The Executioner's Song

by Norman Mailer

  Nobody was in town. Nobody was ever in the mansion anymore now that Hefner was in Los Angeles, but Debbie was able to go swimming while Farrell and Schiller just said, "Oh, no," and lay out in the sauna at three in the morning.

  Back in Los Angeles, Schiller heard from Phil Christensen, Kathryne Baker's attorney, who called to say that Nicole was going to be released. Schiller had a flash of the press standing at the front door of the hospital. Here he had never met Nicole and didn't know what she thought of him. Couldn't even be certain she was going to honor the contract.

  Naturally, Larry Flynt's new skin mag, Chic, called at just this time to offer $50,000 for a series of nudes on Nicole. $50,000! They were being very polite. Using the word "nudes." Maybe they didn't know how to say "spread-shots." He told Chic he would like them to come up with a list of photographers. That was a ploy to keep them off for a while. Then, Larry called Kathryne Baker and said, "I think it's important Nicole be taken immediately out of Utah, or the press will hound her. You and your kids need a vacation. Have you ever lived at the beach?" Kathryne said, "Nicole really loved the beach when we were up in Oregon."

  "All right," said Schiller. "I'll get a house in Malibu. You and Nicole and your family come as my guests. I won't impose. Just come out and have a month off in a different environment."

  Kathryne said that would really be wonderful. Larry scrambled around and made arrangements with Western Airlines for tickets for Nicole and her kids under phony names and prepaid the six trips, and called Jerry Scott to go to Kathryne's house at a given hour of the morning to pick up the baggage and bring it to the airport, then return for Mrs. Baker, and coordinate with Sundberg to have Nicole released at a precise time from the hospital so Jerry could zap her to the airport. They figured it would be exactly a thirty-five-minute drive, and would put a ten-minute variance on it. Pick her up forty-five minutes before the plane was due to leave. All arranged.

  Nicole was not only getting ready to leave, but had, in fact, even gone up the hospital corridor one last time to pick up her street clothes, when a girl asked, "How do you feel about Gary?" Nicole said, "If he was alive, I'd do it all over again." They turned her right around and put her back in the hospital.

  Schiller was on the phone the next four or five days. He spoke to Dr. Woods and the other doctors. He spoke to Kiger. He kept describing the environment he would put Nicole in. Promised to have a doctor standing by if something happened, swore she'd be secluded from the press. He would underline that promise. He sent Kiger a telegram that set it all out, then a longer letter by courier. He suggested that the hospital have the Court recommend her release, thereby lifting the hospital off the hook.

  The plan went into effect all over again. Only this time, Schiller decided he would fly to Utah. No way was he going to be caught on the wrong end again, waiting for things to happen. Lucinda was sent to Malibu and found a place for $1,500 a month, and Schiller slapped down the rent and deposit, and took off for Utah where he arranged to meet Nicole in Ken Sundberg's office. While sitting there, a phone call came from Vern who said he had the cartons Gary wanted to give Nicole. What should they do about them?

  "Well, Vern," said Schiller, "I got to tell you. My attitude is, don't hold anything back." "Do you want to look at the boxes first?" asked Vern. "No," said Schiller. Vern said, "I got this tape Gary recorded for Nicole on the last night. I've listened to it." His pause encouraged Schiller to say, "How bad?"

  "Well," said Vern, "it asks her to kill herself."

  "Then," said Schiller, "I think we should not give her the tape." He thought for a moment and said to himself, "Maybe I could be there when the boxes are opened." At that moment, he was ready to hold them back too, but Gary had told her about them in one of his letters.

  While still waiting for Nicole in the office, he got a call from Phil Christensen. The old lawyer had a new contract he wanted Nicole to sign. It would establish 20 percent of her income as his fee. Schiller hit the top. "We," said Christensen, "have invested a lot of time," and the lawyer went on to describe the hours put into the effort, and the future work. "No," said Schiller, "let her make her own decision" He had the feeling Christensen's heart wasn't altogether in it.

