The Executioner's Song

by Norman Mailer

  Meanwhile, Larry Schiller was on the phone telling Stanley Greenberg that he had tied up Damico, and Nicole's mother, and the only element missing was the writer that Schiller wanted: Stanley Greenberg.

  Then David Susskind called Stanley, and said, Schiller doesn't have it tied up. There are new Mormon lawyers in his place. Stanley got this picture of fourteen fire engines racing around Salt Lake and Provo. It looked like everybody was trying to make a buck off poor Gary Gilmore. Very distasteful. Stanley wasn't about to get into a competition for picking the bones. He wanted to do something about the effect of capital punishment on the public at large, rather than this scenario on ambulance chasing.

  Schiller called back and Stanley Greenberg said no. Nothing against Mr. Schiller personally, but no, he had reached the point in a life's career where he wouldn't take a job with a producer he didn't know. He wouldn't. Stanley thought it was just too damned dangerous.

  If Greenberg had agreed to do the script, Schiller could have hit ABC for more money. Now, they were bound to ask for a piece of the book rights. That was one thing he did not want to give up. He would have to figure out another way. Maybe sell Gary's letters to Nicole. The samples he had seen in Tamera Smith's story looked good. But for such a transaction he would need a cover. So, he called Scott Meredith in New York about being the agent.

  To his horror, Meredith said, "Larry, are you sure you're getting the rights? Susskind was in here today saying he had them."

  "No deal has been signed yet," said Schiller. "Not by me, not by Susskind. Scott, you have to decide who you're going to believe. I am telling you nobody has signed." "Well," Meredith said, "whose money are you using?" "I'm representing ABC," said Schiller, "but I own the magazine and book rights." Meredith sounded unhappy, "Susskind was just in here telling me he represents ABC."

  "WHAT?"

  "Yes," Meredith said, "he assures me he represents ABC."

  Schiller called Lou Rudolph in L.A. "What are you doing," he shouted, "it's not fair." "Larry," said Rudolph, "I swear Susskind's not working for ABC." There was a pause and then Rudolph said, "Hold it. I'll call New York." Word came back fast. In fact, Susskind did have a deal with the New York office. New York never told L.A. L.A. never told New York. Oh, boy.

  Schiller was unwell. Susskind had just produced Eleanor and Franklin. Nobody could look prettier to ABC at this moment.

  He said to Lou Rudolph, "When did Susskind make the deal? What's the date? I want the date. Whoever made the deal with you first is the one who's got ABC's backing."

  They came back with the dates. Susskind had not made contact with any studio guns until the 9th of November, the day after Gilmore's story first appeared on the front page of the New York Times.

  Schiller's input to the studio was on the 4th.

  "I applied first," said Schiller, "I want the backing." The studio refused. There were phone calls between New York, Los Angeles and Provo. Finally, a decision. ABC would withdraw its backing equally.

  Neither Susskind nor Schiller could now say it was an ABC project.

  On the other hand, whichever one of them brought the Gilmore contract in first would get the money. Schiller was near apoplexy. ABC had done nothing but protect itself. They simply didn't want to let it get out that they were consummate fuck-ups.

  Now Susskind was calling him again. Schiller stood in the phone booth of Walgreen's Drugstore and listened to Susskind make an offer.

  "What are we fighting each other for? Why are we getting this price up?" Susskind asked. "You're in the field. I'm out here in New York. Let's become partners." Schiller sure listened. "I will be," Susskind said, "opening a production company in L.A. Let's use this project to see how our relationship goes. Afterwards, maybe you'll make films for us." "I would love to make films with you," said Schiller, "but that's a separate issue, David."

  Schiller was so tempted he could feel his nostrils tingling. It was like the expectation of sex when you were young. But it would also mean that Susskind would do the TV show. Schiller might land the project, but it would never be his. Schiller stalled.

