The Cage Keeper Read Online Free Page A

in front of the red light, look to my left, past the darkened parking lot of the bank, to the outdoor mall, where just yesterday I saw a movie before I came to work:
Star Wars.
McElroy takes another swig off of his bottle, the knife point pushing at my side. I don’t believe this. The light changes and I drive straight ahead.
    “We might have some fun tonight, Al. You never can tell.”
    “We should talk about this, McElroy.”
    “Talk?”
    “Yes,
talk.
You are escaping from a correctional facility, Elroy. You are kidnapping a corrections em
ploy
ee. Jesus Christ, they’ll lock you up forever.”
    “Wrong.”
He pushes the blade a bit more into my jacket. “You’ve got that wrong, Allen.”
    “I know. I’m sorry. You’re right.”
    He takes another drink and I keep my mouth shut.
    We go through seven more traffic lights before we are out of the city and driving alone in the darkness up two-laned 119 towards Niwot. At the third traffic light, the one right before The Rhino, I almost did it. The blade had pulled far enough away from my side so that I didn’t even feel it, but when I leaned forward a little to prepare myself I felt my seat belt pulling across my chest. I went limp as I tried to imagine getting free of the belt and opening the door before Elroy had time to put it in me. And I couldn’t take the seat belt off before I hit the brakes or I’d go through the windshield with him. So that plan is out. But right now, I’m not thinking about plans. Elroy’s keeping that foot-long, two-and-a-half-inch blade right at my side. I’m almost afraid that if I do think up something, the thought will travel down through my body, be picked up by that Bowie, absorbed into Elroy’s hand then brain and
slice
—that’ll be all she wrote. So I’m just sitting here with both hands on the wheel looking straight ahead at my headlights cutting through the darkness, lighting up this road that passes over the flatlands of Colorado just east of the foothills. On either side, as far as you can see, is white frozen snow about a foot deep and a week old. If it were daytime I could look out of my window to my left and see a blue-gray wall of mountains looming out of the fields on the horizon. I know this because just last Saturday when I was working I had to drive up here to monitor a furlough, Maggie Nickerson’s.
    “You’re doing just fine, Allen. I want you to know that.”
    “Do you think you could pull the knife away then?”
    “Yes, Al, I can do that, and will, but when we get into Niwot you can count on it being pretty close.”
    “What are we going to do there?”
    “That’s my concern, kid. Not yours.”
    His voice just went down a notch, but he keeps his knife in his lap. I can see a ball of light up ahead in the distance: Niwot. It looks to be three or so miles more. I sit tight and drive and keep my mouth shut, but I’m watching him as best I can out of the corner of my eye. He looks a lot smaller sitting in a car seat. With his sloping shoulders and his short torso, he almost looks like a monkey, but old, dangerous, too. He’s wearing his thick winter-lined dungaree jacket, and he has on a blue workshirt with a T-shirt underneath. We’re driving under the streetlights on the far outskirts of Niwot and I can see his face better. His chin is jutted out forward a little like when he takes out his teeth, and his eyes are narrowed so that there are real deep furrows in the skin of his forehead; he looks like he might be pondering some kind of deep philosophical question, but I know he’s just trying to keep his booze in line. I look down at the brown bottle in his lap: Grand Marnier. It sounds like something a sailor would drink. Drink up then, Elroy. Guzzle yourself to death.
    “You know that I used to teach literature, don’t you, Al?”
    He snaps that question at me so fast I jerk a little bit in my seat.
    “What’s the matter, boy?”
    “Nothing, I just—”
    “You just don’t expect me to be