Rosalie Lee asked her sons if they’d done something that night they oughtn’t. They laughed at her. They laughed when she begged them to stay home at night, and they laughed as they flashed their new weapons, oiled and loaded.
Rosalie had voted for Jansen for president and, as recently as a week ago, was fiercely defending his emergency edicts. Now she was no longer so certain. She had three sons, and, although far from perfect, they were still hers. They were all she had. She’d regret it bitterly for the rest of her days if one of them should end up paying with his life for that vote she’d cast.
CHAPTER 14
There were twenty-six men on death row in Sussex State Prison in Waverly. Five had been executed, and four new ones had arrived. It was a place where good news was a thing of the past.
The prison guards had spitefully informed the inmates about what was happening in Washington. That fucking amateur “Dumbocrat” of a president was in the midst of an act of political suicide that threatened the future of the entire nation. They laughed like madmen when they spoke about the state of emergency, perhaps due to the general bloodlust that was pulsing through the country. Or maybe it was just their apprehension about what they were supposed to do now. In any case, it was clear they had no idea what the repercussions would be for them.
The redheaded guard they called Lassie laughed hysterically, as though to hide his uncertainty. “In four weeks we’ll all be out of work!” he joked. Later the personnel were told something else, that their job was to get all the executions over with and then change to more “proper” work. Namely, working with young criminals who were not as hard-boiled as the condemned, and trying to get them back into society.
Bud’s reaction was like that of most of the guards. He didn’t believe the plan would work, but there was nothing to do about it. The prison was already busy with the executions. They were all to be exterminated like disease-bearing rats, end of story.
And he wasn’t guilty.
* * *
—
He was hearing plenty of rumors, and most of them were confirmed. Bud’s lawyers came with their black briefcases and regretted that there was nothing they could do. They regretted that all their appeals had been shelved in spite of their great efforts and protests. Bud wondered how these high-paid vultures would survive if all their clients were killed off. It wasn’t that he sympathized with them, but he’d prefer other conditions for the demise of their profession. They’d already begun executions in Maryland after years of moratorium, the lawyers said. In Texas they were now up to two a day, sometimes three. As though this were something Bud wanted to know. As if he hadn’t already stood witness to more than enough. Here in Virginia they were methodically taking them one at a time—this he’d verified with his own eyes. Five condemned men had already been towed past his cell, heads bowed and clenched fists bound behind their backs, straight from a last meal in their death-row cell to the execution chamber. Apparently, they were starting up at the end of the gangway with the man in cell one, then cell two, then cell three, and so on, until they started over with cell one. One per day until it was over. The cells were reoccupied as quickly as they were emptied. People were flipping out on the streets, he’d heard. Apparently, a couple of the new prisoners had tried to defend their right to keep their ammunition, and the ensuing gun battle had gotten out of hand. They hadn’t really been aiming, they whined from their cells, but folks had a habit of dying if you hit them right.
A couple of days ago they’d been average American family men who’d flirted a bit with the militias.
Now they were already history.
* * *
—
Bud sat exactly in the middle in cell number fourteen. The original prisoners in cells one to five had already been dispatched to the next world, and every evening at six o’clock they’d fetched a new one and led him past the other inmates down to the execution chamber. When it was Dave the pothead’s turn in cell two, he screamed so shrilly that the echoes could still be heard the following day. He was a much smaller man than Bud had imagined, and his eyes had been livid with fear.
“The angels grow pot in heaven, Davey Boy!” Bud’s neighbor Daryl laughed, and he rattled his bars with glee as the condemned man was hauled by. Bud could still hear them echoing, too.
Bud couldn’t imagine being as jolly when it was Daryl’s turn, and there were only seven and a half days left. March 29: the day before his own death.
* * *
—
Prison guard Pete was one of the few who didn’t complain about what was happening in the outer world. He adapted, resigning himself for the time being in the belief that he’d soon find another job. He followed orders and stayed quiet. Which is why the chief prison guard put him on the night shift, meaning he was kept awake night after night by the oaths and whimpers of the man who was to give his life the following day. This was what he got for being passive and never protesting.
He used to sit way up at the exit door by cell number one on a rickety wooden chair, until the day it was pulverized when inmate number six tore himself loose from his executioners and lunged for the only defensive weapon in the vicinity. The chair’s back broke the arm of the first guard, but that’s as far as he got. They overpowered him and refused to let him speak with the priest before they stuck the needle in and pumped death into him.
After that, there were no more loose objects on death row. If Pete didn’t want to use the metal folding seat attached to the wall, he’d have to stand up.
* * *
—
The first night, Pete stood leaning against the wall for three hours before boredom and numbness in his hamstring muscles drove him on a walk past the cells.
Bud had said his prayers and was now waiting, up against the bars of his cell. “Come on, come on!” he whispered. He was hoping that the child killer Robert and motormouth Daryl would let Pete pass without making a scene and waking up everyone else, because he needed a couple of minutes alone with the guard. Just a few moments of undivided attention from a young man whose life he was capable of transforming.
