Escape From New York

VIII

9:00 P.M.

They sat Plissken in the steri-chamber, so he could think about it for awhile. There was nothing fancy or scientific about the steri-chamber. It was a small, white room where they strapped you naked on a stainless steel table, then put a box about the size of a typewriter over your hips. The machine then, quite quickly and smartly, would cut your balls off.

They had a blackbelly named Duggan in there to watch him. Duggan was the craziest son of a bitch that Plissken had ever seen. If anyone belonged in the steri-chamber getting his balls cut off, it was Duggan.

The blackbelly was hopping around the room on all fours, imitating a rabbit he had seen once that had gotten a dose of gas. Plissken had a pretty good loop of chain to work with while he was sitting down. If he could only get Duggan close enough to him, he could try to get it around the man’s neck. Then, with any luck, he could use his gun to shoot off the chains.

“And then… and then…” Duggan was out of breath, eyes wide, unable to stop laughing. “And then, he’d kindly go on off to the side.”

The man flung himself wildly off at an angle, banging into a small table full of instruments and gauze. The table fell down, skittering the instruments loudly across the shiny floor.

Duggan jumped to his feet and his head darted around. His gummy monkey face suddenly solidified into something rock hard and perverted. He pulled a. 45 out of his belt and leveled it at the Snake. His hand was shaking with rage,

“So, that’s the way it’s going to be, is it,” he said, his voice quaking. He was breathing loudly through his nose. “Just look what you did, you gutless bastard.” He nodded his head toward the mess on the floor.

Plissken tightened his hands on the chain, waiting for his opportunity.

“You know what you’re gonna do?” Duggan asked rhetorically. “You’re gonna get down there right now and pick that stuff up, that’s what.”

“Go to hell,” Plissken said.

Duggan began vibrating physically. He primed the bolt on the gun. His arm was shaking, weaving around. When he tried to speak, the words got all balled up in his throat.

“Down… on the… floor. NOW!”

Plissken moved off the bench, his length of chain stretching full as he stood up. He set the table upright, then squatted down and began picking up the scattered metal clamps and hemostats. Duggan stayed just out of arm’s reach, always out of arm’s reach.

Plissken looked up at him from the floor. The man had a monstrous grin plastered on his face. He turned back to the work. All at once, Duggan was right there. Plissken had turned his head just enough to see the steel-toed boot curling toward his exposed side.

The kick was well-intentioned; it had authority. It caught him just below the rib cage, and his whole side exploded. He jerked up with it, crashing back into the instrument table, all his work gone, clattering back to the floor. He hit the wall hard, then slid and doubled over to the floor.

Duggan was on top of him, gasping putrid breath, his automatic buried deep in the flesh of Plissken’s neck, cutting off his air.

“Ohhh, Snakey,” he rasped. “What we’re gonna do to you.”

He was jostling his hips against Plissken’s side. “We’re gonna fix you so that there won’t be no more little snakes slithering around. Yesss.”

Somewhere between the pain and the nausea, Plissken found the length of chain and got hold of it. He looped it once around his hands, and itched for Duggan’s neck.

Then, a voice. “What the hell…”

Duggan jumped to his feet, still shaking, trying to get himself under control. Plissken looked up from his sideways view on the floor. The fat duty sergeant from in-processing had come into the room.

“He was… trying to escape,” Duggan said, while smoothing his disheveled hair. “That’s it. I subdued the prisoner during an escape attempt.”

The Sergeant looked at Duggan, then let his eyes drift down to the Snake. He never changed expression. “Something may be up,” he said. “Cronenberg said to stop his processing until further notice.”

“What for?”

Plissken got himself into a sitting position, leaning his back against the wall. His side was badly bruised, but he didn’t think there was any permanent damage.

“I just do what I’m told,” the Sergeant answered, and looked at Plissken again. “You okay?”

“Never better,” he answered, and got slowly to his feet.

The Sergeant walked up to Duggan. “Just leave him right here, understand? Don’t hit him, don’t hurt him, don’t shoot him. Just leave him alone until you hear from me. Got it?”

“Sure, Sarge,” Duggan said, holstering his gun. “You know you can count on me.”

The Sergeant looked at him, sighed deeply, then stalked from the room.

Duggan flared around to Plissken, the fire in his eyes again. “Look what you did to me,” he said through clenched teeth. “Try to treat you assholes with a little kindness and you throw it back in my face. Well, no more Mister Nice Guy. You get back in your seat and don’t move.”

