Free Glass Cell by Patricia Highsmith

said nothing else. Carter lay down on his bed again, and thought for a few seconds of Mickey’s stitches having possibly opened under the bandage on his throat, thought that if he had not been protecting his own thumbs, he might have blocked the boy’s charge against the doorjamb. But if Mickey did not get it this way, he would get it another, and was it up to everybody else in the world to be his keeper, his protector?
    Mickey was dead in the morning. Carter noticed him before anyone else. Under the sheet and blanket the bed was soaking with blood, caught by the rubber sheet below the bottom sheet. Carter was unnerved by the sight. Pulling the sheet and blanket back was like unveiling a crime—which of course was what it was.
    Dr. Cassini blew his stack. He cursed the screws and he cursed the animals. He addressed the entire ward, and many of the men propped themselves up on their elbows to listen, impressed by the fact that one of them had been murdered. “So it’s another pop goes the weasel. And what are the damned screws for, if not to prevent things like this? But how can anybody prevent things like this, if you all behave like a bunch of mad dogs?”
    Carter listened, like the rest, standing motionless. Breakfast trays went uncollected from the dumbwaiter. Carter and Pete could not have done anything about removing the blood-soaked sheets, anyway, as Dr. Cassini was using the bed and the corpse as props for his harangue. Some of what he said sounded quite noble and sincere, reminding Carter of the first words he had heard from Dr. Cassini when he had been brought into the ward almost unconscious. But Dr. Cassini’s righteous indignation had not lasted long. There were two people in Dr. Cassini, at least two. The morphine might create still more personalities in time. Carter was now sure he took it, because he had seen a supply the doctor kept in the room in which he slept.
    That day, Carter could not write anything to Hazel. He was too shaken, not entirely by Mickey, but by everything. Was Dr. Cassini reliable enough to make a judgment on the X-rays of his hands? Carter doubted it. Reliable enough to perform an operation? That was a grim, nightmarish prospect. Carter gave himself a seventh shot of morphine before he went to bed at 9 o’clock. There had been no letter from Hazel that day. Of course, on Saturday, taking off with Sullivan, she had probably been too busy for a letter, but she might have dashed a card.
    An unhappy idea came to him in the middle of the night. He felt he should suggest to Hazel that she move to a bigger town as long as he was in prison. She would probably protest that she didn’t want to go to New York or anywhere else that would keep her from seeing him frequently, but Carter thought he ought to insist. If she went to New York, it would also take her away from David Sullivan, he realized. Carter sighed. That wasn’t his main objective, it really wasn’t his main one.
    On the following Sunday, Carter mentioned it to her.
    “New York ,” Hazel said, and was silent for a few seconds, but Carter saw in her face that she had considered it before. “No, Phil, don’t be silly. What would I do in New York?”
    “What’re you doing here? I know how boring that town is. I can’t see that we’ve met any fascinating people in the year we’ve—”
    “I told you in a letter just last week I might go in with Elsie on her shop idea. She doesn’t need any capital from us, you know, just a little hard work.”
    “She’s over fifty. You’d be doing all the hard work.”
    “The town needs a good dress shop.”
    “Is there anybody with taste enough to patronize it?— Are you getting interested in that lousy town?”
    “As long as I’m there—”
    “Honey, I don’t want you to be there. Not another month, not another week! I want you—”
    “Quiet!” said a guard, coming toward Carter. “You think you’re the only guy in here?”
    Carter said a four-letter word under his