"Who?" Moody whispered back.
"Sergeant Bilko."
Something to it. Same horn-rimmed eyeglasses, bald top, somewhat pendulous nose, same halfway pleasant expression. If Gary was getting contemptuous of the Judge, however, it meant Gary thought he was licked.
Then Wootton took over. The 30/60 statute, he argued, could now be measured from today, December 5, which would place the earliest date of execution at January 5. It was not healthy, legally speaking, he said, to ram through an execution. Bullock kept nodding.
Schiller could see Gary give a look like everyone around him was scum. Damned if he didn't use his turn to say that nobody here had guts enough to let him die. All they were doing was jacking him around. The way he said "jacking" was obscene. It sent a ripple through the room.
Bullock ignored the remark. How could you sentence a man to Contempt when he was already bound over to execution?
"Unless this is a joke," said Gilmore, "I expect . . . " and he went on to say that he expected his sentence to take place in the next few days. "I'm serious about wanting to end my life," said Gilmore. "The least justice can do is to recognize that."
Bullock set the date for January 7. "We're not here," said the Judge, "to accommodate you."
After Court, Gilmore happened to pass Wootton in the corridor.
He took the opportunity to say, "Why don't you suck my cock, you motherfucker?" Wootton didn't reply.
Now that they had a full month before the execution, Schiller had a time-line long enough to sell the letters, so, after Court, he invited Vern and Bob and Ron out to lunch. Even asked them to pick a good restaurant. Since there was nothing around Orem or Provo that qualified, they ended up in some big Bavarian place in the foothills of Salt Lake City, and had to wait for a quiet corner table while a lot of businessmen were talking away at the top of their lungs. Schiller, however, wanted the right situation for this talk.
Since he figured he would have to sell Moody on the proposal more than Stanger, he put Ron to his right and Moody across.
Thereby he could look directly into Bob's eyes while making his pitch. Over food, he got into it all, really laid it on the line. He told them that he wanted to sell some of the letters in Europe for publication shortly before the execution, but could conceal the transactions in such a way that nobody would ever know who made the sale. The letters, after all, had been printed already in the Deseret News. There had to be at least one set of Xeroxes floating around.
He couldn't pretend, he said, not to be concerned by Gary's reaction.
The shit, Schiller assured them, would certainly hit the fan if Gary found out. Still, it wasn't going to hurt the man. Gary was more sympathetic in his letters than any other presentation he gave of himself. Moreover, his privacy had already been breached. The lines Tamera had quoted in the Deseret News had been syndicated across half of the world. Schiller said he would repeat what he had told them at the beginning: there were going to be a lot of things they might not like, but he would always lay it out. He would not work behind their backs.
A lot of discussion went on. Schiller felt the lawyers were surprised he was this open. As he'd expected, Moody was relatively against the project, and discussed with Stanger what the public effect might be if it all came out. They certainly didn't want to be tagged with Boaz's posture. Schiller kept repeating that if the letters they held weren't published, foreign papers would buy from other sources. Somebody was going to make money on Gary Gilmore.
Schiller could see that Vern was being torn right down the middle. Subconsciously, he estimated, Vern wanted the money, but never did say, "I have to discuss this with Gary." It was ripping him up, however. He didn't talk, and went deep into himself. It wasn't that he was unfriendly so much as troubled. Still, Schiller decided, Vern was going to go for the money.
Finally Larry convinced them by saying "I could make a sale in Germany or Japan, and you'd never know a thing. Nobody could ever point to me as the man who sold them." It was the subtlest kind of threat. After all, they knew he had six Xeroxes. How could they be certain he had not made seven? They never gave any hard fully acknowledged consent, but from that moment he had the go-ahead.
After lunch, when Ron Stanger saw Gary again at the prison, it was like talking to steel. Worse than the pits of the hunger strike.
Gary was as cold and hard and icy-fevered as Ron had ever seen him.
It burned your eyes to look into his rage. Man, Gary was triggered.
Call it possessed.
