch the sheriff. But Harvey snuck behind them both and held the old razor to the guard’s neck, telling them nobody was going to die on Labor Day if they all were slow and steady and did everything he said. “You understand what I’m sayin’, boy?” Harvey asked.

The old black man nodded. Harvey snatched up a piece of burnt toast and pushed the two men into the cell, lifting the set of keys from the guard’s fingers and locking them inside.

“Sheriff Smoot’s gonna tan your hide,” the jailer said.

“You tell Sheriff Smoot to kiss my ass,” Harvey said, taking a bite of toast and casually walking to the first door and finding the key. Another key unlocked the cage, and he moved past the elevator to the stairwell, the door unlocked, and made his way down to the sixth floor, where he found another cage and a room empty except for Tom Manion’s old desk. On the wall hung a calendar that hadn’t been changed since Christmas of ’29. The Sun-Maid raisin girl held a basket of grapes.

Harvey reached into the bottom right drawer and found a gun, if you could call it a gun. It was a rusted old.44, something Manion had probably carried in the Spanish War. When Harvey spun the cylinder, it fell open into his hand. He noted only three bullets and snapped the cylinder back in place just as he heard steps approaching. Son of a bitch.

Another jailer, just as old and tired as the fella upstairs, walked alongside R.L., the colored guitar player, from a side door.

“Mornin’, boys,” Harvey said.

“Good Lord in heaven,” the deputy said, chaw dripping out of his mouth and onto his chin. He wore a nonregulation Panama hat, slipped far back on his head.

“If y’all would be so kind,” Harvey said, nodding back to the row of cells.

R.L. smiled. Harvey winked at him.

“I ain’t goin’ in there,” the deputy said.

Harvey pointed that rusted piece of shit at his chest.

“’Fraid this ain’t up for discussion, partner.”

“You can’t lock me in there,” he said.

“Maybe you boys should carry weapons.” Harvey reached for the man’s Panama and stuck it on his own head.

“That’s the row for colored folks, you idgit!”

“Will you be offended if I lock up this fella in the colored wing, R.L.? I don’t want to stink up the place.”

“No, sir.”

“See?” Harvey said. “Now, get your stinking white ass inside.”

Harvey locked the deputy in a cell with an enormous black man who sat on his bunk holding a half-eaten bowl of gray mush. The man looked up for a moment and then returned his eyes downward, continuing to work his spoon, not seeing a damn thing.

Harvey flushed the razor blade down the shitter, locked the cell and the outer door, searched for another gun but found nothing but a pair of handcuffs and a worn-out blackjack. R.L. stood over the desk and watched Harvey, before he turned to the window and the rain hitting the glass. The young black man seemed deep in thought.

“Fine day,” R.L. said.

“Come on,” Harvey said.

He grabbed the blackjack, opened the cage, and turned the elevator key. The elevator clanged to a stop as he held the old revolver in his hand, aiming into an empty box. Harvey motioned to R.L., dressed in prison gray, and they both walked inside, knowing the dumb sonsabitches would never expect Harvey Bailey to skip out the front door with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. He pulled the Panama down in his eyes and turned the key. Harvey did all these things without a drop of sweat or a skip of his heart, something he’d been blessed with from birth. Nervousness had never been his trouble.

“Guess it’s too late to turn back now.”

“I do believe.”

“You want to come along?”

“Get out Friday.”

“So you’re stayin’?”

“You know this ain’t gonna turn out pretty, sir.”

“Who says?” Harvey grinned.

The guard on the first floor couldn’t have been more than eighteen, skinny and slack-jawed, standing at the bars and conversing with a little fat fella in a suit about getting a right fair deal on T-bone steaks. He had one hand in his pocket and the other rubbed his jaw, contemplating the deal.

Harvey pushed R.L. along first and nearly walked past the guard before the deputy did a double take and asked, “Just where in the hell do y’all think you’re going?”

Harvey turned and said in a calm, quiet voice to keep his mouth shut and do as he said. The gun hung loose and easy, hidden from the world, at his right thigh. But the boy sure felt it when it nudged against his ribs. His eyes grew big, and he nodded his understanding.

Harvey tipped the brim of his straw hat to R.L. The boy looked at Harvey and gave a loose smile before hitting a button, the elevator disappearing up the shaft.

“How ’bout you escort me out of this shithole?”

The deputy nodded again, hands in the air.

On a far wall, Harvey spotted a gorgeous rack of shotguns and rifles, the old relic feeling like a stage prop in his fingers. As he pushed the boy toward the arsenal, two deputies walked to the front gate, waiting for the deputy to unlock the door, jawing at each other, not even noticing Harvey Bailey, noted bank robber, out for a stroll.

Harvey admired a fine.45 and a 12-gauge with a blue finish from across the room. The deputies called for the boy, and Harvey just nudged him on, turning away from the rack, following the deputy down a short stairwell.

“You got a car?” he asked the boy in a whisper, and followed him to a back door, where the boy unlocked two dead bolts and led Harvey into a back alley, where the rain fell sideways and stung his face. The boy walked across the alley, open and naked, long black electric wires crisscrossing overhead. A river of trash and mud running down concrete gutters and into clogged sewers.