  Half an hour later, Nicole showed up. It was easy. The press had had no idea she was being released that day. On going to Court, the hospital had gotten the Judge to agree to let her out in 24 hours, while announcing that the release was four days off. So the press had thought her coming-out party was 72 hours down the road.

  There was Schiller on the second floor of Sundberg's office with Sunny and Peabody, when this girl with a super figure walked in wearing jeans and a shirt and very quiet. She kind of floated by him and picked up the kids and hugged and kissed them. They were really delighted to see her. "Mommy, Mommy," they carried on. Nicole started to cry, and Kathryne Baker started, but the kids didn't. They were holding toys in their hands and were saying to Nicole, "Look what Uncle Larry got us." She turned then, and Schiller was delighted. Much more attractive than he'd expected, and he thought there was character and subtlety in her face considering she was a quietly wild-looking kid. That was splendid. It elevated Gilmore immediately in his mind. Gary and Nicole weren't some sordid romance, but an interesting relationship.

  Schiller now knelt to the floor, and said, beaming at her, "I'd like to introduce myself. I'm the big bad wolf, Larry Schiller." She had no affectation. Just said right off the cuff, "Gary told me about you, but you're not what I expected you to look like." She spoke in a soft voice that was full of her own breath, as if she put a lot of thought into each word. What she had to say came out slowly, but had a strong personal quality for a girl so young, and Schiller thought he knew what she meant. Gilmore had kept referring to him as a smart tough guy from Hollywood, so she had been expecting this dapper dude.

  Here he was bulky and disheveled with his parka on. Of course, he had worn that for effect. No suit and tie for meeting Nicole. A perfect choice. Hell, she had no suitcase, no nothing.

  He let her play with the kids for a while, then took her off to a side office, sat her down, and said, "Look, you don't know me from Adam. I can say to you that Gary, for whatever reasons, trusted me with a lot of things. I've made plans I'll explain to you, and if you think it's something you'd like to do, then we have to leave here in five minutes and catch a plane. If it's something you don't want to do, then no hard feelings." He gave her the reasons why he thought she should come to California, and said, "You know, a lot of people have warned me you could try it again," said it straight out. She nodded like she respected him for remarking on that. Then he added, "I've got this little house on the beach. You can take walks and think about things. I'll be there." He hesitated but decided to bite the bullet, and asked her if she remembered signing any contracts, and was she aware she had a contract with him, and she said she was. "All right," he said, "what do you think? You want to do it?" "Yeah," Nicole said, "I'd like to go to California." Then he added, "Your lawyers also mentioned a contract for you to sign before you leave."

  "Do you think I should?" she asked.

  They were getting along like hot dogs and mustard. "Well," he said, "I won't tell you what's in it, but it's a pile of crap."

  She smiled again. She had a great smile, he thought. It came out of some place in the center of her, and spread slowly across her face like whipped cream. She had full lips and it gave her a great, tough grin. It said, "Come on, you're no better than I am." He was surprised how fresh she was. A remarkably clean young lady. On this promising note, they left the office, went to the airport, and were off to California.

  On the plane, however, she began to slump. He could feel her pulling away from everybody. She no longer looked her own soul.

  More like a waif in a house whose windows were wet with fog. Schiller felt a worm of fear stir right in the pit of his gut.

  In L.A., waiting at the airport to pick them up, Lucinda was thinking of some of the acts she had heard Gary talk about
to Nicole on the tape recorder, the kind of things Lucinda had never heard anybody else say. So she could hardly believe it was Nicole she now saw coming toward her down the runway, but she felt, to her surprise, overwhelmingly sorry for her. Nicole seemed so small and alone, as if plucked from another world, and put in this one without the capacity to grasp it. Yet this was the same Nicole coming toward her now with her mother and children, carrying her little Newsweek magazine that had Gary on the cover. The magazine was what made Lucinda feel the worst. It was as if Nicole had no way to grasp anything. Looked numb and out of it. She seemed far off from Larry. Lucinda couldn't tell if Nicole hated him, or hated all of them. There seemed to be nothing coming off her but this refusal to have anything to do with anybody.

