Read The Executioner's Song Online
Authors: Norman Mailer
He was sure able to test this demand on himself real soon. In a couple of weeks the Utah Historical Society visited the office and interviewed everybody for one of their volumes on the State's history.
They never came, however, to Earl. He was out of the office that day.
It turned out pretty much like all of the Gilmore business—he was always away from the main action when media or historians were there. The key thing, he told himself, was to stay glad it got done.
SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Order Probe of Gilmore Photo
By George A. Sorensen Tribune Suburban Editor January 28, 1977—The Utah State Board of Corrections Thursday ordered an investigation how Time and Newsweek magazines carried pictures of Gilmore drinking from a mini-bottle of whisky shortly before the execution.
SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Gilmore's Execution Cost State $60,000
By George A. Sorensen January 30—It cost the taxpayers of Utah more than $60,000 to bring convicted murderer Gary Mark Gilmore to trial and keep him alive through two suicide attempts.
With the exception of the actual trial costs, estimated by Utah County Attorney Noall T. Wootton at $15,000 to $20,000, all other figures are based upon extra help or overtime.
More than 200 of the prison's total staff of 320 were called back at 3 A.M. on the morning of the execution.
Utah Attorney General Robert B. Hansen estimates it cost $19,000 for the extra work of his deputies and secretaries. Some put in as much as 30 hours straight during the last day and night.
One of the hardest things for Toni Gurney was to go up to the University of Utah Hospital for Gary's clothes. They had been sitting in a storage room for a few days and finally turned so rank, they had to freeze them.
Toni was given this icy bundle, and put it in the trunk of her car, but on the way home, it thawed out. By the time she got back, she was close to being late for work, only there was no question. She had to get those clothes in the washing machine, right away. The odor had all the stink of mortal loss.
Over the weeks, hate mail began to slow down and Shirley Pedler came back to some kind of daily routine, but it felt peculiar to come into the ACLU office and not have the halls jammed. So much of her emotional energy was still attached to Gary Gilmore that the normal world seemed bizarre and very small.
Not only was Gilmore dead, but she was in some kind of separate reality herself. Once in a while, like a mist passing across the sky, she would feel a strange communion with him, as if a thought had passed back and forth, and she felt happy that the strain was removed from his life and he had been set free. It was paradoxical, but she felt good about that.
Chapter 43
TO KISS AND TELL
In Chicago for the final assembling of the Playboy interview, Schiller and Farrell worked around the clock and didn't finish until five o'clock Sunday evening, the 23rd. That was one week to the hour that Schiller left the TraveLodge Motel to drive to the prison for the beginning of the last night.
When they turned it in, they thought they were handing over 9,000 words, still a comfortable length, since Playboy had contracted to print 5,000, but a word count came back later that evening. They were up to 25,000. Art Kretchmer, the editor, who Schiller thought looked something Like Abe Lincoln—a young good-looking Jewish Abe Lincoln—said, "I'd be scared to cut a word." Barry Golson agreed but was dubious about finding more space. "Nothing else we could run," Kretchmer told Golson, "is as important as going all the way with this," and he pulled a piece of fiction.
Then, Schiller tried to convince Kretchmer to break the standard format and use INTERVIEWER and GILMORE rather than PLAYBOY and GILMORE, but suspected there wasn't anything Hugh Hefner would insist on more than the interviewer being made synonymous with Playboy.
Farrell wrote an introduction which Barry Golson had the pleasure of rewriting—he had Schiller on his turf at last!—and then Schiller wanted to go to sleep, Farrell wanted to go to sleep. Debbie, however, had been brought to Chicago to do the last-minute typing, and now that they were done she wanted to swim in Hugh Hefner's famous indoor pool at the mansion where you could watch the swimmers through a glass wall in the underground bar. She wasn't an ex-Playboy Bunny for nothing. So Kretchmer opened up the mansion.
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.