«Okay, Governor. I'll see that it's done.»
«Good, Matt. How're Mary and the kids?»
«Fine, Governor. Just fine.»
«Well, give them my best. I'll be stopping down one of these days.»
«Fine, Governor, fine.»
The Governor hung up. Johnson looked at the phone in his hand. «Go to hell,» he snarled and slammed it onto the cradle.
His profanity startled his secretary who had just slithered quietly into the office with the walk she usually reserved for walking past groups of prisoners.
«There's a priest and another man here,» she said. «Should I bring them in?»
«No,» Johnson said. «Have the priest taken down to see the prisoner, Williams. Have the other man escorted to the death house. I don't want to see them.»
«What about our chaplain, warden? Isn't it strange to…?»
Johnson interrupted. «This whole damn business of being the state's executioner is strange, Miss Scanlon. Just do what I say.»
He spun around in his chair to look at the air conditioner pumping cool, fresh, clean air into his office.
CHAPTER THREE
Remo Williams lay on his back, his eyes shut, his fingers drumming silently on his stomach. What was death anyway? Like sleep? He liked to sleep. Most people liked to sleep. Why fear death?
If he opened his eyes, he would see the cell. But in his personal darkness, he was free for a moment, free from the jail and the men who would kill him, free from the gray bars and the harsh overhead light. Darkness was peaceful.
He heard the soft rhythm of feet padding along the corridor, louder, louder, louder. Then they stopped. Voices mumbled, clothes rustled, keys tingled and then with a clack, the cell door opened. Remo blinked in the yellow light. A brown-robed monk clutching a black cross with a silver Christ stood inside the cell door waiting. The dark cowl shaded the monk's eyes. He held the crucifix in his right hand, the left apparently tucked beneath the folds of his robe.
The guard, stepping back from the cell door, said to Remo: «The priest.»
Remo sat up on the cot, bringing his legs in front of him. His back was to the wall. The monk stood motionless.
«You've got five minutes, Father,» the guard said. The key clicked again in the lock.
The monk nodded. Remo motioned to the empty space beside him on the cot.
«Thank you,» the monk said. Holding the crucifix like a test tube he was afraid to spill, he sat down. His face was hard and lined. His blue eyes seemed to be judging Remo for a punch instead of salvation. Droplets of perspiration on bis upper lip caught the light from the bulb.
«Do you want to be saved, my son?» he asked. It was rather loud for such a personal question.
«Sure,» Remo said. «Who doesn't?»
«Good. Do you know how to examine your conscience, make an act of contrition?»
«Vaguely, Father. I…»
«I know, my son. God will help you.»
«Yeah,» Remo said without enthusiasm. If he got this over fast, maybe there'd be time for another cigarette.
«What are your sins?»
«I really don't know.»
«We can start with violation of the Lord's commandment not to kill.».
«I've not killed.»
«How many men?»
«Including Vietnam?»
«No, Vietnam doesn't count.»
«That wasn't killing, huh?»
«In war, killing is not a mortal sin.»
«How about peace, when the State says you did, but you didn't? How about that?»
«Are you talking about your conviction?»
«Yes.» Remo stared at his knees. This might go on all night.
«Well, in that case…»
«All right, Father. I confess it. I killed the man,» Remo lied. His trousers, fresh gray twill, hadn't even had a chance to get worn at the knees.
Remo noticed that the monk's cowl was perfectly clean, spotlessly new too. Was that a smile on his face?
«Coveted anyone's property?»
«No.»
«Stolen?»
«No.»
«Impure actions?»
«Sex?»
«Yes.»
«Sure. In thought and deed.»
«How many times?»
Remo almost attempted an estimate. «I don't know. Enough.»
The monk nodded. «Blasphemy, anger, pride, jealousy, gluttony?»
«No,» Remo said, rather loudly.
The monk leaned forward. Remo could see tobacco stains on his teeth. The light subtle smell of expensive aftershave lotion wafted into his nostrils. The monk whispered: «You're a goddam liar.»