  After the drive out to Malibu, Larry took Nicole and her to the grocery store and Lucinda watched him spend something like $160 on food for the Baker family. It was probably, Lucinda thought, more food than they'd ever had together in their lives, but Nicole didn't say anything. Just walked up and down the aisles. Larry would say, "Well, think we need some of this?" but she just kept walking through this incredible Malibu supermarket with all these dressed-up moneyed people around her.

  Larry kept buying, as if to compensate for the awkwardness of the situation. Two full baskets before long. Nicole would just kind of smile, like food was the last thing she had on her mind. At one point Larry asked her if there was anything else she wanted, and she said, "Yeah, like I think I'd like some instant potatoes."

  Later, driving Kathryne Baker around L.A., out on the freeway with this skinny high-strung, very made-up little woman, Lucinda listened to how Gary had come over to Kathryne's house with guns, and she was always terrified of him. It was almost as if so much attention had been given to Nicole, that Kathryne wanted to get in with her story too, and was telling it right in front of the children. It came out in a jumble. But Lucinda was fascinated. When the kids would interrupt, Lucinda wanted them to be quiet.

  The first thing Schiller told Nicole after they got back from the supermarket was that she was going to have to take on responsibility for the house. There would be a thousand dollars in cash available as expenses this month, and he would leave whatever part of it she wanted now. The station wagon was also there for her. Now he would say good-bye for a while. The moment he left, however, it came over him that Nicole might open those boxes Gary had left, read something he wrote, and kill herself. She had the kind of calm to do it. That was when he got scared shitless.

  He had said good-bye to her with a great big smile, had told her he'd be around the next day, and she should take it easy and feel right, but he could feel how surprised she was that he was leaving her alone this first night away from the hospital, alone, that is, with her mother and kids. He said, "Hey, you're your own person. If I see you tomorrow, fine. If you don't want to see me tomorrow, nothing lost." That was what he said, but he had never been so scared as on that ride home.

  In fact, he couldn't hold out till he got back. Two-thirds of the way to Beverly Hills, he stopped and called, pretending he had just gotten in, "Want to let you know I'm home safely," he said in a voice that couldn't sell ice cream, but, of course, had to hear her voice to be sure she hadn't packed it in.

  Nicole did open the box that night. Gary had left her a Meerschaum pipe which Nicole didn't know was of value. She thought it looked great for blowing soap bubbles. Then there was the watch Gary had broken at the estimated time of execution. She thought it was neat of him to do it. After all, what would it mean if she'd just been handed a watch? Then there was a Bible in the box. Gary wrote he had been sent enough Bibles to open a holy store, but this one arrived on the day he had attempted to take his life the second time.

  She read through newspaper stories he had left her on Gary and Nicole, and looked at a picture of Amber Jim, who was a ten-year-old girl prizefighter who had written to Gary. Plus a bunch of letters from Amber Jim. Nicole actually got jealous reading them, even though Amber Jim was just a little girl. It also made her feel like crying. It was the first thing that brought Nicole close to the reality of all those people besides herself who had been thinking of Gary as the time of his execution came near.

  Then, she saw a picture of Richard Gibbs. Underneath it, Gary had written, "Undercover agent and a rat. Stool pigeon. He really fooled me." A lot of pictures of Nicole and her family at various ages were in the box, and letters sent to Gary from a lot of people. A St. Michael's medal. A navy blue sweat shirt was the best. It didn't stink, but it did smell of him. Smelled nice. It was just a great sweat shirt, and she didn't want to wash it. She wore it that night and wore it a few times after, and never wanted to wash it, but after a while, it got funky and she had to.

  Schiller didn't start the first interview for a week. Then it was a problem where to get privacy to do them. The house at Malibu had three bedrooms upstairs, a kitchen, dining room and living room on the main floor, and on the lower level, by the beach, a playroom. Her mother slept in one bedroom, the Baker kids in another, and Nicole was planning to share a big, king-sized bed with Sunny and Jeremy, but she preferred to shack out on her cold, windy porch in the late January and early February winter sunshine of Malibu. It was cold and windy, but she chose it. Virtually moved out there. All her books were on the porch.