  After he hung up, it came clear. If Susskind wanted to join forces, then Susskind could not get the rights without him. That meant it was his. He could have it, if he was ready to take on the worries. Well, he wanted the rights to Gary Gilmore like he had never wanted anything in the economic and creative sphere before. Didn't know why. Just knew.

  That meant he would be worrying about money every minute from now on.

  Schiller prepared to go back to the Coast with Stephanie for Thanksgiving weekend. He hadn't seen his kids in a while, and was going to take them to La Costa in San Diego. This would be the first Thanksgiving with his children where his wife, Judy, was not there, the first such. While the kids were now in the process, he felt, of getting to like Stephanie a lot—taking into account their loyalty to their mother—this would still be a Thanksgiving with ghosts. Ghosts plus his goddamned problems.

  So he went to La Costa with square-edged economic concerns banging around like bricks in his head and wasn't there a day before on Friday, the 26th, in the evening, he got a phone call from Moody. "We think we can get you in to see Gary tomorrow afternoon," said the lawyer. "If there's ever going to be a chance, now's the time."

  Geebs, you wouldn't believe the volume of mail I'm getting. 30 to 40 letters a day. A lot of young chicks, fifteen, sixteen, but of course I always was a handsome little devil. And you wouldn't believe how many Christians and religious fanatics there are in this world, l received so many bibles I could open a church—need a bible? One man wrote and said, if he could trade places with me he'd do it. l think I'll write him back and say, "Brother, they will be there to pick you up bright and early Monday morning." I'll bet they'd have a hard time finding his ass.

  Hey, I'm allowed to invite five witnesses to my execution, Would like to invite you so I can tell you goodbye in person. Let me know . . .

  Gibbs thought: That has got to be a first. I have been invited to Weddings, Birthdays, and Graduations, but I never heard of being invited to an execution.

  He wrote back: "If you want me there, I'll be there."

  Moody and Stanger were preparing the way for Schiller. To the authorities at the prison, they explained that they were dealing in technical matters out of their own ball field. Tax planning had to be done on Gary's potential earnings from his life story, and incorporated into a will, which made for many complicated factors in the contract.

  They were bringing a man named Schiller from California to discuss this with Gary. "He's going in as your consultant?" Moody and Stanger were asked. "Yes," they said, "our consultant." They were telling the truth. Just couching it carefully.

  Schiller flew to Salt Lake and drove out to Point of the Mountain early Saturday afternoon. He was full of adrenalin, and scared of blowing it.

  The guard picked up a phone and was on it for ten minutes before he let Larry in. To his astonishment, Schiller did no more than pass through two sets of sliding barred doors and there on the other side, not twenty feet down the hallway, in a locked room on the right, was Gilmore looking out a small window. Across the hall, on the other side, in a room with an open door, were Vern and Moody and Stanger, all grinning at him. Now, he could see that Gilmore was smiling, too. They had brought it off.

  Vern made the introductions, and Larry sat down with his overcoat on, in the chair Vern had been using, and let the door stay open.

  He looked across the ten-foot width of the hall to the room where Gary stood behind a small window, and their eyes locked. Schiller recognized immediately that this man loved to stare into your head.

  You had to talk as if he were the only force that existed.

  Schiller didn't mind such contests. He always felt a subtle advantage.

  He had vision only in one eye. The other person would stare into a flatness of expression in the other eye and wear himself out.

  Gilmore, however, had positioned himself behind the small window
in such a way that if Schiller leaned to the left, he, in his turn, could also lean to the left and thereby keep the window frame in the same relation to both of them. It was as if he were looking through a pair of sights. Being farther away from the glass, Schiller began to have the feeling that he was in the prison, while Gilmore was outside and free and peering in.