On the drive back, Ron tried to make a joke of it. "Christ," he announced to Moody, "it was like a horror film. I could almost see his teeth getting longer."
DESERET NEWS
Gilmore Attempts Suicide Again
Salt Lake, December 16—Convicted murderer Gary Mark Gilmore was in a coma at the University Medical Center today after another suicide attempt.
Gilmore, frustrated in his efforts for a quick execution, was in critical condition.
He entered the hospital at 10:20 a.m., after being found unconscious in his prison cell at 8:15 a.m . . .
The second time, Gilmore really tried to do it. That was Dr. Christensen's opinion. Gilmore had taken phenobarbital at a 6 milligrams per cent level. Any phenobarb greater than 10 milligrams per cent proved fatal for more than half the people who tried it. Gilmore had been well into the lethal range.
This time, when he came out of it, he wasn't obscene. One of the nurses even commented, "Gee, he seems a little nice." In fact, he acted subdued. There was a difference. There really was.
Stanger got to the hospital as soon as he heard the news, and ran into a bizarre episode. An old friend who had shared an office with Ron in Spanish Fork years ago, an optometrist named Ken Dutson, was now dying in the same emergency room where they were working on Gary. Stanger practically bumped into Dutson's wife and family. They were really upset. As soon as Gary was brought in, the hospital gave their main attention to him. Stanger was sure poor Dutson had reached the point where he couldn't be kept alive, but you could hardly expect his family to be happy that a killer was rushed in, and all of a sudden, personnel were swarming around that case.
Gilmore's recovery seemed crazy, it was so fast. He had been at the honest brink of death, Stanger learned from the doctors, but his system seemed to have learned how to get rid of the poisons quickly.
It was a joke the way they kept him only one day at the hospital before rushing the man back to Maximum Security as if afraid Gilmore would get loose and prowl the streets. Of course, he did look terrible. When Stanger went to see him back at the prison, Gary was still so intoxicated from the phenobarbital that he couldn't even sit on the stool. He'd just start tilting. And slurred his words slow as molasses running uphill. Even while talking, he slowly keeled over until he fell right to the floor.
"Did you hurt yourself?" asked Vern.
"I'm all right."
"You sure?"
"I'm all right even when I'm not all right," said Gary.
Schiller sent a couple of urgent questions:
WHEN YOU ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, DID YOU SEE ANYTHING OF WHAT IT IS LIKE ON THE OTHER SIDE?
I can't tell you exactly whether it was light like daybreak or sunshine, or like a break in the darkness, but it was light. I felt I was talking to people, meeting people. That's the memory I came back with.
WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU MEET BUSHNELL AND JENSEN ON THE OTHER SIDE?
Who knows that I will? It could be that with death you pay all your debts. But they have their rights, just like I do, and they have privileges, like I guess I have privileges too. I wonder do they have any more right to do something than I do now? It's an interesting question.
The second suicide attempt bothered Bob Hansen. It also got Earl worried about Gilmore's sanity. The State certainly didn't want a situation where the public would think they were executing a madman. So, Hansen and Sam Smith and Earl Dorius had a number of talks over who the psychiatrist should be. There was the
idea for a while of getting Dr. Jerry West who was well known because of his testimony in the Patty Hearst case. West was very opposed to capital punishment,
Hansen thought that if they could get him to say Gary was insane, it would settle the question for the public beyond any doubt.
Earl, however, thought that was risky, and definitely going in for overkill. He set it as his goal to change Hansen's mind. Let the prison psychiatrist, Van Austen, give the evaluation, he said. It would satisfy the statute. No matter what you did, it was possible that public opinion was never going to be satisfied.
So they went with Van Austen. His evaluation declared Gary sane. Things could quiet down for a couple of weeks at least. Dorius hoped to enjoy his Christmas season.
Schiller's reaction to the second suicide attempt was that Gary had to be a very impatient man. Didn't want to die because of reincarnation, just out of spite. Had attempted to kill himself to show the world Gary Gilmore was in control. So Schiller lost respect. It was idiotic to kill yourself just to fuck the Judge. A streak of childish vengefulness.
