The Executioner's Song (127 page)

The little bottles went fast. Gary would dip into a back room and take a nip, then come out with a wink. Moody thought it was appropriate.

                If that was what the man wanted, then he ought to be able to enjoy a drink. It had been years since Moody had tasted alcohol, but this was a social event. If some corner of Moody's mind could hear the criticism that Gilmore was going to meet his maker in the morning, and that might be wiser on a sober head, still Moody thought, this is more like a last meal. If he wants to go out drunk, he has a right. He thought of how Gary had deliberately not requested his six-pack of Coors at the end because he did not want the world to think he would be unable to face it without something to help him. But now, the speed was coming in, and the booze.

                Yet, at the sight of Gary's pleasure, and the way he enjoyed the feeling of slight intoxication, for he didn't get very drunk, it began as a nice evening. Gary even took one of the guards into one of the back offices and gave him liquor from the curved medicine bottles Schiller had also sent in.

Bob, himself, loved the idea that he was able to go up to Gary, shake hands with him, hold him, look at him for a second, face to face—it was unexpected how great a need had developed to do something as simple as that after all these weeks. In fact, this was the first face-to-face meeting without urgent business to discuss. So, it was a pleasure to see Gary become loose and grow to enjoy the night.

                It was easy and it was relaxed. During the course of the hours, Ron or he would get up and walk out and get a soft drink in the kitchen, and Evelyn and Dick Gray would go back and forth, and Vern. There was not any terrible feeling of a clock or any sense that outside the prison, lawyers might be preparing to seek a Stay.

Early that evening when they first came into the room and Gary was there without a pane of glass between, actually able to go up and touch, Stanger greeted him warmly, shook hands, put his arm around his shoulder in kind of a semihug, a masculine hit on the shoulder. It was kind of a victory, if you will, thought Stanger, that they were together. He stayed in that sense of glow.

                A little later, while the evening was still pleasant, Ron started talking about his boxing experience on the team at BYU, and Gary mentioned that he knew a little about it. They got up, and started sparring. Ron had assumed it would be a matter of throwing a mock punch or two, but Gary wanted to make it more of a contest. While he couldn't really box, he was a street fighter, and threw a lot of punches. Ron kept stepping aside to avoid getting hit, but, of course, that wasn't the purpose of the whole thing. Only Gilmore kind of got this glint. The harder he hit, the more there was to enjoy. Gary sure had his little mean streak.. Hit with fists closed, Ron had to catch it on his shoulders and hands. At one point, like it was still in fun, Gary analyzed his own style, said, "I don't lead, I'm a counterpuncher," and threw a lead. Ron slipped it, turned his shoulder into Gary to tie him up, then bailed out and walked away. Gary kept pursuing. It wasn't like normal sparring where you go in, tap a man, then withdraw to show how you could have hit the guy hard. Gary was throwing one real bomb after another. A couple almost clobbered Ron good.

                Of course, for the first twenty or thirty seconds, Ron was still feeling beautiful. He was faster than Gary. It was just that after a minute, he began to count his age with every breath, and Gary was a couple of inches taller, and had longer reach. Soon, there was the same flavor Stanger would find whenever he walked into Maximum. All these cons worked out with weights, knowing they had bodies. Their presence leaned on you psychologically. It was as if their bodies said, "I got more right to be free than you, boy." So, Ron was glad when he found an opportunity to clinch with Gary, hug him, grin, and indicate it was over.

After the boxing, Gary began to make some phone calls. Ron could hear him on the line with the station that played Country-and-Western, and he kidded them about how bad they were and thanked them for playing "Walking in the Footsteps of Your Mind." Next, he went into Fagan's office to make a call to his mother. Of course, Ron didn't try to listen, but Gary came out all excited because he also was able to get a call in to Johnny Cash. Then he began to move around restlessly as if it bothered him that the record player was going, and there was nobody to dance with. Yet, things were still in a good mood. The boxing had set up a kind of intimacy between Gary and Ron. While ups and downs were beginning to appear in the evening, still, it was okay, and the mood was all right. Like any long night, there had to be peaks and valleys. During one of the lulls, Gary now came over to Ron and said he wanted to tell him something, wanted to be alone with him. They took a bench in a corner of the visiting room, away from the others.

