Dan and the Death-Cell Bluff

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The little sad-faced man in the worn seersucker suit arrived in Lake City on the nine-thirty A.M. train. He shook his head at the redcap who tried to relieve him of his bag, shook it again at the ring of eager taxi drivers, found his way to the waiting room and hunched his meager frame onto a bench in the farthest corner. For an hour and a half he sat there quietly, staring sadly at his folded hands, and he was such an insignificant little man, no one gave him a second glance.

The big, heavy-shouldered man with the perennial lopsided grin arrived in Lake City on the eleven A.M. train. He, too, shook his head at the redcap, but he grinned when he did it, as though amused at the thought of hiring a youngster half his size to carry his heavy bag. He grinned again at the eager taxi drivers, said, “Later, maybe,” and went on to the waiting room.

He was an enormous man, probably six feet four and two hundred and seventy pounds, but he moved with the controlled grace of a ballet dancer. His square, craggy face, lined by weather and seamed with laughter lines, looked forty; his iron-gray hair looked fifty. Actually he was thirty-six.

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