“Pete!” he whispered, but Pete went past him and stayed for a long, long time at the other end of the hallway. It seemed like hours to Bud. Maybe he needed all that time to realize that his return trip past Bud’s cell could be of unforeseen importance.
Bud called out once more when Pete finally walked by again, and this time he stopped, as though he’d already reached the end of the gangway or as if his feet wouldn’t take him any farther. In any case, he’d reached his destination.
“I’ll give you and your family a million dollars if you’ll give me a cell phone,” Bud whispered. “You just give it to me, and I’ll call and have the money transferred to your account. Or your mother’s account, or anyone else you want. You can also have it in cash. I’m sure I can arrange that, too.” Pete looked at Bud as though Bud were already in the past tense. Like it was a dead body speaking to him to which he’d already answered no. Bud began sweating. He wanted to reach out and grab Pete but immediately realized it was a bad idea. If the guy retreated a step, he might be gone the next second.
“Pete, believe me when I say I’m innocent. I haven’t done what they accused me of. I killed in Vietnam, it’s true, but that was for my country. I was only twenty-three years old. It was over there I learned that life is sacred, believe me.”
Pete tipped forward on his toes. He looked as though he were about to pass out. Maybe it was just because he’d been standing up so long, but Bud knew an offer like his could shake up a man like Pete. A million dollars would completely change his life; this was the kind of thing guys like him dreamed about. Win the lottery and your troubles are over. Just stick your coin in the right slot machine at the right moment and . . .
Thoughts like this were buzzing through Pete’s mind—it was obvious. Should he put the coin in the slot? Should he take th
e chance? Clearly he wanted to, but the odds weren’t good, because Bud Curtis was no average death-row inhabitant. He’d ordered the assassination of the president’s wife, people said. Should Pete take risks for a man like that? That was the question. And Bud knew it, too.
“He won’t do it, Buddy Boy. He’s not giving you the cell phone.” Pete’s body jerked when he heard Daryl Reid’s voice from the cell next door. It was like a knife thrust through the semidarkness. Bud tried to quiet Daryl down, but Pete was already gone.
* * *
—
The next morning, Bud was told he had a visitor. Doggie was sitting in the visitor’s room with downcast eyes, looking as if she’d lost her will to live. She turned her face towards him when they led him in and chained him to the chair opposite her. Her eyes were clouded and sad; the wrinkles on her brow reminded him of her mother.
He took a deep breath. “Thank you for coming, my . . . my sweetheart.” Such simple words had never been harder to say.
She shrugged her shoulders. Maybe, like her father, she noticed the looks the prison guards were giving her. Doggie Rogers: Who in the entire United States didn’t know her? Wasn’t she the president’s aide who began this mess? Without her there’d be no state of emergency, no roadblocks, no sporadic raids by the police and military. Yes, they were watching her, and she clearly wasn’t enjoying it.
“It’s Monday. Did you get the day off?” Bud asked.
“I worked all weekend.”
He nodded. “This is probably one of the last times you’ll be coming here, Doggie, if not the last. Things are really moving fast now.”
She looked at him. “When?”
He counted on his fingers and gave her a smile. “Well, it might be as much as eight days. But you can never know what’ll happen tomorrow. Maybe they’ll speed things up some more.”
The wrinkles on her forehead deepened. “Do you have any idea what’s happening to the country right now?”
He nodded again. He didn’t know much, but it was enough. Everybody was blaming him for what was going on.
“It all seems out of control, but it’s worse than that because President Jansen knows precisely what he’s doing.” She was looking straight at him now, her voice low. “I think he’s insane, in a way. The White House is like a fortress. They just sit there all the time, pulling strings. I’m just ten offices away from the oval one, and I know nothing.” She put her face in her hands. “It’s terrible, what you started, Dad. Do you know that?”
He let her sit like that until she was finished, let her dry her eyes and look up again.
“Listen to me, Doggie, because we only have a little time. Listen closely: I’m not guilty.” He noticed the guard looking at the clock on the wall, but he wasn’t about to let himself be stopped. “Someone’s been conspiring against me. I don’t know why, but I had nothing to do with Mimi Jansen’s death. You’ve got to believe me. It’s true that once I got Toby O’Neill to lick my spit off the floor, Doggie, but I was drunk and it was a bet!”
She looked at him with disgust.
“Yes, I know, but what’s done is done! You have to believe me. Blake Wunderlich is the man who contacted me and suggested that Toby O’Neill be in charge of unveiling the painting, and, whether he exists or not, he was real enough at the time.” He leaned towards her, as much as the chains would allow. “Listen. Someone must be able to check all the phone calls that went through my office. They’re bound to find something. My lawyers have already thrown their towel in the ring, but maybe you can get hold of a private detective or something. I don’t have much time. Can’t you do that, my darling?”
The tenderness of his words made her squirm. “But how can that help? The way things are, no competent person will touch your case.” She looked at the floor. “Plus, who’d want to help me? I’ve become a pariah, too, don’t you understand?”