                Gary said he had $50,000, and looked Ron right in the eye. His pale gray-blue eyes looked as deep as the sky on one of those odd mornings when you cannot tell by the light of dawn whether good or foul weather lies ahead. "Yes, Ron," he said, "I've got $50,000, or to be exact about it, access to $50,000, and I'll give it to you. All I want is that the next time you go outside, leave me the keys to your extra clothes." Those other clothes were in a locker back in one. of the little rooms. "There's so much hubbub around here," Gilmore said, "that the guards won't know. Just leave your key."

                "What do you have in mind?" Ron asked. Ron couldn't believe how stupid he was acting, "Well, what, really, Gary, do you have in mind?" he asked again, and then it hit him, and he felt doubly stupid.

                "Ron," said Gary, "if I can get through that double gate in your clothes, I'm out. There's nothing past there but the outside door, and that's always open. I'll just skin up the barbed wire and flip over the rolls at the top. That wire'll put a few holes in me, but it's nothing."

                "Then, you drop?" asked Ron. "Yeah," said Gilmore. "Then you drop, and start running. If I get out there, I'm gone. You leave those clothes, all right?"

                Now Ron realized what had been going into those arduous calisthenics Gary had done every day. He forced himself to look back into Gary's eye, Ron would say that much for himself, and he answered, "Gary, when we started, part of our bargain was no hanky-panky." Then he made himself say, "I've grown very close to you. I'd do anything I could for you. But I'm not going to put my children and my family in jeopardy." Gary nodded. Acknowledged it all with that nod. Didn't seem discouraged so much as confirmed.

                Ron was remembering that as Toni and Ida left, Gary had gone into a playful little scene where he put on Toni's hat and Ida's coat and pretended to get into the double door with them. All very funny at the time. Everybody was laughing, including the novice guard on the gate, a young kid Ron had never seen before, but all that guard would have had to do was, by mistake, open both doors at once. Gary would have been gone. Wow! It came over him. This guy meant what he said. If he had to stay in prison, he wanted to die. But if he could get outside, that was another game.

Sitting on a bench, trying to keep his thoughts above the pain in his knee, taking it all in with sorrow and fatigue and considerable churning at the core of his stomach, Vern was feeling pretty emotional. He knew his face was set like stone but it was getting hard to hold up.

                He almost busted out once—didn't know if it was to cry or laugh—when Gary said over the phone, "Is this the real Johnny Cash?" That was as crazy as you would want.

                Now, Gary was going around in the hat Vern had bought for him at Albertson's food store, a Robin Hood type of archer's hat, way too big. It had been the last one left. Vern had looked at Ida and said, "He wears funny things anyway, so I'll buy it." How could you love a guy because he wanted to wear a crazy hat? Ah, Gary was so full of love this night. Vern had never seen him this rich. The only thing in the world he could still get mad about was the prison, and he even had a funny attitude there. "My last night," he kept saying with his grin, "so they can't punish me anymore," and Vern came near again to that feeling he was going to cry. He remembered that day so many visits ago that Gary had said, "Vern, there's no use talking about the situation. I killed those men, and they're dead. I can't bring them back, or I would."

A little later, Stanger was feeling restless, Talking of escape with Gary hadn't exactly calmed him down, so he said, "Hey, let's get some pizza," and asked Lieutenant Fagan, "Can we get cleared?"

                Everybody liked the idea. Stanger only had six bucks on him, so Father Meersman kicked in a little and Fagan was good for two, and some of the guards pitched in. Then Vern came up out of a reverie and said, "Nobody contributes. I'm buying the pizzas. You just take care of getting them."

