Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Annual, No. 3, 1973

“You,” the captain said presently, “don’t look like a man capable of stealing a quarter of a million dollars.”

“Thank you, sir. You’re the first to believe me when I say I didn’t steal it.”

Captain Manners laughed softly. “As captain of the guards here at Hayden, it is within my power to make an inmate’s stay pleasant or miserable. I assume, Mr. Schliff, that you would like your stay here to be made as pleasant as possible.”

Sidney swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.” Suddenly he felt cold inside. He was beginning to get the drift of what was coming.

“Naturally.” Captain Manners stroked the smooth cylinder of the cane more rapidly. He got up, came around the desk and sat on its edge. He was within a few feet of where Sidney stood. “In that case, Mr. Schliff, I think I can arrange it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“All you have to do is tell me where the money is hidden.” He paused. “Half of it will be waiting for you when your time is up. The other half will be in payment for my efforts in making your stay here pleasant.”

Sidney swallowed again. “But, sir, you’ve already told me that, you believed I didn’t steal the money.”

“Naturally you can’t have any idea how unpleasant I can make life here for you at Hayden. I should have first given you a sample. I shall do so now.”

The cane swished through the air and caught Sidney a stinging blow on the cheek. A red welt appeared. Sidney yelped and leaped away.

The captain pushed a button on his desk, then swung around and clouted Sidney on the jaw. Sidney dropped with a crash. The captain strode over and kicked him brutally in the ribs.

At that moment the door burst open and two guards came rushing in.

“Did you ring, Captain?”

“And barely in time,” Manners growled. “This fool attacked me. Throw him in the hole.”

Sidney spent five days in the hole. There was nothing to do but nurse his wounds and think. It occurred to him that as long as so many people suspected that he had a quarter of a million dollars stashed away he’d be hounded for the rest of his life. It wasn’t a pleasant prospect.

He had seven long years to serve here at Hayden and, if he were any judge of men, Captain Manners wouldn’t abandon his determination to make him reveal the hiding place of the money.

And after the seven years were up, what then? The police would stiff be curious. And then there were the hoodlums and the gangsters.

Sidney shuddered. He couldn’t stand physical pain, and he knew that hoodlums and gangsters had their methods of making a man talk.

Sidney took a deep breath. He had an out. But could he take what was in store for him for the next seven years? Was it going to be worth it? Sidney decided that it was.

Captain Manners was a stubborn man and relentless. The more Sidney held out on him the more determined he became. It was only when Sidney actually seemed on the verge of death that he relented.

Sidney spent more time in the hole than he did in his cell. He had to subsist on the most meager of diets. He was given the most menial of tasks to be performed in the prison workshops. Beatings with the cane became almost a weekly routine. He was tricked into making it seem that he was trying to escape, and spent a full month in the hole.

But Sidney didn’t break. He had a vision and he kept it in front of him at all times. It sustained him.

The worst blow, the one that was hardest to take, came at the end of the seven years. He was brought up before the parole board. Captain Manners’ report on Sidney was passed from hand to hand, read by each member. They exchanged glances and nodded of one accord. Sidney was refused a parole.

Sidney almost broke then. Almost, but not quite. Not even after a session that night in the captain’s office with the cane. No, he’d endured seven hellish years. He could endure another three. And he did.

When the doors finally opened for him Sidney stepped into the outside world a mere shadow of the man he’d been ten years before. He stood for a minute looking around him, looking across the street into a vacant lot that extended for some distance without any fences, watching the traffic that passed in front of him. Across the way three automobiles were parked against the curb. Two of them were occupied, a single man behind each wheel. Both were watching him steadily.

Sidney sighed, shifted his suitcase to his left hand and moved along the street toward a bus stop. From the corner of his eye he saw the occupants of the parked cars start up their motors. A bus swung in at the curb and Sidney stepped aboard. Before settling himself in a rear seat, he glanced through the window. Both of the automobiles were idling along after the bus.

Sidney sighed again, leaned back his head and closed his eyes. Ten years ago he hadn’t thought it would be like this. He hadn’t looked this far ahead. He had thought that after he’d served his time, paid his debt to society, he’d be allowed to go free, left alone.