Maybe that was what kept Gary from doing anything with his life.
Schiller began to think more and more of April. He kept having the feeling that the night Gilmore had spent with April might be the key to a lot. Gary had certainly refused to say anything about her.
The empty pages in those questionnaires intrigued Larry. He had been trying to talk Kathryne Baker into letting him meet her daughter, but now he tried harder. When he spoke to Phil Christensen, he went so far as to say it was imperative to meet the young lady.
Kathryne was afraid that April might freak out if she knew she was talking to a reporter. April seemed to believe that media people had all kinds of crazy powers. So, it took a bit of convincing, but Kathryne finally agreed when Phil offered to take April out of the hospital for Christmas shopping. They even brought one of Christensen's secretaries along who would go into the women's stores with April.
Larry waited in the car while Phil came out of the hospital with this nice little adolescent. Schiller opened the door for her, and she got in the back seat, and he slid in next. It was a good, bright, sunny day, not at all cold, and she was wearing a skirt and blouse and little jacket, and her hair was neatly tied back in a ponytail. Schiller immediately noticed that she gave no eye contact. After he introduced himself as Larry—he and Christensen having agreed she might have heard the name Schiller on television—she said, "I'm April," and he cracked a joke. "I know a girl by the name of Tuesday," he said.
"Tuesday Weld." Very little response. She just sat there looking prettier than he'd expected, a little plump, teenaged girl. Didn't give the impression of somebody who was kept in a mental home. Maybe on a sedative, but certainly not a heavy one.
When they discussed shopping at the University Mall, April said, "I'm going to buy Sissy a present." Something in the way she said it, told Schiller that Sissy had to be the family nickname for Nicole.
Quite a nickname for a girl who got into suicide pacts.
When Christensen gave April $100 to buy gifts for everybody, she said that was the most money she'd ever had to spend. After a while she said she was going to get Sissy a Timex.
It didn't take long before Schiller had had enough of winter sunshine, mountain air, shopping centers, and jingle bells. He was dropped off, smiled at April, and said, "I hope to see you again. Get some nice presents." At that point, she did look in his eye and gave a nice, big smile. He came away fairly confident he'd be able to interview her. Schiller was excited. Other than Vern and Brenda and Sterling, this had been his first contact with somebody who knew Gilmore intimately before the murders.
Brenda went up to see Gary, but they wouldn't let her past the gate.
A couple of days later, the prison finally agreed to some arrangement where she could see him through the glass. He was holding a phone on either side of his head so he could talk to Vern and her at the same time. Brenda just sailed in. "Gary, you dumb turd," she said, "you screw everything up. If you're not going to do it right, for hell's sake, quit trying." He said, "Brenda, I tried. Honestly, I tried. They just keep finding me too soon." She said, "You shithead, why don't you use a gun?" Then she made a face, and said, "Never mind, don't use a gun. You don't know where the trigger is."
He said, "God, I know. My hand still hurts."
They said good-bye the way they had the other time, touching fingers and palms on opposite sides of the glass.
Sunday morning, a girl from People magazine showed up at Brenda's house with a photographer. Her little son, Tony, let them in.
Brenda was in the shower and came out with nothing but a negligee on. Since it had a low neckline, she used a washrag to hide the cleavage as best she could. In the mirror, she saw herself. Might as well be a cockatoo in heat. All the while, this girl reporter, Sheryl McCall, was talking about how she wanted to do an article on Cristie. Sheryl had found out that Cristie was going to be the recipient of Gary's pituitary.
Brenda said "Get out. Don't use anything here, or I'll sue your ass." The photographer, whose name turned out to be John Telford, was shifting his weight and arranging the cameras hanging off his neck. Brenda thought he did it so they wouldn't bang together, but found out later he was taking pictures. Caught every angle of that awful negligee. Later People printed her picture. She was one of "Eight Tortured Women in Gary's Life." A real tacky and trashy article. Brenda was described as a barmaid. When she learned that Tony had left the storm door shut, and McCall and Telford had opened it and walked in, she contacted an attorney, and began suing People magazine.