                Fagan volunteered a car with a man to drive them, and then Ron and Bob and the guard went out and stopped in the parking lot long enough for Stanger to slip out of the car, walk around, find Larry, and tell him, "Gary wants to call you around one-thirty in the morning,"

                Schiller said, "Okay, I'll go with you."

                By now, the press wasn't on Schiller's ear and elbow anymore.

                The cold had gotten to everybody. People stayed in their vans drinking, and Schiller was able to stroll around the perimeter and get to the police car unobserved. The guard in the front seat said, "Who are you?" but Schiller only replied, "I'm supposed to be going out with you," and got in, and lay down in the back. Stanger, in the mean while, had gotten waylaid by a reporter. It took five minutes before he and Moody could return. Then they went up the road, and the outer gate swung open and they were out of the prison grounds. Schiller got off the floor and everybody started laughing.

                If they drove Larry all the way back to Orem, the prison would wonder why the car had been gone so long. It was better they head north to the near outskirts of Salt Lake. From there, Schiller called his driver. With it all, he still got back to the motel before midnight, there to wait for Gary's call.

                The Pizza Hut was the only place open, and they were the last customers, and ordered the stuff with ham, salami and pepperoni, Bob Moody thinking he'd hit everybody with the selection, and picked up some beer in a grocery. Back at the prison, their car was searched, and the beer confiscated. It made them mad, but the guard examining them was a stiff, and said alcohol would not be tolerated on prison grounds. The irony was that he didn't even look at the pizza boxes. They could have hidden five pistols in there. Then they proceeded from the outer gate down the entrance road to the front of Administration and the guard at the top of the tower spoke down to them like God's voice coming out of a dark cloud to say there had been a ruling against the pizza. Not acceptable.

                While they were still disputing that, new word came. They could walk in with the pizzas after all. It was just that Gary wouldn't be able to have any. He had not put it on the list for his last supper.

                Moody could conceive of the scene in the Warden's office. One big heavy meeting. What? Food brought in from outside? Stop it! By the time they arrived at the door to Maximum, Bob and Ron were so angry they stood out there to eat their pizza in the cold, and by the time they went in, Lieutenant Fagan was very embarrassed over the situation, very. He was a small man, with white hair, a mustache, and a lean build, usually a crisp and pleasant man, but hangdog now over the way his superiors had reacted. After a while a guard came up and said Gary could have a piece, too. Of course, Gary wouldn't go near the stuff by then. Gave a look to blister paint, and said, "I hope everybody's enjoying my last meal."

                Meanwhile, Father Meersman kept entering and going out again. He kept them posted with what was going on in the Administration Building and, presumably, thought Bob, kept the administration posted on what was going on with them.

After this episode, there was a feeling of humiliation all over. Last night, Gary could have requested any of a hundred dishes. The Warden would have initialed the form and he could have had it tonight. Now, it was too late. A couple of pharmacists, however, came to give him more pills. He couldn't eat pizza, but they would feed him speed. Stanger decided the best word for the prison administration was "beautiful."

                They also heard that Sterling and Ruth Ann Baker were not being let in to visit. The prison had run a check on Sterling and he had a record. Two traffic citations. A real big criminal record. Grotesque, Moody was muttering to himself. Stupid. Idiotic. Asinine.

At Toni's birthday party, there were dozens of phone calls from friends, so Toni didn't have to think about Gary. All the same, she kept saying to her mother, "I want to go back up," and Ida would reply, "Oh, hon, all those reporters know who you are now." Toni thought, "All right, I'll get up at five."

                Her in-laws left early, and she and Howard just sat there talking.

                She knew he could feel how she wanted to be with Gary again. Of course, she also didn't want to leave Howard. Besides, that press! The lights in your eyes were frightening, and you could hear reporters' nerves snapping on every question. It was the first time she had ever felt like an animal in a cage with other animals.