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In all the prison movies I've seen, this wailing horn goes off when there's been a break.
That never happens at Shawshank. The first thing Gonyar did was to get in touch with the
warden. The second thing was to get a search of the prison going. The third was to alert
the State Police in Scarborough to the possibility of a breakout
That was the routine. It didn't call for them to search the suspected escapee's cell, and so
no one did. Not then. Why would they? It was a case of what you see is what you get It
was a small square room, bars on the window and bars on the sliding door. There was a
toilet and an empty cot. Some pretty rocks on the windowsill.
And the poster, of course. It was Linda Ronstadt by then. The poster was right over his
bunk. There had been a poster there, in that exact same place, for twenty-six years. And
when someone - it was Warden Norton himself, as it turned out, poetic justice if there
ever was any - looked behind it, they got one hell of a shock.
But that didn't happen until 6.30 that night, almost twelve hours after Andy had been
reported missing, probably twenty hours after he had actually made his escape.
Norton hit the roof.
I have it on good authority - Chester, the trustee, who was waxing the hall floor in the
Admin Wing that day. He didn't have to polish any keyplates with his ear that day; he
said you could hear the warden clear down to Records & Files as he chewed on Rich
Gonyar's ass.
'What do you mean, you're "satisfied he's not on the prison grounds"? What does that
mean? It means you didn't find him! You better find him! You better! Because I want
him! Do you hear me? I want him!'
Gonyar said something.
'Didn't happen on your shift? That's what you say. So far as / can tell, no one knows when
it happened. Or how. Or if it really did. Now, I want him in my office by three o'clock
this afternoon, or some heads are going to roll. I can promise you that, and I always keep
my promises.'
Something else from Gonyar, something that seemed to provoke Norton to even greater
rage.
'No? Then look at this! Look at this! You recognize it? Last night's tally for Cellblock 5.
Every prisoner accounted for! Dufresne was locked up last night at nine and it is
impossible for him to be gone now! It is impossible! Now you find him!"
But at six that evening Andy was still among the missing, Norton himself stormed down
to Cellblock 5, where the rest of us had been locked up all of that day. Had we been
questioned? We had spent most of that long day being questioned by harried screws who
were feeling the breath of the dragon on the backs of their necks. We all said the same
thing: we had seen nothing, heard nothing. And so far as I know, we were all telling the
truth. I know that I was. All we could say was that Andy had indeed been in his cell at the
time of the lock-in, and at lights-out an hour later.
One wit suggested that Andy had poured himself out through the keyhole. The suggestion
earned the guy four days in solitary. They were uptight.
So Norton came down - stalked down - glaring at us with blue eyes nearly hot enough to
strike sparks from the tempered steel bars of our cages. He looked at us as if he believed