  Anyway, Schiller started his rap. He said, in a formal tone, "You obviously know the reason I'm here," indicating by a slight shift of his eye that for all they both knew, the phones were tapped. "Bob and Vern have no doubt told you I am here to consult," he said with a little smile, getting all the benefit out of the word, "here to broach matters concerning your estate and assets and things like that, you know:" Now they each gave a little smile. About that time, a guard came and sat on a bench in the hallway not far away, and Gary said, "No need to worry about him," just as the guard picked up a magazine and started reading. "He," said Gilmore, "is one of the two guys who are with me all the time whether I'm in my cell or outside. Pretty good guys." He said it like the leader of a team who knew the other players are proud to be associated with him. Schiller was surprised to see how ordinary he looked. It was more than a week since he had seen him leave the hospital, and he certainly had a different appearance today. Vern had told Schiller that Gary was on a hunger strike, but there was no way of seeing it. He looked a lot healthier than the last time. And kind of calm.

  From what Vern and Moody and Stanger and Boaz had said, Larry was expecting a man replete with intelligence and wit. Instead, here was this fellow who looked like he wouldn't be comfortable in a restaurant with a tablecloth.

  Schiller guessed he had fifteen or twenty minutes to get the message across so he talked in a fast, hard rap, never taking his eyes off Gilmore, and not a question was asked that first fifteen minutes, until finally Schiller had to say, "If you want to interrupt me, please do," but Gilmore said, "No, no, I'm listening." Then Schiller branched off into the speech he had given Kathryne Baker and Vern, except he used the word "shit" a lot, and "fuck-up" and "con me," and occasionally, would say, "I had a line run on me." All the while, he watched Gilmore and was wondering where's this guy with the high I.Q.? Schiller had gone completely through the fifteen prepared minutes and had been traveling on improvisation for quite a while before Gilmore finally took his first real cut at the ball and said, "Who's going to play me in the movie?"

  Half an hour in. "Who's going to play me in the movie?" To Schiller, it meant: Your wits against mine. "You see," Gary drawled, "there's an actor I like. I can't remember his name, but he was in this movie called Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and he also did another flick with Sam Peckinpah." "I think," said Schiller, "It's Warren Oates you're talking about."

  "Well," said Gilmore, "I really like that guy. I want him to play me." He nodded, still looking right at Schiller and said, "I want, as part of our agreement, that this actor do me in the movie."

  Schiller took time to reconnoiter. "Gary," he said, "you've been listening to me, but I don't know much yet about you. There may not be a story here. Let's get a good screenplay before we talk about anything else."

  "I think," said Gilmore, "that I would like Warren Oates to play me and I want that as part of the agreement."

  "I can't," said Schiller, "make that a part of the agreement. I can't get us involved in a condition that could put us in a straitjacket. Warren Oates might not be available. I might not want Warren Oates. There might be more suitable actors around. Or it might be that a big block of money could be obtained only if we were to take another actor. You are getting into my part of the business now. I have to say 'no' to the idea that Warren Oates is a condition of our agreement!"

  Gilmore gave a smile. "Larry, I hate Warren Oates," he said.

  "All right," said Schiller, with a big grin. "who do you really want?"

  "Gary Cooper," said Gary Gilmore, "I was named after him."

  That cracked the freeze. Gilmore looked ready to speak about himself now.

  "When you were a kid," asked Schiller, "what did you want to be?"

  "A gangster," Gilmore said, "one of the mob." He started talking about how he'd been a little hood as a kid, lifting things here, breaking in there. He and a friend had been in a wild car chase. Took the cops half an hour to catch them. His face lit up as he spoke. He was like a fellow telling you about attractive chicks he'd made it with.

  After they had been going about forty-five minutes, Schiller said, "I've told you about myself, and you've told me something about yourself, and I guess we'll have a chance to talk again and make a decision as to whether I can be of service to you."

  Gilmore said, "You have a place to go?"

  "No," said Schiller," but they won't let me sit here forever."

  "Why not?" asked Gilmore. "Stay all night."

  "Really?"

  "Oh, yeah, Vern and I talk six hours long if we want."

  Now, Schiller began to feel how much Gilmore was in control.

  From time to time, he would turn to the guard and say, Where's my pills? or, Get me my coffee, and do it in a tone that had no question he was going to get what he wanted. Bring me my coffee, like, Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia.