Brenda also had a bad physical condition. It was getting to the point where she just couldn't bear the pain. She was having such attacks, she had to miss work pretty frequently. It was simply too difficult to wait on tables. So she went for a checkup and they made tests and fluoroscoped her.
Then the doctors explained. It seemed the inner lining of a woman's uterus was shed every month, but in her case, that lining built up on the outside of the uterine wall. At present, it was attaching to her intestines, where it would rupture and bleed. Like cancer, except it wasn't cancerous. But, most definitely it had attached itself to the bowel. When this menstrual tissue broke, the doctors explained, it took the lining off. Very painful. They weren't sure they could get it under control without surgery. Meanwhile, she was hemorrhaging quite a bit. They gave her pain pills, but she still felt as if she were tearing inside. A couple of times when she went out to the prison, the sitting and waiting made the pain unendurable. Finally, when they showed no signs of letting her in, she stopped going.
Then, walking got painful. Sometimes it would pull on her merely to stand up. There Vern was, just getting over his operation, and here she was, feeling stuck together and twisted inside.
It was Sundberg who told Nicole about Gary's second attempt. That was upsetting. She didn't understand how he could try to step out on her. It was like Gary was saying, "I've got to look out for myself.'' All the same, she was embarrassed that he had failed again. Should have gotten it done right.
She was flabbergasted when they nominated her for vice-president of the women's side. Just trying to get another government together. Nicole couldn't believe a couple of the idiots they picked with her. Of course, they didn't have a whole lot to choose from, just fifteen girls on the ward, and five were so loony, April would sound logical next to them. She was probably one of the few people in the ward who could add, say, five and eight. But it wasn't like she'd worked for the nomination. Most of the time, she still wouldn't talk to anybody, just ignored the meetings all day long. When they would turn to her for an opinion, she would say, "Humph." Just "Humph."
Maybe she was saying it in a way that really got their attention, like she was smelling the finest and most peculiar shit.
Chapter 19
Advent
It was not the kind of news you could anticipate. In fact, it was unbelievable. Bob Moody received a phone call from Gary'
s friend, Gibbs, who said he was a police informer and was going to testify at a trial in the next couple of days. Having been Gary's cellmate in County Jail, he had quite a story to tell, he told Moody, and wanted ten thousand bucks and a chance to get on the Johnny Carson show.
Moody informed Vern immediately of the conversation, and a couple of hours later, visiting the prison, Vern passed it on to Gary. When there was no reply, Vern explained again what Gibbs had said to Moody.
Gary puckered his lips so tight, it looked as if he had taken out his plates.
"I'm sorry, Gary," said Vern. "As you know, I already paid him the $2,000."
"You know that guy," Gary said. "I trusted him. You don't trust too many people in the world."
"I'd like to run into him," said Vern. "I'd change his head."
"Well," Gary said, "don't worry, Vern. You can't do anything about it, but I can." He nodded. "I can take care of it right from here." He was certainly serious, thought Vern. "Yes," said Vern to himself, "if Gibbs doesn't leave town, he's going to get taken care of."
Schiller and Barry Farrell were working together that morning in Los Angeles when Moody called with the news. Gibbs, he said, was eager to talk to Schiller about a deal. Larry had been mentioned in the pages of Helter Skelter, and so he thought Schiller mIght want to buy inside stories on Gary, stuff no one else had. Schiller was plainly worried, and got on the phone and put in a call to Gibbs, and heard him repeat everything he had said to Moody. Then Gibbs asked that Schiller not divulge any of this private information to Gary. Schiller, hanging up, said to Farrell, "It's ridiculous. Does he think Moody is going to keep it from his client?" Farrell, fresh from reading Gilmore's letters full of encomiums to his cellmate, said, "Gibbs has got to be the lowest of all creatures."
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