Remo jumped back. His legs hit the floor. His hands moved up almost as if to ward off a blow. The priest remained leaning forward, motionless. And he was grinning. The priest was grinning. The guards couldn't see it because of the cowl, but Remo could. The state was playing its final joke on him: a tobacco-stained, grinning, swearing monk.
«Shhh,» said the brown-robed man.
«You're no priest,» Remo said.
«And you're not Dick Tracy. Keep your voice down. You want to save your soul or your ass?»
Remo stared at the crucifix, the silver Christ on the black cross and the black button at the feet.
A black button?
«Listen. We don't have much time,» the man in the robe said. «You want to live?»
The word seemed to float from Remo's soul. «Sure.»
«Get on your knees.»
Remo went to the floor in one smooth motion. The cot level was at his chest, his chin before the robe's angular folds that indicated knees.
The crucifix came toward his head. He looked up at the silvery feet pierced by a silver nail. The man's hand was around Christ's gut.
«Pretend to kiss the feet. Yes. Closer. There's a black pill. Ease it off with your teeth. Go ahead, but don't bite into it.»
Remo opened his mouth and closed his teeth around the black button beneath the silver feet. He saw the robes swirl as the man got up to block the guard's view. The pill came off. It was hard, probably plastic.
«Don't break the shell. Don't break the shell,» the man hissed. «Stick it in the corner of your mouth. When they strap the helmet around your head so you can't move, bite into the pill hard and swallow the whole thing. Not before. Do you hear?»
Remo held the pill on his tongue. The man was no longer smiling.
Remo glared at him. Why were all the big decisions in his life forced on him when he didn't have time to think? He tongued the pill. Poison? No point in that. Spit it out? Then what?
Nothing to lose. Lose? He wasn't winning. Remo tried to taste the pill without letting it touch his teeth. No taste. The monk hovered over him. Remo nestled the pill under his tongue and said a very fast and very sincere prayer. «Okay,» he said.
«Time's up,» the guard's voice boomed.
«God bless you my son,» the monk said loudly, making the sign of the cross with the crucifix. Then, in a whisper, «See you later.»
He padded from the cell, his head bowed, the crucifix before him and his left hand flinting steel. Steel? It was a hook.
Remo placed his right hand on the cot and got to his feet. The saliva seemed to gush into his mouth. He wanted to swallow bad. Hold down the pill. Under the tongue. Right where it is. Okay, now swallow… carefully.
«All right, Remo,» the guard said. «Time to go.»
The cell door was open, with one guard on each side. A large, blond man and the regular prison chaplain waited in the center of Death Row. The monk was gone. Remo swallowed once more, very carefully, clamped his tongue down over the pill and walked out to meet them.
CHAPTER FOUR
Harold Haines didn't like it. Four executions in seven years, and all of a sudden, the state had to send in electricians to monkey with the power box.
«A routine check,» they had said. «You haven't used it for three years. We just want to make sure it'll work.»
And n
ow, it just didn't sound right. Haines' pale face tilted toward the head-high gray regulator panel as he turned a rheostat. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced momentarily at the glass partition separating the control room from the chair room.
The generators moaned uphill to full strength. The harsh yellow lights dimmed slightly as the electricity drained into the chair room.
Haines shook his head and turned the juice back down. The generators resumed their low, malevolent hum, but just didn't sound right. Nothing was right about this execution. Was it the three-year layoff?
Haines adjusted his gray cotton uniform, starched to almost painful creases. This one was a cop. So Williams was a cop. So what?
Haines had seen four go in his chair and Williams would be his fifth. He'd sit in the chair too petrified to speak or move his bowels and then he'd look around. The brave ones did that, the ones who weren't afraid to open their eyes.
And Harold Haines would let him wait. He'd delay turning up the voltage until the warden looked angrily toward the control room. And then Harold Haines would help Williams by killing him.
