I saw his head go back a little at that, absorbing the blow. For a second, I thought he really would take a swing at me. I half hoped he would anyway. But his lip only curled slightly and his eyes remained flat and icy.
“I guess …” he said quietly. “I guess we can’t all live in the world of your imagination, Steve. I’m not going to hit anybody, no matter what they want. If Patricia needs some other kind of relationship, she’ll have to go find that. If she wants to work with me to keep us together, then I’m willing to work. But whatever happens, my marriage isn’t any of your goddamned business. The only thing you need to know about me right now is that I think you’re a tawdry, sexist, thoughtless, mentally unbalanced man. And I can’t work with you anymore.”
Alan moaned again, covering his eyes with his hand.
I turned to him desperately, leaned toward him, pressing my fists down on his desk. Why didn’t it ever occur to me how much I needed a job until I was about to lose it?
“Alan, listen,” I said. “I’ve got the shooter.”
He lowered his hand. “You what?”
Bob made that gesture he favored, that stay-calm motion with his hand. He lapsed into his schoolmarm style of instruction. “I don’t think we should confuse two different issues …”
I cut him off. “I know who he is.”
“Who?” said Alan.
“The guy, the real guy. Who shot Amy Wilson.”
“You got the shooter?”
“Look, even if he knows who killed Kennedy …” said Bob.
“Shut up, Bob,” said Alan. He considered me, frowning. “How got him have you got?”
I straightened away from his desk. I raised my cigarette to my lips. Gripped in my fist, it had split near the filter. I had to draw hard to make the smoke come through.
“I know who he is,” I said.
“All right. Who is he?”
“Huh?”
“The shooter. Who is he?”
“He’s … he’s a guy. A guy who was there.”
Holding his breath, Alan pinched his nose in the web of his hand. He closed his eyes, opened them. “You’re telling me the shooter was a guy who was there? Well. Well. Good work, Steve. But let’s not jump to any conclusions. I want that confirmed by two unnamed sources before I hold the front page or anything.”
“I’m telling you!” I said, throwing my arms around. “The CA has his name. She just won’t give it to me.”
“What about the defense?”
“This is ridiculous,” said Bob.
“No,” I said. “It’s not in their files.”
“The cops?”
“They don’t remember. Or they’re sitting on it.”
“Have you tried the Yellow Pages under S?” said Bob.
I made a noise that astonished even me. A throaty growl, like a cornered animal. I moved to the wall and crushed my busted cigarette against the side of the wastebasket. I stood with my back to them, staring at an Associated Press plaque for journalistic excellence. Things did not look good for our hero, or at least for my hero.
Behind me, Bob let out a weary, mournful sigh. “Alan,” he said, “I’m sorry. Really. I know this is causing problems for everybody. But I want to be clear about this. I’m ready to leave. I owe you a lot and I love this paper, but I’m not going to spend my life in an environment that’s become intolerable.”
Alan moaned.
Whereupon, suddenly, inspiration struck. I was running my hand up through my hair at the moment. I was feeling the sweat come away, cling to my palm. I was thinking about Barbara and what I would say to her when I came home with no job again. I was wondering how long it would be before she figured out the truth. Five minutes? Ten? I could see her standing in the doorway, pointing sternly into the distance. And me with all my belongings wrapped in a handkerchief tied to a stick, hefting the stick to my shoulder as I trudged off miserably into the snow. It was ninety-five degrees outside, but the way my luck was running, the snow was a dead cert.
And then it came to me. Just like that. Like a hallelujah. Bells pealed. Choirs sang. The federal budget balanced. A glorious sun rose heavenward to the east and showered its beneficient rays on this great land of ours. Oh ho, I thought. Oh ho ho. What end is dead, what door is closed, what road has no turning to a man piss-desperate to hold on to his job?
I turned from the wall. Bob cocked a look at me. If hate were a laser he’d have had a view through my forehead to the back of the room.
“I’m sorry, Steve,” he said gently. “I truly am.”
“You have to give me notice, Alan,” I said.
“Notice?” said Alan. He moaned.
“That’s in my contract. You can’t just boot me. You have to give me notice.”
Even the blank calm of Bob’s expression, even the sheets of ice that had dropped down to cover his eyes were not enough to contain the radiance of triumph that shone from within him. He had won.
“Just how much notice do you want, Steve?” he asked kindly.
I glanced at my watch as I started toward the office door. “Five hours and seven minutes,” I said.
3
The sun had not lost its color at all and blazed white even as it angled westward above the salt flats around Osage. Below, beneath the quivering lines of heat that rose from the highway, the dark figures of state policemen moved in clusters near their cars. Aside from these, and the cruisers steadily patrolling the perimeter, the great square complex of the prison seemed very still. You had to draw in close before you noticed the men in the gun towers, before you saw them turning their heads slowly to scan the long plains.
Within the walls, it was quiet too. The prisoners had been fed an early supper and locked down in their cells for the night. A double shift of guards stood watch on every block. The guards walked their sections grimly, warily. They could hear the prisoners in their cells speaking in harsh growls, the occasional angry outburst. And they could hear, beneath that murmur, beneath the unceasing rasp of movement and machinery, sprightly music from the television sets along the walls. On the screens, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd were going Back to the Future for the third time. That was the after-dinner video. There would be other videos all night long. Arnold McCardle had scheduled the soft-core porno films for later so that they would hold the men’s attention during the actual moment of Frank Beachum’s execution.
