From the Chrysalis (48 page)

“I’ll stop,” she promised, “if you—”

“If I what? Good God, girl, I haven’t showered in two weeks. You smell like a flower and your hair is growing out like a weed. It’s going to be halfway down to your bum again by June.”

If you only knew, she thought guiltily. Even her pubic hair was growing, exceeding all expectations, curling down between her legs. It’s the baby, she almost blurted. “I don’t care. How are you going to … What are you going to do?”

“What do you think? Everything I can,” he said, sinking with her until they sat on the floor, her legs wrapped around his waist. “I know how to play their games. Don’t ask for anything. Watch my mouth. Answer in monosyllables if I answer at all. Don’t worry. I’ll wait this out and stay calm.”

“But the guards are striking for overtime, none of the prisoners have gone back to school or work and you’re stuck in here. The Spectator
says there’s going to be another riot. Dace? Dace, you’re shivering. Why the hell is it so cold in here?”

“Some people hope there’s going to be another riot here and the guards are doing their level best to provoke one, but I’ll kill the bastards rather than go through that again,” he vowed, burying his face in her hair.

“But you just said you were going to stay calm!”

“Yeah, yeah, and what are you going to do, Liza?”

“I don’t know,” she said miserably.

“Yes, you do. You can write a book. Better still, we’ll write a book together if I ever get out. A kind of family affair.”

After a couple more phone calls, a letter finally arrived on December 21, courtesy of Hubert Gold. It was one page long. Although Dace was only allowed out of his cell one hour a day, he had joined another inmate committee to keep from going crazy. Well,
people’s committee
, he amended. Following the riot, the use of the word
inmate
was deemed a pejorative term. Nothing else had changed except there was a big master plan in the making. Not to worry though. Because even if the pigs were trying to destroy them, he would make out just fine.

It is snowing. The wind whistles and the temperature is 9 degrees. The night is black and I am surrounded by the enemy. But my mind is quick. My muscles are hard. My knife is sharp and my heart is full for you, my darling. So you mustn’t worry about me. I’ll make out just fine. I pledge my undying loyalty. Liza, I love you so.

Brief joy and utter despair. Life, love. Her life, his love.
 

Love,
she thought.
It’s not enough. It’s you, you, I want, no matter what.
 

But that couldn’t help him. Instead, she wrote,

Darling, you’re not just fine! You’re a dead man if you don’t get out of there soon. You with all your muscles. Please keep writing me. In fact, you can do better than that. Do what we talked about all the time, but take real good care.
 

You can keep sending mail to this address because I’m not going home for Christmas, although I might visit a friend. Not Janice, though. Too much work to do and too many decisions to make.

Chapter 34

Christmas Day

Maitland to Trenton, Christmas Day, 1972:

“What did you talk about all the time?” Hubert Gold demanded when he finally got through to her on Christmas Day. It was about 5:00 p.m. and the almost dark had socked her in. She sat at her desk, methodically working through a box of
Whitman’s
chocolates and flipping through a calendar for the New Year. The baby was due the first day of summer in June 1973.

“What?”

“What stupid bonehead thing did you urge him to do?” Gold spat.

Liza closed her eyes, took the phone off her ear and pressed it against her neck. Gold must be calling from a party. She could hear background noises over the faint, suspicious buzzing on her line: music, the tinkle of glasses, the explosive guffaws of men, the high pitched sound of women’s laughter. They sound like birds, she thought. For a moment she almost wished she were there. Anywhere but here.

“Miss Devereux—Liza—are you still there?” he pressed.

“What are you talking about? What do you mean?”

“The Pen phoned me. He’s escaped, you little idiot!”

 
Liza’s heart almost stopped. She got up from her chair so fast that she backed into her waste paper basket, toppling it over. So he had, he had! My God, he was fast. But no, not necessarily. He had been planning this for ages.

“Wh-when?”

“An hour ago. Held up the prison doctor for his uniform, locked him in a closet, put on his clothes, walked out the door, then just hopped into the man’s car, pretty as you please.”

Liza had always believed she would be overjoyed to finally get such news. But right now all she felt was terror. She put her hand over her heart, wanting to make sure it still beat. Maybe
he’d been safer in prison. At least then she had known where he was, and now…
 

Maybe he had a shiv, though.
My knife is sharp for you, my darling
. Cute. She’d thought he meant something else, but maybe … Oh God, where
was
he?

“Why was he seeing the doctor?” she asked, stalling, trying to think. “And where was his guard?” As if that mattered, now that Dace was outside somewhere, running down a track where he could be hurt, where somebody might try to stop him, where he might end up dead.

“How the hell do I know? No, wait now. They said that he had an infected cut.”

Of course,
she thought, remembering her dream.
It was Savage
, she almost said, fear overcoming rage.
 

“Needed a penicillin shot. They’ve already had one unfortunate incident where an inmate died from a small cut on his finger. Oh, well, never mind that. There was some kind of Christmas party going on and all the guards are working to rule right now.”