  They ended up having interviews in all kinds of places. Now that she was out of the hospital, Nicole hated to be confined to a room, so Schiller would, start his tape recorder in restaurants, or take her for drives and talk in the car. After some days of that, he came to discover that she was going to give him more than he'd ever hoped for, more in fact than Gary ever did or maybe could.

  She seemed to have a commitment to the interviews as deep as the beating of her heart. It was as if she had to tell him the story as once she had told it to Gary, and tell it all, tell it not to satisfy her guilt (and sometimes he thought she felt very guilty), no, tell for some deeper reason. Schiller was profoundly confused why she was so concerned to give it all forth and explain what had happened in the very best way she could ever understand it. Why she was as fair, he decided, to a true description of everything that was not good between Gary and herself as to everything that had been good, until Schiller began to wonder if she had gone through hell and come back with one simple message, "Nothing is worse in all the world than the taste of bullshit in your mouth."

  Of course, sometimes the interviews went slowly. She would admit the most amazing matters, told him about Uncle Lee almost as soon as they started, but little admissions would bother her a lot and she would be embarrassed by the oddest things. Sometimes Schiller would have to wrestle with her most astonishing reluctance to provide a detail he considered trivial.

  SCHILLER Now open the crack in the door a little bit, (long pause)

  NICOLE I can't, Larry.

  SCHILLER You can talk about murder, you can talk about Gary choking you, you can talk about Uncle Lee molesting you, and you can't talk about Barrett fucking around with your head?

  NICOLE Yeah, I could probably. But I can't just say specific things that he said.

  SCHILLER Why not? (long pause) Is Barrett holier than thou?

  NICOLE (laughs) Fuck you, Larry. I'm not going to talk about it. I'm not going to say what I don't want to say.

  SCHILLER You're just doing that to prove that you're stronger than me, that's all.

  NICOLE No, I'm not doing that to prove anything.

  SCHILLER Yes, you are.

  NICOLE I'm doing it because it embarrasses me.

  SCHILLER How can you be embarrassed with me? Now come on. Do you want me to turn off the fucking tape recorder? Is that what's embarrassing you? I don't understand how you can be embarrassed with me. I really don't.

  NICOLE Good. You never will. (pause)

  SCHILLER Come on, I've got to understand this. I've got to have an example of it. Because it comes up all the time. Come on, don't play games with me. Come on.

  NICOLE (laughs) Oh, God. (whispers)r />
  SCHILLER "Oh, God," come on.

  NICOLE Larry, I'm trying. I can't say it, all right? I'm really trying. I can't. Forget it.

  SCHILLER I'm not going to forget it. I'm not going to forget it.

  NICOLE Okay. Another time.

  SCHILLER I need to know it this time. Not another time. Give me one example. I mean you're off there in Midway because of what Barrett did with your goddamned head.

  NICOLE (laughs) I didn't say Barrett was the cause of anything that happened on Midway.

  SCHILLER No, you didn't say he was the cause. You said he made you feel a certain way. By things he said to you.

  NICOLE Yes.

  SCHILLER Don't give me that smile. (laughs) Don't give me that smile. You're looking out there, you know. And then you turn around and give me that little smile.

  NICOLE (laughs) I'm laughing at you.

  SCHILLER What?

  NICOLE I'm laughing at you.

  SCHILLER 'Cause I'm so naive?

  NICOLE No.

  SCHILLER 'Cause I don't have the experience to fantasize or imagine?

  NICOLE No, it has nothing to do with that. It's that you don't give up and you keep sneaking back.

  SCHILLER I'm a little sneak, right?

  NICOLE Yes, sometimes. (long pause)

  SCHILLER You were fucking around. What got you fucking around on Midway?

  NICOLE (long sigh; longer pause; another sigh; still more pause—chuckling to herself) Whatever got me fucking around I don't know, but there's one thing I know, I've always known it and I just haven't even thought about it for quite a while. (pause) I got into this cycle or something of picking up guys that either had never had a piece of ass or guys that were . . . you know, that hadn't had a . . .

  SCHILLER Good lay?

  NICOLE Yeah.