Chapter 3

Noreen's chance came sooner than she had expected. The first week after her interview with the warden she spent getting into the routine of the place, keeping to herself as much as possible. She carefully avoided Irene.

At the beginning of the second week, after helping in the kitchen, she was transferred to the laundry. This was located in a building near the boiler rooms and, more important, not far from the parking lot.

Noreen reported that morning to Waffle, who sat in a small glassed office just inside the main entrance. From this spot she could keep an eye on the fifty odd girls at work in the great steamy room.

She motioned to a straight-back chair as Noreen entered. "Sit down, Casey. I'll be with you in a minute." She went back to some papers on her desk. Noreen sat patiently, her knees primly together, the seersucker dress pulled down over her knees. From time to time the fat woman glanced up, her eyes black buttons in the doughy face, running up and down over Noreen's body like mice.

At last she leaned back, the chair creaking ominously under her, and took a pack of cigarettes from a pocket of her uniform. She extended it to Noreen. "Smoke?"

"But isn't it against the rules?"

Matron Ayers gave her a pursy smile. "I make the rules around here, Casey. Iflsayyou can smoke it's okay."

Noreen took a cigarette and leaned forward for the matron to light it. The seersucker dress did not fit her too well. Now it fell open. Noreen was wearing one of the cheap prison bras that was too small for her, and she felt the almost physical impact of the woman's eyes on the creamy bulges.

Ayers shifted her gaze from Noreen's breasts to a paper on her desk. She licked her small mouth with a wet red tongue. She held up the paper. "According to this you asked to be assigned here, to work under me. Is that so?"

Noreen looked her in the eye, careful not to show the loathing she felt. She mustn't spoil it. She knew by now that Waffle had a car and drove to work from Crawfordsville everyday.

"Yes, ma'am. It's true. I did ask."

"Why?"

Noreen gave the woman a little smile. A smile with which she tried to hint at things to come without committing herself. Maybe I should be an actress, she thought, instead of a singer.

"You were nice to me," she said. "That first night. Nobody else was. And you gave me some good advice about that Irene. You were right. She is bad." She felt a pang of guilt at this betrayal, but swiftly brushed it away. She had herself to worry about.

The fat woman settled deeper into her chair. "You're sure you want to work here? It's hard, Casey. I might as well tell you-the laundry is usually for girls that have been acting up. It's sort of punishment."

Noreen opened her smoky gray eyes as wide as she could. "Oh? I didn't know that, ma'am. I-I just thought that if I, well, if I could be near you!"

Would Ayers take the bait? Had she laid it on too thick?

The woman was studying her across the desk. Her beady eyes were slitted above the fat pouches. She took a drag of her cigarette ane expelled it toward Noreen. She smiled again.

"All right," she said. "I'm glad you feel that way, Casey. Maybe we'll get along, you and me. Lord knows most of you girls are hard to make friends with. But we'll see. But you don't expect no favors from me, see!"

"Oh, no ma'am. I don't." Noreen kept her eyes on the fat woman. Like hell I don't, you fat cow. You're going to get me out of here.

The matron stood up. "Okay. I'll put you on sorting at first. That's an easy job. You work out all right there and maybe I can use you in the office here with me."

Noreen's heart leaped. Waffle had taken the bait after all. But she was being cagey. Plenty cagey. But at least it was a beginning.

Matron Ayers came around the desk to stand close to the girl for a moment. In a low voice she said, "Mind you don't try to loaf on me, now. Nor any tricks at all. I can spot tricks a mile off. But you get along with me, and do what I tell you, and we'll hit it off fine. I can do a lot for a girl if I got a mind to. I can make it easy for her." For a moment the bloated face tightened and the little mouth snapped like a trap. "Or I can make it tough as hell. Don't you never forget that."

Meekly Noreen said, "I won't ma'am. I want to do anything you say."

There was a faint hint of puzzlement on the matron's face as she led Noreen out of the little office. The girl began to worry again. I can't be so damned obvious, she warned herself. It's plain what she's after, but she's not as stupid as she looks. Maybe she even thinks I'm a stool pigeon of the warden's. I've got to take it slow and easy.

The next week she spent in the sorting room. A dozen other girls worked with her, amid the mountains of dirty linen and feminine attire, but Noreen remained aloof. She was already acquiring the reputation of a loner.

