Glass Cell Read Online Free PDF

the bandage at any moment. “I hear you’re seeing Sullivan a lot,” he said, and saw in her face that he had hurt her.
    “I see him as often as I tell you I see him. I’d really be down in the dumps without him, Phil. All the neighbors calling and dropping in— What can they do? David at least knows something about the law.”
    “That might be—might be something we’d all better forget about.”
    “What?”
    “The law. Where is it? What good is it?”
    Hazel sighed. “Oh, darling. You’re tired and you’re in pain.” She reached nervously into her bag for a cigarette, started to extend the pack to Carter before she remembered the barrier that went all the way to the ceiling. “Haven’t you got a cigarette?”
    “I forgot ’em. I don’t want one. It doesn’t matter.” He did want one, and he watched her closely as she lighted it. Her hands shook slightly. A frown put a line between her brows. Her forehead was very smooth, quite without lines. Her complexion was very clear, and to Carter it seemed now so beautiful it was unreal, like something painted on canvas or on glass. There was a natural pinkness in her cheeks and in her lips. She had a small mouth and the softest lips Carter had ever seen, or kissed. He wondered if Sullivan had kissed them, or if Sullivan ever would.
    “What are the guards’ names?” Hazel asked. “Were you afraid to write them in a letter to me?”
    Carter glanced to right and left automatically. “I wasn’t afraid, I just thought it might get censored. It’s Moonan and Cherniver.”
    “Moonan and what?” Her dark blue eyes looked directly at him.
    “Cherniver. C-h-e-r-n-i-v-e-r.”
    “I’ll remember. But I want you to get that statement immediately from the doctor. The X-rays can wait. We’ll get another statement about those.”
    “Okay, honey.” He racked his brain for something cheerful to say to her, some incident to make her smile. There had been laughter in the ward over a few things, but now he could not think of one. Carter smiled. “Sullivan taking you out to dinner tonight? As usual?”
    “As usual?” Her frown was back.
    “I meant, it’s Sunday. You usually see him Sunday evenings, don’t you?”
    “I wouldn’t say usually. Phil, I tell you every time I see him and what we talk about and even what we eat.”
    That was true, and Carter clamped his teeth together. It was only Gawill who had made a couple of cracks in his last letter, and Gawill was no doubt exaggerating or making things up.
    “You never mention what you eat,” Hazel said.
    Carter could suddenly laugh a little. “I don’t think you’d care for it. Hog jowl—” And other things unidentifiable that had their prison names.
    “You can complain to me. I only wish I could share it with you.”
    The pain in his thumbs made his mind swim. He spoke to keep alert. “I don’t like to think of you here. I don’t want you to know all about it, because it’s too disgusting. Sometimes I don’t even want to look at the picture I have of you here.”
    She looked surprised and also frightened. “Darling—”
    “I don’t mean I don’t want you to visit me here. My God, I don’t mean that.” The sweat rolled down in front of his ears.
    “Two more minutes,” said the guard, strolling behind Carter.
    Carter looked wildly at the clock. It was true.
    “Mr. Magran said he’d already written to the warden about your thumbs,” Hazel said.
    “Well, the warden won’t reply to it,” Carter said quickly.
    “What do you mean? It’s a letter from your lawyer.”
    “I mean,” he said, trying to sound calmer, “he’ll acknowledge the letter, but he probably won’t refer to the stringing up. I know he won’t.”
    Hazel wrung her fingers together. The cigarette trembled. “Well, we’ll see— Oh, darling, how I wish I could cook a few meals for you!”
    Carter laughed, a laugh as if someone had crushed his chest. “There’s an old fellow here named Mac, nearly seventy. All he