Plissken went back to the bench and sat down heavily. Something was up; he couldn’t imagine what. His immediate problem, though, was staying alive long enough to find out what it was. He watched Duggan carefully, watched for the madness to fog his brain again.

The man pulled a package of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He put one in his mouth, then looked up at Plissken. He smiled. “Like a ciggy?” he asked.

No answer.

“C’mon, Snake. We’ll bury the hatchet.” Duggan leaned down close, holding the pack out to him. He reached tentatively for one. Duggan snatched the pack away from him at the last second.

“You don’t want one of these,” he said. “They taste like shit.”

“They are shit,” Plissken replied.

Duggan lit his anyway and took a deep, satisfied drag. “Just wait ’til they strap you to that table, Snakey boy. Whooee! They just whack those suckers off, just whack ’em off. No anesthetic, no nothing. Yes, sir. I’ve heard them scream for hours afterwards.”

“I ain’t there yet,” Plissken said.

Duggan laughed, holding the burning cigarette up in front of Plissken’s face. “Just think. No more hot peter, Snakey. No more jazzin’ up the girlies. I’ll tell you. I think I’d rather blow out my fuckin’ brains than go around without no balls.”

“What brains?” Plissken said, and regretted it immediately.

Duggan’s eyes got wide again, and he was fumbling with the holster for his gun.

“Remember what your chum said,” Plissken told him.

The man frowned deeply, trembling, then backed away, taking quick pulls on the smoker to calm himself down. “Oh, I’m going to like it when they put you on that table. I’m going to get up real close and whisper in your ear while they’re doing the job on you. Yes, sir.”

He just stared for several seconds, then smiled that frightening smile again. He walked over to the table and climbed up on it, pretending that he was strapped down. Then he started acting like the box was strapped on him. He was shaking and screaming, yelling for mercy. That’s what he was doing when the duty Sergeant came back in.

“Aw jeez, get off that table,” the man said in disgust.

Duggan jumped down. “Aw, Sarge. I was just…”

“I know what you were doing,” the man responded. “And I hate to disappoint you, but there ain’t gonna be no show today.”

“What?”

“Hauk wants him upstairs,”

“B-but, Sarge. This here is Snake Plissken.”

The man half smiled. “And it looks like he’s slithered out again. Let’s go, Plissken.”

The Snake smiled and stood up. “Enjoyed the show, Duggan,” he said. “You’ll have to do it for real sometime.”

That brought Duggan up close, fists balled. Just what Plissken wanted. He half turned away from the man, then came back around hard, burying manacled hands in Duggan’s groin.

The man made a sound in his throat like a whistling tea kettle, then doubled over at the waist. Plissken grabbed the back of his head, then came up hard with his knee. He heard Duggan’s nose go with an audible crack, then watched as he crumpled to the floor.

“Gaaa!”

“I’m ready,” he told the Sergeant.

The man sighed again and led him into the hall. There was a contingent of armed guards waiting for him outside the door.

“Just stay calm,” the Sergeant said, settling his big belly farther over the edge of his belt. “Don’t make any quick moves, and everything will be all right”

“Docile as a puppy,” Plissken replied. And he was.

They led him out of the hootch, into the rain. It wasn’t coming down hard, but by habit he held his breath when he got out in it, not wanting to ingest any more of the gas than he had to.

The landing field that had been empty when they brought him in was now lousy with copters. He turned to look at them, but they just pushed him along. He was taken into another bunker near the Statue.

They went in, up a couple of flights, then down a dark hallway. They stopped in front of a doorway marked: COMMISSIONER. The Sergeant knocked on the door.

A muffled voice grunted on the other side of the door, and the Sergeant turned the knob. “Mind your manners,” he whispered to Plissken before swinging the thing open.

The Snake went in first, the guards right behind him. It was an office that looked like it was never used. The walls were bare: no pictures, no diplomas, no citations. The desk was empty. In and out baskets, empty. No pictures, not even a blotter. Just a telephone.

A man sat behind the desk. A hard man gone soft He squinted with powerful eyes. His face was set, strained. There may have been character in that face if Plissken had cared to look for it. He didn’t. All Snake Plissken was doing was looking for a way out.

“Take off the leg irons,” the man behind the desk said.

The Sergeant knotted up his eyebrows, but did as he was told, Plissken smiled with the unexpected good fortune. He immediately went over and sat down in a chair, crossing his legs.