«Something the matter?» came a voice.
Haines spun suddenly around as though a teacher had caught him playing with himself in the boys' room.
A short dark-haired man in a black suit, carrying a gray metallic attache case, was standing beside the control panel.
«Something the matter?» the man repeated softly. «You look sort of excited. Flushed in the face.»
«No,» Haines snapped. «Who are you and what do you want here?»
The man smiled slightly, but did not move at the sharp question.
«The warden's office told you I was coming.»
Haines nodded quickly. «Yeah, that's right, they did.» He turned back to the control board to make the final check. «He'll be here in a minute,» Haines said, glancing at the voltmeter. «It's not much of a view from where we are, but if you go to the glass partition, you can see fine.»
«Thank you,» the dark-haired man said, but made no move. He waited until Haines involved himself with his toys of death, then examined the steel rivets at the base of the generator cover. He counted to himself: «One, two, three, four… there it is.»
He carefully set the attache case at the base of the panel where it touched the fifth rivet in the row. The rivet was brighter than the others, and for a good reason. It was not steel but magnesium.
The man glanced casually around the room, Haines, the ceiling, the glass, and when he seemed to be focussing on the death chair, his right leg imperceptibly pressed the attache case against the fifth rivet, which moved an eighth of an inch.
There was a faint click. The man moved away from the panel toward the glass partition.
Haines had not heard the click. He glanced up from the dials on the board. «You from the state?» he asked.
«Yes,» the man said and appeared to be very busy watching the chair.
Two rooms away, Dr. Marlowe Phillips poured a stiff Scotch into a water glass, then put the whisky bottle back into the white medicine cabinet. Moments before, he had hung up the telephone. It had been the warden. He had almost shouted when the warden told him he would not have to perform an autopsy on Williams.
«Apparently, Williams has some unusual characteristics,» the warden had told him. «Some research group wants his body. Don't ask me what it's all about. I'm damned if I know. But I didn't imagine you'd mind.»
Mind? Phillips sniffed the beautiful alcohol aroma whispering comforting messages to his entire nervous system. He'd been prison doctor almost thirty years. He'd performed thirteen autopsies on electrocuted men. And he knew-no matter what the books said or the state said or his own knowledge and skill said-that it wasn't the chair that killed them, it was the autopsy knife.
The electric jolt numbed them, paralyzed them, destroyed their nervous systems and brought them to the edge of death. They would die. There was no saving them. But the autopsy, within minutes of the electrocution, really finished the job, he was convinced.
Dr. Phillips looked at the drink in his hand. It had started that way thirty years ago. His first autopsy and the «dead man» had twitched when the scalpel slipped into his flesh. It had never happened again, but it never had to. Dr. Phillips was convinced. And so it started. Just one drink to forget.
But not tonight. Just one drink to celebrate. I'm free. Let someone else kill the poor half-dead bastard, or let him die out his last few minutes in one piece. He gulped down the whisky and walked back toward the medicine cabinet.
The question stuck in his mind: what was unusual about Williams? His last physical had shown no irregularities, except for a high tolerance of pain and exceptionally fast reflexes. Other than that, he was perfectly normal.
But Dr. Phillips could not be bothered worrying about such trivia. He opened the medicine cabinet again and reached for the best medicine in the world.
It wasn't really a mile. It was too short for that. The whole damned corridor was too short. Remo walked behind the warden. He could feel the closeness of the guards behind him but he would not look at them. His mind was on the pill. He kept swallowing and swallowing, keeping the pill pressed beneath his tongue. He never knew he could create this much saliva.
His tongue was numb. He could barely feel the pill. Was it still there? He couldn't reach his hand in to find out for sure. Sure? What was sure? Maybe he should spit it out. Maybe if he could see it again. And if he saw it, what then? What would he do with it? Show it to the warden and ask him for an analysis? Maybe he could run to a drugstore in Newark, or take a plane to Paris and have it examined there? Yeah, that would be fine. Maybe the warden would go for that. And the guards. He'd take them all with him. What were there, three of them, four, five? A hundred? This was a whole state against him. The last door loomed ahead.