He would have given anything to squeeze her hand. “What about your friend from the China trip, the sheriff who was with you at your father’s trial? He must know the case in and out. Can’t you ask him to try and see if there’s anything he can do? He must know the routine for things like this.”
“T. Perkins? What can he do?”
“Go through it all one more time. The prosecutor’s material and my lawyers’, my testimony and all the others’. I know I can’t appeal, but goddammit, there must be proof somewhere that I didn’t do it. Tell T. Perkins the glass of water disappeared. That I’d brought it into the corridor, but it wasn’t on the video. That there must be someone who was able to digitally remove that glass from the video, someone who had access. And say that I had enough of firearms in Vietnam and have never, ever, loaded my pistol or any other weapon since. And that, therefore, I don’t understand how my fingerprints could have gotten on those cartridges. Tell him I think someone like the Secret Service is involved, that they’ve twisted what I said on purpose. Yes, I know I told Toby not to say anything when he unveiled the painting, but I just wanted him to keep his mouth shut and do what he was told! I know him. He was capable of saying the rudest things to people. You know that.”
“Then why’d you pick him?”
“But I didn’t, Doggie! How many times do I have to say it? It was Blake Wunderlich who chose him.” He looked up at the approaching guard. “Oh, no you don’t! There’s still two minutes,” he said, pointing at the clock. “See for yourself! You have to let me finish speaking with my daughter.” The guard stopped, but it was clear he wasn’t going to wait the full two minutes.
Bud turned towards Doggie. “And the money transfer to Toby. Would I do something that stupid, Doggie? Honestly, would I? It’s so easy to check up on.”
She bit her lip and looked up at the clock.
“Yes, I took part in the Wallace and Goldwater campaigns,” he continued. “I’ve never tried to hide the fact. But I was still practically a kid, wasn’t I? It was because I was in love with your mother, and that’s where she was. Ask her yourself.”
Doggie shut her eyes tight. She knew if she made any objections, it would take time that they didn’t have.
Bud looked at her. Suddenly he was conscious of the chair beneath him and of how the walls’ barren surfaces brought desolation to his soul. Of how his daughter seemed worlds away and that he was holding hands with death. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “I wish your mother was with me now.”
He put up his hand in protest when she began to stand up. “Don’t go. Let me say it all. It may be my last chance.”
She was close to tears. He’d seen it before, but it was long ago.
“I’ll say it again, Doggie: I wasn’t the one who suggested that Toby unveil the painting. It was Blake Wunderlich, one of the security people. I would have unveiled the damn picture myself, but this Secret Service agent thought an employee should do it. He said it was more proper! Yes, that was his expression, believe it or not. ‘Proper,’ like I was some kind of devious, ultrarevolutionary bastard! That’s how it happened. If you believe that, can’t you believe the rest, too? And ask T. Perkins to look at the case, won’t you, please?” He tried to smile at her but felt how impossible it was. She was looking rigidly at his orange jumpsuit, so he had to bend over to catch her eye.
“Doggie, try asking yourself these questions: Who gave the assassin the gun? Where’d they get it from? Why didn’t Toby hit the president at such close range? Could it be the president was never the intended target? And if that’s true, why? What had Mimi Jansen done, and how come no one heard what Toby shouted before the first shot? There are so many questions that might help me here if I get some fast, correct answers, but I don’t have much time. So think about it quick. Please?”
She hesitated a moment but nodded reluctantly when the guards stepped forward and unlocked her father’s chains from the chair.
“Can’t I give my daughter a last hug, for God’s sake?!”
The
smaller of the guards regarded him coldly. “Sorry. No bodily contact between the inmates and guests. You know the rules. Come along now, Curtis, don’t cause any trouble. Your time’s up.” They heaved him out of the chair and shoved him towards the door to the cellblock.
“Doggie!” he shouted, as they opened the bulletproof glass door. “Offer Perkins however much money he wants, if that’ll help. If he can’t take the money because of his job, then offer him enough so he’ll never have to work again. Or find someone else like him. But hurry, you’re my last hope.”
He managed to twist himself around to give her one last smile, but she was gone.
* * *
—
That night Bud tried keeping himself awake so he could keep an eye out for Pete, who was leaning against the wall at the entrance to death row, as usual. Maybe tonight he’d give in, but who knew when, or what it would take? Bud listened to the sighing of the ventilation system. Could that be a possibility? Could one crawl on all fours through the mile-long steel shaft and somehow wind up out behind the buildings? Was it possible to find one’s way through the massive network of cameras and electrified barbed wire, get the hell out of there southwards through North Carolina, hire a hydrofoil, and make it to the Gulf of Mexico? Just toss his life overboard and make a new one in South America. He knew enough about survival and getting ahead and how one could disappear down there. Peru and Chile had lots of beautiful women, their regimes could be bribed, and there was plenty of cheap manpower. Life was simpler down there, as long as you knew what you were doing. And Bud did.
The Washington Decree_A Novel Page 16