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"Here you go. I get the feeling it's not from a friend."
Valentine saw the same plain envelope and paper. He opened the tri-folded message.
ENJOY THE HANGING. WISH I COULD BE THERE.
Young cleared his throat. "Kind of funny, this person being so sure of your verdict."
"Funny is right," Valentine agreed.
Young extracted a multitool pocketknife, unfolded a screwdriver, and cleaned a black mark from beneath his thumb. A red-painted key jangled from the ring on the knife; Valentine saw it glitter in the dim light coming in from his window. "I've never had a problem with my job before, Major. Most people wind up here, well, they deserve it. The ones that don't get spat back out, usually along with some who do. Better that way than the other. But in sixteen years I've never seen anything like this."
Young pointed to a laundry bag on his bed. "Fresh linens for your bed and a new smock," he said. "Girl in the laundry is new. I think she doesn't read so good. If they screwed up, I'll be back in an hour and fifteen minutes and I'll get you a new set of clothes." He placed the knife in his pocket. "Well, I got to get down to the yard. We got sick dogs tonight and until the vet is done looking at them, it's the two-legged animals that got to walk between the wire. I know the night before a trial is always slow. Hope you get some sleep, eventually."
As he turned, Valentine heard the pocketknife bounce off his boot and hit the floor. It slid under his cot.
"Damn cheap service trousers! Cotton my ass. More like knitted lint," Young said, and slammed the door behind himself- slammed it so hard it didn't close properly. Valentine didn't hear the dead bolt shoot home.
Valentine waited one amazed second, then put his slip-on shoe in between the door and the jamb so it wouldn't close accidentally. He checked his laundry bag. A complete guard uniform, right down to polished shoes and belt, hat, and hankerchief was inside. Valentine read the stitched-on name tag: YOUNG.
"Thank you, Corporal Young."
He got into the uniform. It was a bit roomy, but he didn't look ridiculous once he punched a new hole in the belt with the knife's awl. It was a handy little tool: two kinds of screwdriver, two blades, a saw/fish scaler, a can opener, a file, an awl, and a clipper-though the last didn't look up to the job of cutting the wire in the yard.
He put wadded-up papers-one of them was the mystery note-around his feet so they fit better in the size-twelve shoes.
It occurred to him that if he were to pass as Young at a cursory glance he'd need to be heavier. He wound a sheet around his midsection and put the belt back on at its worn notch.
Feeling hot with excitement he stepped into the hall, trying to walk with his head turned down and handkerchief wiping his nose. He'd never seen cameras in the hall of this part of the prison but he wanted to be safe.
He left the room behind with no regret. When was the last time he slept in the same spot so many days in a row? His cabin in the Thunderbolt, most likely.
He walked down the hall in the direction of the edge of the asterisk. Then he stopped in front of a door two down from his. Roderick's.
The man was guilty of an atrocious crime. But if the system was gamed-
Valentine looked through the window. The cot was empty- had Young arranged for two escapes? Then his eyes picked up a figure in the gloom behind the sink/toilet.
Roderick had cheated the hangman.
What looked like a twisted-up sheet was knotted around the sink tap. Roderick was in a sitting position, butt off the floor and held up by his sheet, face purple and tongue sticking out as stiffly as his legs.
He turned away from the window, and looked at the dim hallway light to get the image out of his retinas.
Every other time they'd brought him through the center of the asterisk, but there was a fire exit sign above a heavy door. While he knew some of the routes through the center of the building, there was too much chance of meeting another guard. Valentine tried the red key on the heavy lock, Roderick's purple tongue filling his vision every time he didn't concentrate, and the fire escape door opened. For an aged guard Young thought things through well enough. He listened with hard ears, and heard footsteps somewhere on the floor below.
Valentine slipped off the guard shoes, wincing at the sound of paper crinkling-the tiniest sounds were magnified when one was trying to keep silent-and padded down the stairs to the bottom level.
He searched the door frame leading outside.
The door to the exterior had an alarm on it. Valentine flipped up a plastic access cover and saw a keypad with a green-faced digital readout. Someone had written 1144 on the interior. Valentine passed a wetted thumb over the ink and it smeared easily-it was still fresh. He punched the numbers into the keypad and then hit a key at the bottom marked ENTER.
Nothing changed color.
Every nerve on edge, Valentine pushed open the crash door.
"Thank God for minimum security," he whispered. A real prison would have had at least two more layers of doors.
He put the shined shoes back on. While rugged enough for street wear, he wondered how long they'd last if he had to hike out. His good boots were in storage somewhere in the bowels of the prison complex.