The man behind the desk nearly smiled. He nodded to the guards. “All right,” he said.

The Sergeant took a waddling step toward the desk. “He’s dangerous, sir.”

“I know,” the man returned, and reached down to pull a pearl-handled revolver out of its resting place. He cocked it. “I’ll be all right.”

The Sergeant shrugged and motioned his people out of the room. He followed them, closing the door behind him. Plissken looked at the closed door for a minute. This was the best shot he’d ever had, one on one with an old softy. He turned to the man, smiling broadly. He held up his chained hands.

The man shook his head, his face without expression. “I’m not a fool, Plissken,” he said. “Maybe we’d better get that out of the way first.”

“Call me Snake,” Plissken smiled.

The man set his lips. Plissken could see that there was something definitely bothering him. He set the gun down carefully on the desk top, then he reached into the top drawer and pulled out a beige folder. He opened it and read:

“Plissken. American. Lieutenant in Special Forces Unit: ‘Black Light.’ Two Purple Hearts in Leningrad and Siberia. Youngest man to be decorated by the President.” His eyes came up for just a second to touch Plissken’s, then he continued. “You robbed the Federal Reserve Depository. Life sentence in New York Maximum Security Penitentiary.” He looked up from the folder again, raising his eyebrows. “I’m ready to kick your ass out of the world, war hero.”

Plissken narrowed his gaze. There was something different about this man, something he couldn’t put his finger on. He wasn’t like the others. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Hauk,” he replied. “Police Commissioner.”

“Bob Hauk?”

Hauk smiled. “You remember, huh? Special Forces Unit: ‘Texas Thunder.’ We heard plenty about you.”

Plissken remembered. Hauk commanded the air cover at Leningrad. He had lost a lot of men, too. But, look at who was on what side of the desk. “You stuck with it, then. Didn’t you… blackbelly?”

Hank’s voice came back angry. “You don’t know a thing about it.”

There was dead air between them, an absolute wall.

“Why are we talking?” Plissken said at last.

“I have a deal for you,” Hauk said, his voice cold and businesslike. “You’ll receive a full pardon for every criminal action you committed in the United States.”

Going into the folder, Hauk pulled out a piece of paper and held it up. Plissken had never seen a pardon before, but that sure looked like one. He stared at Hauk, not trusting him, not willing to trust anyone who had lived through Leningrad without being changed by it.

Hauk got up and moved around the desk. Plissken was surprised by how dirty the man was. He moved up closer to the Snake, almost close enough to reach out and grab.

“There was an accident about an hour ago,” Hauk said. “A small jet went down inside New York City. The President was on board.”

“President of what?” Plissken asked, ready to jump on Hauk if the opportunity presented itself.

“It isn’t funny, Plissken. You go in, find the President, bring him out in twenty-four hours, and you’re a free man.”

Plissken watched Hauk carefully, waiting for the punch line. It didn’t seem to be coming. “This a joke?” he finally asked.

“I’m making you an offer.”

“Bullshit.”

“Straight. Just like I said.”

Plissken sat back. He wasn’t anybody’s sucker bait. “I’ll think about it,” he answered.

Hauk took a breath, but his expression remained deadly earnest. “No time,” he said. “Give me an answer.”

“Okay,” Plissken replied. “Get a new President”

He watched Hauk’s jaw muscles tighten, but the man remained in control. He may even have been sane. “We’re still at war, Plissken. We need him alive.”

“I don’t care about your war,” the Snake answered. “Or your President.”

“Is that your answer?”

Plissken threw up his hands. “I’m thinking it over,” he snapped. He looked at Hauk again. He was really beginning to believe the man was on the level. He thought about Duggan and the steri-chamber. “Why me?” he asked.

“You flew the Gulffire over Leningrad,” the man answered quickly. “You know how to get in quiet.” He turned and walked a few paces across the room; when he turned back around his features were softer. “You’re all I’ve got,” he said quietly.

Just on the surface, it seemed to Plissken that the deal had more holes in it than a metric ton of Swiss cheese, but what the hell. He shrugged. “Well… I go in there one way or the other. It don’t mean shit to me. Give me the papers.” He reached for them.

Hauk shook his head, snatching back the papers. “When you come out,” he said, and this time he was smiling.

“Before”

“I said I wasn’t a fool, Plissken.”

Plissken fixed him with his cool, reptilian eye. “Snake,” he said, smooth as syrup. “Call me Snake.”