It was the fifth day of March and Barney had been there five days—an eternity to him. He and five prisoners were rousted out of their cells at dawn and led to a room on the first floor of the jail. There the convicts were bound together with chains attached to each right ankle. As the manacle on Barney’s ankle snapped shut, the sound sent a sickening lurch to the pit of his stomach. He wanted to run and scream. But there was no place to run. On their way from the city jail, the prisoner chained to Barney’s left, Larry Imboden, a slight man, short of stature, with thin features and a small mustache, filled him in about Sing Sing. “This is the second jolt for me. I already done three years in the Castle.” “The Castle?” one of the prisoners asked. “What’s that?” Imboden laughed. “Well, it ain’t like no castle you ever heard of in fairy tales. That’s what they call Sing Sing—the Castle on the Hudson.
