keen for it as the rest of us.
You boys can count on me, he said.
It was a lot of groundwork he’d have to do, I said, and it wouldn’t be easy.
He said he could handle it.
Red said that was easy to say, but rounding up the dough to pay for the groundwork would be one risk after another.
John said it wouldn’t be as much fun if it wasn’t.
Oh man, Russell said, listen to this guy.
I told John it might be fun for him because he’d already be out there free as a bird, but we’d still be inside, sitting on our hands waiting for the big day.
Dietrich said John hadn’t got the parole yet and we were counting an unhatched chicken there as far as he was concerned.
John said the man had a point. After all, he thought a Pendleton parole was a cinch and it fell through.
I said if he kept his nose clean until he went before the board the parole would be in the bag.
He looked around at the others and said Get a load of who’s telling who to keep his nose clean.
It got a laugh. Charley said it was a distinct case of the pot advising the kettle against blackness.
They were right, and from then on I began walking a finer line myself. I couldn’t afford to get put in the hole while we were prepping John, and once he was out I didn’t want to get clapped into solitary and miss out on anything going on with him.
The only thing John asked for was that Jenkins be in on the break. His correspondence with Jenkins’s sister had heated up plenty—whenever he got a letter from her he brought it over so I could smell the perfume—and I guess he felt an obligation to her brother.
It was a minor favor compared to what John would be doing for us, so I said Okay, he’s in.
S muggling the guns into M City required a five-thousand-dollar payoff to Mr. Williams in Chicago and we didn’t have five bucks among the lot of us. But bringing in the guns wasthe last step in the plan. As I’d come to see it, the trouble with most prison breaks was that the guys didn’t plan far enough ahead. Almost all their thinking went into the break and not to what they’d need after they got outside the walls—namely, safe places to stay and enough money to get by on. Guys who don’t plan ahead are forced to act out of desperation, and desperation makes for bad decisions. That’s why most guys who make it over the walls are caught so soon. My idea wasn’t simply to break out but also to have everything else all set up and waiting—two or three separate hideouts with the rent paid two months in advance at each one. Clothes, guns, good cars with legitimate plates. And sufficient cash on hand to get by on until we were ready for our first job.
No telling how long it would take John to round up the money for all those things—on top of the five grand for Williams—and get everything in order, but he had to do it all before smuggling the guns to us. Once we got the guns, we’d have to move fast, before they could be discovered in a sudden shakedown or some fink got wind of them and put the button on us.
Over the next few months we gave John a crash course in the basics of making your way around in what the newspapers love to call the underworld. We made up a roster of guys for him to get in touch with who would make good heist partners. We drew up a list of banks that we knew handled payrolls for factories and other businesses. Charley and Walt made a list of different fences in Indianapolis, Chicago, and East Chicago where John could sell bonds and new currency.
Charley and I also helped him play the Good Convict in preparation for his parole hearing. We kept him on a tight leash and out of trouble with the other cons and made him mind his p’s and q’s—no gambling or sassing the hacks or fooling around with punks and never mind his complaints about headaches. We edited every letter he wrote to his family. Each one testified to a reformed character and sincere contrition for his wayward youth and was of course meant to impress the
You boys can count on me, he said.
It was a lot of groundwork he’d have to do, I said, and it wouldn’t be easy.
He said he could handle it.
Red said that was easy to say, but rounding up the dough to pay for the groundwork would be one risk after another.
John said it wouldn’t be as much fun if it wasn’t.
Oh man, Russell said, listen to this guy.
I told John it might be fun for him because he’d already be out there free as a bird, but we’d still be inside, sitting on our hands waiting for the big day.
Dietrich said John hadn’t got the parole yet and we were counting an unhatched chicken there as far as he was concerned.
John said the man had a point. After all, he thought a Pendleton parole was a cinch and it fell through.
I said if he kept his nose clean until he went before the board the parole would be in the bag.
He looked around at the others and said Get a load of who’s telling who to keep his nose clean.
It got a laugh. Charley said it was a distinct case of the pot advising the kettle against blackness.
They were right, and from then on I began walking a finer line myself. I couldn’t afford to get put in the hole while we were prepping John, and once he was out I didn’t want to get clapped into solitary and miss out on anything going on with him.
The only thing John asked for was that Jenkins be in on the break. His correspondence with Jenkins’s sister had heated up plenty—whenever he got a letter from her he brought it over so I could smell the perfume—and I guess he felt an obligation to her brother.
It was a minor favor compared to what John would be doing for us, so I said Okay, he’s in.
S muggling the guns into M City required a five-thousand-dollar payoff to Mr. Williams in Chicago and we didn’t have five bucks among the lot of us. But bringing in the guns wasthe last step in the plan. As I’d come to see it, the trouble with most prison breaks was that the guys didn’t plan far enough ahead. Almost all their thinking went into the break and not to what they’d need after they got outside the walls—namely, safe places to stay and enough money to get by on. Guys who don’t plan ahead are forced to act out of desperation, and desperation makes for bad decisions. That’s why most guys who make it over the walls are caught so soon. My idea wasn’t simply to break out but also to have everything else all set up and waiting—two or three separate hideouts with the rent paid two months in advance at each one. Clothes, guns, good cars with legitimate plates. And sufficient cash on hand to get by on until we were ready for our first job.
No telling how long it would take John to round up the money for all those things—on top of the five grand for Williams—and get everything in order, but he had to do it all before smuggling the guns to us. Once we got the guns, we’d have to move fast, before they could be discovered in a sudden shakedown or some fink got wind of them and put the button on us.
Over the next few months we gave John a crash course in the basics of making your way around in what the newspapers love to call the underworld. We made up a roster of guys for him to get in touch with who would make good heist partners. We drew up a list of banks that we knew handled payrolls for factories and other businesses. Charley and Walt made a list of different fences in Indianapolis, Chicago, and East Chicago where John could sell bonds and new currency.
Charley and I also helped him play the Good Convict in preparation for his parole hearing. We kept him on a tight leash and out of trouble with the other cons and made him mind his p’s and q’s—no gambling or sassing the hacks or fooling around with punks and never mind his complaints about headaches. We edited every letter he wrote to his family. Each one testified to a reformed character and sincere contrition for his wayward youth and was of course meant to impress the
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