Falconer

Farragut unhooked a plant from a curtain rod and went after the copper wire. Marshack had looped the wire through holes in the pots, but he had used the wire so generously that it would take Farragut an hour or more to get the wire he needed. Then he heard footsteps. He stood in front of the floored plant, a little frightened, but it was only Toledo. Farragut passed him the ditto sheets and gave him a strong interrogative eye. "Yeah, yeah," said Toledo. He spoke not in a whisper but in a very flat voice. "They got twenty-eight hostages. That's at least two thousand eight hundred pounds of flesh, and they can make every ounce of it sing." Toledo was gone.

Farragut returned to his desk, broke the least-used key from the typewriter, honed it on the old granite of the wall, thinking of the ice age and its contribution to the hardness of the stone. When he had the key honed to a hair edge, he went back to Marshack’s office and cut the wire off eighteen plants. He put the wire in his underpants, turned off the lights and walked back up the empty tu

"734-508-32 reporting in," he said to Tiny.

"What's the news?"

"Begi

"No shit," said Tiny.

"I'm not shitting you," said Farragut. "You'll get the a

Farragut, loaded with copper wire, sat down on his cot He would hide it under the mattress as soon as Tiny's back was turned. He unwound the toilet paper from its roll, folded the paper into neat squares and put this in his copy of Descartes. When he had made radios as a boy he had wound the wire on an oatmeal box. He guessed a toilet paper roll would be nearly as good. The bedspring would work for an aerial, the ground was the radiator, Bumpo's diamond was the diode crystal and the Stone had his earphones. When this was completed he would be able to get continuous news from The Wall. Farragut was terribly excited and highly composed. The public address system made him jump. "SHORT ARM FOR CELLBLOCK F IN TEN MINUTES. SHORT ARM FOR CELLBLOCK F IN TEN MINUTES."

Short arm was, for the calendar freaks, the first Thursday of every month. It was for the rest of them whenever it was a

The doctor, when he was let in, was wearing a full suit and a felt hat. He looked tired and frightened. The nurse was a very ugly man who was called Veronica. He must have been pretty years ago because in a dim, dim light he had the airs and graces of a youth, but in a stronger light he looked like a frog. The ardor that had rucked his face and made it repulsive still seemed to burn. These two sat down at Tiny's desk and Tiny gave them the records and unlocked the cells. Naked, Farragut could smell himself and he could also smell Te

"It's 73483," said Tiny.

"I can't read your writing," the doctor said. "73483."

73483 was Te

"Where did you get it?" the doctor asked. "I want his name and his number." With a case in hand, the doctor seemed reasonable and at ease. He reset his eyeglasses elegantly with a single finger and then drew his spread fingers across his brow.

"I don't know," said Te

"Where did you get it?" the doctor said. "You'd better tell me."

"Well, it could have been during the ball game," said Te

"You didn't slip it up somebody's ass in the shower," said the doctor.

"Well, if I did it was by accident," said Te

"He stole my Bible," Chicken screamed, "He stole my limp leather copy of the Holy Bible. Look, look, the sonofabitch stole my Holy Bible."

Chicken was pointing at the Cuckold. The Cuckold was standing with his knees knocked together in a ludicrous parody of feminine shyness. "I don't know what he's talking about," he said. "I ain't stole nothing of his." He made a broad gesture with his arms to demonstrate his empty-handedness. Chicken pushed him. The Bible fell from between his legs and hit the floor. Chicken grabbed the book. "My Bible, my Holy Bible, it was sent to me by my cousin Henry, the only member of my family I heard from in three years. You stole my Holy Bible. You are so low I wouldn't want to spit on you." Then he spat on the Cuckold. "I never heard, I never dreamed of anybody so low that he would steal from a man in prison a Holy Bible given to him by his loving cousin."

"I didn't want your Goddamned Bible and you know it," roared the Cuckold. He had much more volume to his voice than Chicken and pitched it at a lower register. "You never looked at your Bible. There was about an inch of dust on it. For years I heard you talking about how the last thing in the world you needed was a Bible. For years I've been hearing you bad-mouth your cousin Henry for sending you a Bible. Everybody in the block is tired of hearing you talk about Henry and the Bible. All I wanted was the leather to make wrist-watch straps. I wasn't going to hurt the Bible. I was going to return the Bible to you without the leather was all. If you wanted to read the Bible instead of complaining about how it wasn't a can of soup, you would have found the Bible just as readable when I returned it."

"It stinks," muttered Chicken. He was holding the Bible to his nose and making loud noises of inhalation. "He stuck my Bible up under his balls. Now it stinks. The Holy Scripture stinks of his balls, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy stink."

"Shut up, shut up," said Tiny. "The next time any of you opens your mouth you get a day's cell lock."