Matron Ayers did not speak to her more than half a dozen times that week. But the following Monday morning she sent for Noreen. When the girl reported to the office the fat woman smiled at her.

"I've been keeping my eye on you, Casey. You're doing real good. How would you like to work here in the office with me? It's an easy job. All you have to do is keep the lists up to date and answer the phone. Maybe run errands now and then. You want it?"

Noreen beamed-at the matron. "Oh, yes, ma'am. I'd love it. When can I start?"

"Today. Now." The woman's flabby features-were moist from the steamy air. A trickle of perspiration ran down one side of her face.

"One thing," she added. "You'll have to work late sometimes. Tonight I'll need you to help me. So you report back here right after supper."

"Yes, ma'am. Will we-I mean, will any of the other girls be here?"

"Of course not!" The matron did not look at her. She picked up a slip of paper and jabbed it on a tall spike fixed into a heavy iron base. "There will be just the two of us. Now get back to your sorting until noon. After lunch come back here and I'll show you the ropes."

Maybe this is it, Noreen thought as she went back to her work. During the lunch hour she merely toyed with her food while her brain sought to cope with this new development. Was there really a chance for escape? She began to outline it in her mind.

Once she was alone with Ayers she would have to catch her off guard. Noreen thought of the woman's fat red face and large, grubby hands, and for a moment her courage failed her. The thought of those hands on her slim young body was not a pleasant one. Yet it had to be done. She would let the matron make her advances, she would seem to succumb to them, then she would have to knock the woman out somehow. Knock her cold and tie her up. There was plenty of good stout cord around the laundry, and handkerchiefs or a pillowcase would do for a gag-

Then she would take the woman's keys, walk to her car in the lot behind the boiler room, and drive away. She was a good driver.

There was a long driveway leading out of the grounds. Where the drive turned onto the narrow blacktop road there was a small brick guard house, with a man always on duty. There was no gate, just two stone pillars. The guard might be trouble, Noreen thought, but that was a chance she must take. It would be late, and dark, and probably he knew all the cars by sight. Or maybe I can rig up some sort of disguise. Noreen told herself. That terrible brown satin hat that Waffle wears just might do the trick.

After lunch she reported back to the office, where the matron put her to work on the files. There was little conversation between them, though several times the girl looked up from her work to find the fat woman's eyes on her in speculation.

Now and then, when Noreen glanced through the glass walls of the little office she could see the other girls, at work in the steamy main room, watching her. They all knew what was going on, of course. Or thought they did, Noreen reminded herself. They thought she was just another brown nose. Hah! Let them think what they liked. Would they be surprised when she was reported missing.

The rest of the afternoon she spent trying to plan what she would do if she actually got off the grounds. Most prisoners, she had read somewhere, made the mistake of concentrating solely upon the initial escape. That, in most cases, was the easiest part. The difficulty came in staying out once you had made a successful break.

She must imagine that she had brought it off successfully. She had knocked out the matron, stolen the keys and the car, and gotten past the guard at the outer gate. Now she was on a narrow, lonely road twenty miles from the nearest town. That was Crawfordsville and she must go there to hit a main road that would lead her to the capitol, Steel City.

That was the danger. If the matron was discovered before she reached the town she wouldn't have a chance. One phone call and the police blocks would be up. Another thought struck her. Last roll call was at nine. Well, maybe old Waffle would take care of drat. But there was the late bedcheck as well. The moment her bed was discovered empty the alarm would be out. Last bed check was usually around midnight.

Noreen began to sense that this was not going to be as easy as she thought. And she knew the penalty for failure: they would send her to a regular State institution. The State Farm for Women. Noreen had heard stories about that place!

For a moment her resolution faltered, then Noreen firmed her will. She had to get out of this horrible place. At any risk. At any cost. All she needed was a little luck, a couple of good breaks. In her heart she knew that she was not a criminal-at least not yet-and she refused to be treated as one. Yes. Tonight, if Waffle was what they all said she was, she would be on her way.

When she reported back to the laundry office after supper the long June dusk was still lingering. The matron was waiting for her. They were alone. Outside the office, in the big room, the tubs and mangles stood in silent ghostly rows.

To Noreen's joy she saw that the matron was now dressed in her own street clothes. A dingy silk frock that could have been used as a tent. On a wall peg was a light colored rain coat and the hat that Noreen had been thinking of. It was a monstrous hat, but for Noreen's purpose it was ideal. That and the rain coat might get her past the gate without questions.