CHAPTER FIVE
Remo sat down in the chair by himself. He never thought he would. He kept his arms across his lap. Maybe they wouldn't electrocute him if they knew he'd never move his arms of his own accord. He wanted to urinate. A giant ceiling exhaust fan whirred noisily over his head.
There was a guard for each arm and they placed his arms on the chair arms and they strapped his arms to the chair arms with metallic straps and it surprised Remo that he let them do it as easily as if he wanted to help them. And he wanted to scream. But he didn't and he let them fasten his legs to the chair's legs with more straps.
And then he shut his eyes and rolled the pill beneath the left eye tooth which would be better for splitting it open.
He let them hinge a small metal half-helmet, resembling the network of straps from inside a football helmet, over his head. A band inside it pulled his forehead back against the back of the wooden chair. It was cold against his neck, cold as death.
And then Remo Williams bit into the pill hard, hard enough to crack his teeth and they didn't crack. And a sweet warm ooze filled his mouth and mingled with the saliva and he swallowed all the sweetness and shells that were in his mouth.
Then he became warm all over and drowsy and it didn't seem to matter anymore that they were going to kill him. So he opened his eyes and saw them standing there, the guards, the warden, and was it a minister or a priest? It certainly didn't look like the monk. Maybe it was. Maybe this was something they always did with executions: give a man the feeling that he had a chance so he'd go along willingly.
«Have you any last words … ?» Was it the warden's voice? Remo tried to shake his head, but it was locked to the chair. He couldn't move. Was it the pill or the straps that held him? Suddenly the question became fascinating. As soft, warm, darkness enveloped him, Remo decided he must look into the question someday. He would sleep until tomorrow.
Harold Haines, his visitor completely forgotten now, looked through the glass partition waiting for the warden to get angry. There were no reporters allowed at this one, and the few chairs in the room were empty. Tomorrow's papers would carry only a few paragraphs and the name of Harold Haine
s would not be mentioned. If reporters had been present, there would have been big stories telling about everything, even about the man who threw the switches, Harold Haines. The warden wasn't moving. Neither was Williams. He seemed relaxed. Was he unconscious? His eyes were shut. His arms were limp. The bastard was out cold.
Well, Haines would wake him up, all right. There would be a gradual building of current, then the full force.
Haines was breathing hard now, a caressing, waking current, then slowly building to the climax and the final rush of juice into heaven. He could feel the heat of his own breath as the warden stepped back from the chair and nodded toward the control room. Haines slowly turned the twin rheostats. The generators hummed. Williams' body jolted upright in the seat. Haines eased off the rheostats slowly. He could already almost taste the faint sweet pork smell of burning flesh tickling the noses of those inside the room.
The warden nodded again. And Haines threw another jolt into Williams as the generators hummed.
The body twitched again, then sagged into the seat. Haines, gasping with a tremendous feeling of freedom, cut off the juice and let the generators die. It was all over.
He noticed his visitor was gone. He continued to throw switches shutting off the circuits. He was angered by the bad manners of his visitors, the bad press coverage, the bad sound of the generators. Something, a lot of things, had been wrong. Tomorrow, he promised himself, he was going to take the whole control panel apart to see what was wrong with it.
Remo Williams' body sagged peacefully in the chair. His head, tilted toward one shoulder, clunked forward onto his chest as the guards freed his limp body from the bands. Dr. Phillips, who had come into the room after the electrocution was over, placed a stethoscope perfunctorily on Williams' chest, pronounced him dead, and left.
Attendants from the research center immediately got the warden's permission to move the body. They lifted Williams' corpse onto the wheeled stretcher gently, then covered him with a sheet. The guards thought the white-frocked attendants rather odd in the way they rushed moving the body as though the dead couldn't wait.
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