“So this happened—this afternoon?” she asked. A quick glance outside the window to her left revealed no cop cars in the parking lot, though they could have been hiding out back, near the garbage dumpsters. She wouldn’t put it past them. There was only one thing to do. She had to get out of there fast.

“As if you don’t know, you little …” Gold stopped and took a deep breath, sounding as if he were unable to go on until he was back in control, the way he should have been, the way he would have been, in a court of law. “The police are waiting for him in Toronto. Scared the shit out of your mother. Probably figured you’d be home for Christmas, but then the Warden read me your letter over the phone. I’m surprised they haven’t contacted you yet. Too busy securing the border and the roads, I suppose. But they’ll be there any moment. My advice is that you be more co-operative with them than you are with me, Missy. The cops won’t fool around with you, not when there’s an armed and dangerous man on the loose.”

“Well, I was going to visit Uncle Norm today, but I was too … uh … sick,” she huffed, holding the phone out from her ear with her left hand and reaching far enough with her right to retrieve a soft, zippered bag from under her bed. She had left some folded laundry on her desk, which she tipped into the bag. She had only five bucks to her name, though
.
She could feel it with her fingers, folded in the back pocket of her jeans.
 

Mel, she thought frantically. I’ll hitchhike to Trenton if I have to. He’ll keep me, and it won’t be the first place the police look. No, they’ll come here. They’ve already checked Toronto and when they find my room empty, they’ll go to Uncle Norm’s, if they haven’t already. Should she drop by the farm? No, Dace would never risk going there.
 

Jesus, Gold was still talking. The man went on and on, talking about responsibility, asking her why she hadn’t taken up some more worthwhile cause. The Vietnam War, the seal hunt, even Women’s Lib. What the hell was wrong with young women these days? In the sixties, they’d … If she’d been his daughter, he’d …
 

She couldn’t answer. Say
something
, she ordered herself. “I had the phone off the hook until just now,” she managed. “I was going to call my mother.”

Gold snorted with disgust. “You took your phone off the hook on
Christmas Day?
” he asked skeptically.
 

Yes
, she thought,
because nobody I wanted to hear from was supposed to call.
“Oh God. You don’t think Dace tried to call me, do you?”

“Look, Missy, I really don’t appreciate you dissembling with me.”

Not that she could blame him for this attitude, but she was getting pretty tired of it. “So where did they think I was hiding him?” she demanded. “At my mother’s place? Maybe under the diving tower at Christie Pits?” She looked wildly around the room for her shoulder purse. Ah, there it was, right on the floor by her feet.
 

Huey
, somebody coaxed in the background,
it’s Christmas!
 

“Where is he, Miss Devereux?” he hissed, all patience spent.

“I haven’t a clue,” she said, pondering how much more she could say. She wanted desperately to confide in someone, but Gold was a liability. She stuffed her arms into her maxi-coat after letting the phone drop for a moment so she could dart into her closet. He’d turn his client in, post-haste, for the sake of his reputation and all that.
 

What had Dace done? Ditched the doctor’s car in the lake and gotten a ride in a truck? There were so many trucks on the 401. When they’d been on their bikes they’d weaved in and out, reckless and stupid, but oh, so fucking brave.
The only way to live
, they’d said. Christ, she wished she were on a bike right now. If he were headed for the Falls, he’d probably follow the highway past Trenton and Toronto …
 

“Well, that’s funny, considering you can practically read his mind,” Gold said sarcastically. “Or so he’s always said. You know, I can’t help him if I don’t know where he is. And if the police get to him first there’s no telling what they’ll do. Last week they shot an unarmed fifteen-year-old who was driving a stolen car.”

He’d fled at 4:00 and now it was 5:00. There was no way he could have gotten to Toronto yet. So where the hell was he? Freezing his ass off in some farmer’s barn? God, she hoped not.
 

And where did he think
she
was? Would he risk going to Mel’s? Maybe. He knew Mel lived in Trenton. A slight detour. How difficult could it be to track down a doctor’s son?

Liza, I love you so.
 

Surely he would try to leave her a note. Surely he wouldn’t just go, a man like him.

“You’re trying to scare me, Mr. Gold,” she said, snapping off her desk lamp and staring out at the empty parking lot. Jesus, a car
was
coming down the hill. A long, dark car. A Crown Vic. Even from the ninth floor window she could see there were at least two adults inside—males, she bet.

“You’re damn right I’m trying to scare you.”

“He was as good as dead in prison. The guards would have killed him,” she whispered, glancing frantically from the window to her locked door. Good God, what was that noise? Was somebody already in the hall? Everybody except the janitor and maybe a few international students had gone home. Stupid. If she had visited with one of the Asian students today, like a good girl, she might have been able to hide in their room.
 

“There are some Christmas carollers at my door. I gotta go,” she said, dropping the phone. She hitched both bags over her shoulder with one hand and gathered a fold of her long coat with the other so she wouldn’t fall flat on her face.