Convicted Innocent(3)

Most visitors were weeping or ranting family, the occasional physician, or the frequent solicitor, but sometimes a chap like Fred would turn up. Not that Fred ever said what the boss was up to in the Queen’s English (he and Corbin weren’t fools: ‘shaw! that’s what codes were for). But not everyone was as smart.

In which case, Corbin would listen and then pass along what he heard to the boss. Last time, when he’d been working a job for the boss in Portsmouth and the local constabulary played into the boss’s hand, Corbin had managed to overhear plans one of their rival crews had been putting together. Once he’d passed along this information, the boss had not only managed to squash the other gang, but also made them his patsy. Magicians would’ve been in awe of the boss’s sleight of hand.

Sodding idiots. That’s what codes are for, Corbin thought to himself with a remembered sneer.

He plucked the spent wad of tobacco from his cheek with brown-stained fingers and flicked it onto the floor of the corridor, trying to provoke an outburst from the guard. Recollecting his rivals’ past stupidities had gotten Corbin’s blood pumping, and he felt a confrontation with the guards wouldn’t be amiss.

But the bobby – a rotund, wheezy, sallow-faced fellow with bad breath and a squint – didn’t notice. He’d stopped across the hall with the visitor and one cell short of Corbin’s, and he wasn’t facing Corbin’s direction.

No matter. The visitor should prove entertaining enough. After all, he appeared to be a doddering old fool of a man, his lined face creased in concern for whichever poor sod he was calling on.

A moment, though.

Now that he was looking well and good at the old, bow-legged chap, Corbin thought he knew him. He peered closer through the dim glow the lamps in the corridor afforded, brow furrowed. When he realized the fellow was speaking with the boss’s dolt of a scapegoat, Corbin was sure of it.

What’re you up to, old Frank? he wondered, straining his ears to hear the low-pitched conversation. He wished he could yell for the other prisoners to shut their yappers, since the usual yammering and arguing commonplace in the cells continued unabated. But that wouldn’t be smart. Yelling would only encourage more yelling, and the conversation would be even harder to hear.

So he held his breath and listened carefully, trying to tune out every other murmur and wail and curse.

As what he heard over the next quarter hour of the patsy’s halting stutter and old Frank’s raspy grumble sunk into Corbin’s brain, he felt his blood chill.

If ever the boss’s plans could fail, sending Corbin, all his crewmates…maybe even the boss himself…to jail or the noose, this would be the time. That conversation would be the death of them all, should the proper authorities learn of it.

Had old Frank’s escort realized what was happening? No, that tub of lard was scratching a sweat-stained armpit, uncaring.

But the patsy still had ample time to share his tale in court where there were bobbies and magistrates who did care – old Frank, too – and the thought made a cold sweat prickle on Corbin’s skin.

Then he almost laughed aloud as the panic abruptly broke.

Fred had yet to come by today. And the two of them could speak in code. In code.

Assured he could pass along whatever information the old chap and the patsy were so stupidly divulging, Corbin leaned against the wall separating his cell from the next and continued listening.

The boss would have plenty of time to set up a counter scheme, and, as he’d done in the past, the genius rewarded loyalty such as Corbin’s most handsomely.

Yes, Corbin thought this turn of events could actually spell a turning point in his career. Maybe even win him his own team and a con or two to run himself. After all, thinking a little – just a very little – was something the boss prized almost as highly as unquestioning loyalty.