Read Glass Cell for Free Online

there had been more cracks than clothing. He remembered Christmas with bronchitis in bed in his cell, and the first approach of a homosexual in the shoe factory. All this Carter had more or less got used to or at least learned to tolerate without fury. Even the stringing up he had tolerated, he thought, with some fortitude, but what if that fortitude were to collapse? What if it collapsed very soon because of the nagging pain in his thumbs? Would he run screaming through the corridors, tackling guards, hurling his fists in anybody’s face—until they shot him down or he banged his brains out against some stone wall?
    Clark came and told him that he had a visitor downstairs. Carter made some lumpy instant coffee with water out of the tap, put three teaspoons of sugar into it for energy, and gulped it. Then he took a pass from Clark and went down in the elevator.
    Once more the long walk to the visiting room. If this was Magran, Carter thought, he had no idea what he looked like, but Magran could recognize him by the bandages on his thumbs. Carter pulled his shoulders back. He had to make the best impression he could on Magran, not as to innocence, but as to confidence: Magran would report to Hazel on the interview.
    In the visiting room, a man stood up and beckoned to him with a slight smile.
    “Lawrence Magran. How do you do?” said Magran.
    “How do you do?” Carter sat down as Magran did.
    Magran was a short, round man with thinning black hair, rimless glasses, and hunched shoulders, and he looked as if he spent most of his time at a desk. He asked Carter how he was feeling, if his hands gave him much pain, if his wife had come earlier to see him. Magran’s voice was surprisingly gentle and soft. Carter had to lean forward to hear him.
    “I think your wife’s talked to you about the Supreme Court appeal. It’s a slow business, but it’s our only hope now.”
    “Yes, she has. I’m glad to hear you use the word “hope” at all. I can use some,” Carter said.
    “I’m sure you can. And I don’t want to hold out too much. But people have appealed successfully to the Supreme Court, and that’s what we’re going to try, if you’re willing.”
    “Certainly I’m willing.”
    “And face the fact that it may be a good seven months before we have an answer, and the answer may be no.”
    Carter nodded. Seven or six months, as Tutting had said, what was the difference?
    Magran questioned him from some notes he had brought.
    Carter replied, “As I said at the trial, I signed the invoices and the receipts when Palmer was somewhere out on the construction grounds. Lots of times he was away from the shed. I mean, where the truckers came in.”
    “Your wife said you had the idea Palmer was often deliberately away so you’d have to sign them. Is that true?”
    “Yes, that’s true. That’s the way I remember it.”
    Magran scribbled a few notes, then he stood up. He said he would write to Carter in a few days. Then, with a cheerful wave of his hand, he was gone.
    Carter felt cheered. Magran hadn’t mentioned the cost of anything, hadn’t extended a single false hope or even hope, really. “Get the doctor’s statement on your thumbs,” Magran had said, and that was all on the subject. Carter was walking past the visiting-room door guard, when the guard touched his arm and said:
    “You got another visitor.”
    “Thanks.” Carter looked toward the cage. Sullivan, he supposed. He turned and went down the steps to the visiting room.
    It was Gregory Gawill. Carter spotted him at once. He was heavy, dark-haired, about five feet nine, and he was wearing his oversized polo coat with white buttons. Gawill gestured with a forefinger to an empty chair, then sat down in it. Carter pulled up a chair opposite him. Gawill was a vice president of Triumph, Inc. It was the second time Gawill had visited him in prison. The first time, he had been breezy and cheerful, saying like everyone else that it was only a matter of