  When more time went by, however, and the coffee had not arrived, Gilmore abruptly, screamed out: "WHERE'S THE COFFEE?"

  Schiller had been able to see a little irritation building, but this really came without warning, a shrill and screeching sound, that showed, so far as Schiller could see, Gilmore's absolute insensitivity to any ugly impression he might leave with Vern or the lawyers. It was like talking to a woman who suddenly starts caterwauling at her kids.

  Finally, an attendant in a white uniform brought in some pills, and Gary really cussed the guy out. "You've been keeping me waiting an hour and fifteen minutes," he said. "Don't you know that when I ask for medicine, I am supposed to have it? It's a rule. You people make the rules, then you don't fulfill them." He was so rude, in fact, that Schiller was surprised they did not manhandle him back to his cell. It was amazing how far Gilmore was willing to push it.

  His coffee soon followed in a cardboard cup, and he began to rave that he was not supposed to eat out of paper utensils. The regulations called for real crockery. Then, he said to Schiller, "These guys expect me to live by the rules, serve my time by the rules, go to bed by the rules, get executed by the rules, but they bend them all over the place. They break them whenever they want." He went on for a ten-minute tirade, and suddenly, Schiller knew who Gilmore reminded him of: it was Muhammad Ali off on a rant, that same hard, implacable, inhuman voice that Muhammad could turn on and off.

  Once Schiller had been in Ali's room in the Hilton Hotel in Manila and had had to sit there for an hour and listen to Muhammad All in a temper, and Gilmore had the same tone. Didn't care what you thought of him. So Schiller said: "You really did kill those two guys, didn't you?" "Of course I did," said Gilmore, almost looking hurt, "you know that." And then Schiller said, "You killed them," as if to say there was a difference between killing somebody in a rage, and being a cold-blooded killer who only had to throw a little switch in himself. Gilmore was in the second category. He could kill you because you gave him coffee in a paper cup.

  That took a lot of warmth out of the conversation. Schiller knew it was time to back off, so he said, "Vern, anything you want to say?" and Vern got on the phone for a couple of minutes. When Schiller figured it was cool again, he said, "Look, Gary, it's dinnertime. Want me to come back afterwards?" And Gilmore said, "Yeah, oh yeah. We'll sit here all night and talk." He had gotten over his chill. Schiller went out thinking, Boy, what I'll be able to do with this guy. He's a great subject for an interview.

  As the interview went on and on, Moody and Stanger began to worry over being discovered and professionally embarrassed. They weren't above a little prodding to get Schiller out, but Gary wanted to keep talking. Obviously was enjoying himself. Since the lawyers could only hear Schiller's end of it, they had no real idea what Gary
was saying.

  Then they began to worry that he might be spilling his guts and giving Schiller the story without a contract or anything. Gary had certainly lit up. It was the first time Moody had ever seen him enthused about anything. It confirmed his feeling that Schiller was a good choice, but they were also wide open for an end run. If Schiller was getting tons of material, he might want to double-cross them.

  In the restaurant, Schiller kept asking if this is the way Gary acted all the time. Everybody started saying, "Man, he's never talked to anybody the way he talked to you." Schiller didn't know if they were saying that to stroke him, but Vern said quietly, "I think he really likes you." So, Schiller's confidence was building. When they went back he started talking to Gary about a number of subjects, only the conversation hadn't gone fifteen minutes when there was an interruption on the phone, and a long conversation between Moody and somebody at the other end. The Warden or the Assistant Warden.

  Schiller was terminated.

  Gary was very upset. Kept asking, "Who said that? Who gave the order? He's on my lawyer's team. He's allowed to be here." Schiller said, "Don't worry about it, Gary, we'll have plenty of time." Then Moody got up and said, "Here, Gary, is the contract we've discussed."

  They held up this long piece of paper and started reading the money figures over the telephone, and Gary said, "Yes, have the thing typed up. I'll look it over again and sign it."