"We'll work until around ten," the woman told her. "Then I'll walk you back to Section Four and drive into Crawfordsville. Now you can finish those files you started this afternoon. I'm going to be back in the sorting room for a while. If I want you back there I'll call you. You understand, Casey P"

Noreen gave her a long level stare. "Yes, ma'am. I understand all right."

The matron flushed. She was sweating again and her hair was blousy and stringy. Her frowzy dress, under each armpit, showed a discolored half moon. Noreen fought back the shudder of aversion. She had to go through with it now.

A hundred yards down the graveled path she watched as a man in overalls came out of the boiler house and filled his pipe as he caught a breath of air. There were few lights along the paths, not more than one to every two hundred yards or so. That would be no problem.

At that moment the woman called from the sorting room in the rear of the place.

"Casey! Come here a minute, will you. I got a job for you."

Here it was. "Coming," Noreen said. She picked up the iron spike, with its papers stuck on it, and its heavy iron base. Then the heft of it made her dubious and she put it back on the desk. Too heavy. She didn't want a murder on her hands.

Yet she must have a weapon. She would be no match for Waffle without one. The fat woman would subdue her in a moment. Well, she would just have to find one in the sorting room. She remembered a flat wooden paddle that hung on the wall there, near the door. The girls did something or other with it around the huge tubs.

"You coming?" Waffle sounded impatient.

"Here I am," Noreen said. She entered the small sorting room. Piles of dirty linen and clothing made small white mountains in the gloom. Waffle was standing near the back door, close to a dirty mound of table cloths. The woman was a huge figure in the half dark. There was no light on in the sorting room, the only illumination coming from the large outer room of the main laundry.

"Over here," the matron said. A new note, almost of tenderness, crept into her voice. "I want you to count these table clothes, Noreen. They don't check out." It was the first time she had ever called the girl anything but Casey.

Noreen steeled herself for the coming event. She approached the matron, who cast a wary glance over Noreen's shoulder at the door. "There ain't anyone hanging around out there?"

"No, ma'am. I didn't see anybody. It's almost time for roll call."

"You don't have to worry about that," the matron said huskily. "I fixed it for you. You're on this assignment for me."

As Noreen came near, the woman put out a hand and caught her arm. "You're a pretty girl, Noreen. I reckon you know that? The prettiest one I've seen around here for a long time."

Noreen stiffened, then allowed herself to be drawn close to the big woman. She could smell the hot reek of the other's flesh.

"Thanks, ma'am," she muttered softly. "I guess I'm pretty enough. Not that it does me any good in this place."

The matron put an arm around the girl's taut waist. "It might, honey. It might, you know. You can have friends, good friends, in here just like on the outside." There was a quaver in the husky voice now and her black eyes were glistening as she stood looking at the girl in the gloom.

"You want to be nice to me, honey? Real nice?"

Noreen feigned puzzlement. "Nice? I don't know what you mean?" Over the fat woman's shoulder she saw the stout wooden paddle hanging on a hook just to one side of the door. It was only about six feet from her. The girl turned a little in the grasp of the matron. A grasp that was fast becoming an embrace. Now Noreen's back was to the door and she was only four feet short of the paddle.

"You know what I mean, all right," panted the fat woman. All her caution and pretense was melting away as the girl did not resist her. "You knew from the very start. Didn't you? You want it just the same as I do. Go on. Admit it!"

Noreen nodded slowly. "Maybe I did, ma'am. I never did it before, though. Honest I haven't. But do you think it's all right? Here, I mean. Someone might-"

"God, you're sweet," said the woman. "As sweet and pretty as I ever saw. You give me a big kiss, honey. Old Ayers will be good to you. You'll see. I'll make you feel things you never felt before."

Noreen felt the fat hands fumbling with her firm breasts. In spite of her loathing, her feeling of something slimy crawling over her, she felt her nipples become rigid. That was her body reacting, not her mind. Her traitor body, just as with the doctor.

The matron was kissing her. Her lips were like slobbery rubber on the girl's. The fat woman was breathing hard. "Over here," she gasped. "Over here, honey, on the pile of sheets!"

Noreen reached behind her for the heavy wooden paddle.