* * *
There was more activity in the visitors’ center. The kitchen staff was at work there. They were swabbing down the floors and tables, arranging the tables side by side. They worked quickly as they wanted the smell of disinfectant to dissipate before the dignitaries and witnesses arrived. They would set out refreshments on the long tables then: coffee, soda water and chips before, wine and sandwiches afterward for those who wanted them.
The prison’s main conference room was also busy; full of people. Luther, Arnold, Reuben Skycock—the whole execution team—were there. So were the engineers who would see to the phones and machinery, so was the doctor who would monitor the prisoner’s heart, and the nurse who would find the vein in his arm, and the guards who would strap him down. Everyone who would be involved in any way in the final procedure was gathered around the meeting table or lined up against the walls, listening quietly while Luther briefed them on their duties one last time.
They listened and Luther was glad to see that their faces were becomingly solemn. Even Reuben Skycock kept his well-known sense of humor in check for decorum’s sake. Luther’s eyes moved over them as he spoke. He knew what they were feeling, all of them. Excited, ashamed to be excited; afraid, ashamed to be afraid. He saw some in the group who had never been through this before, and he knew how they were feeling too. How they wanted to do well in front of the veterans. How they wanted desperately not to screw up, not to be seen as the weak link. Luther continued talking. His eyes rested a moment on Maura O’Brien, the only woman in the room. Her chubby face was fixed and serious like all the others. Her pale lips
were a thin line. Luther didn’t much like having a woman in on this, but he knew Maura and he admired her grit. She had never taken any guff from the menfolk in this place, and he could see that she meant not to falter now.
Luther’s eyes moved on and he kept on talking. He knew, finally, that they were all looking to him. The whole execution staff was counting on his steady manner, his unfaltering smile. Drawing on his easy leadership for strength. So he was careful to appear to them—as he always appeared—imperturbable. Speaking in an even drawl, slouching in his chair with his legs outstretched, gesturing comfortably with one hand. And smiling. That bland smile. As if he were telling a story about the trout that outsmarted him last June in Quenton’s Brook. That was what they needed and that was what he gave them. He couldn’t afford—none of them could afford—the whole justice system of the state of Missouri could not afford—to have the head man falter at the eleventh hour.
And so Luther Plunkitt went on talking and gave no sign whatsoever of the weight that dragged relentlessly on his interior, or of how cumbersome, how ponderous a thing it had by now become.
In the small square courtyard just outside the medical building, there was no one. Nothing was moving at all. The air was thick and hot. The patch of sky above was clear and relentless. Crickets sang from their chinks in the wall and cicadas sang in the sparse patches of brown grass that sprang out of the asphalt. But the insects did not show themselves, and everything was still.
Within the door, in the hall outside the hospital unit, there were no patients, there was no one. A single nurse moved silently through his station behind the bulletproof window. The guard in the booth at the end of the hall watched his closed-circuit monitor dully. He was a new guard, just on for an hour, while the meeting in the conference room took place.
There was a new guard at the door of the Deathwatch cell too, and a new duty officer inside because Benson was also at the briefing. The new duty officer was a white-haired muscle builder named Len. Len had been happy to grab this part-day at time-and-a-half. He needed the money because his new lover was something of a party boy and wanted to spend nearly every weekend in the expensive leather clubs up in St. Loo. The work, as it turned out, was easy enough. All he had to do was sit at the long table under the clock, and type a note into the chronological report whenever anything happened. And hardly anything did happen. The prisoner and his wife seemed like nice, quiet folks. Which suited Len just fine.
In fact, Frank and Bonnie had barely moved at all in the last half hour or so. They sat at their table behind the bars of the cage. They sat facing each other with their two pairs of hands all folded together, their eyes locked on the other’s eyes. A deep sense of stillness had come over both of them now. They knew that Bonnie would be told to leave soon and it made them feel very quiet inside. They felt a sort of leaden wonder, almost like awe, at their impending separation. And they felt very close to each other, closer than they had felt for a long time.
In intimate, hushed, husky voices, the couple spoke steadily. They didn’t have to think about what to say, it simply came out of them.
“Thing I worry about,” Frank murmured into his wife’s eyes. “Thing I worry about more than anything in all this is Gail.”
“She loves you, Frank. She loves her daddy,” Bonnie said.
“I don’t want her ever to think, you know …”
“She wouldn’t think that. She knows you.” “Don’t ever let her think it. You tell her, okay?”
“I’ll tell her, sweetheart, I swear.”
“You keep telling her.”
“I will.”
“I worry, you know,” said Frank softly, pressing her hands between his on the tabletop. “People get bored sometimes hearing something. Even if it’s true. They get tired of hearing the same old thing.”
“She’d never believe …”
“Kids especially. You tell em something …”
“I know.”
“… and just cause they keep hearing it, they think it isn’t so.”
“I know. But she would never think you’d hurt anyone, Frank. She loves her daddy more than anything.”
He nodded to himself. He fought the urge to glance at the clock. It would be soon, that was all he needed to know. They would be coming to get her soon. He kept his eyes on hers.
“I wrote her …” He swallowed. “What’s that?”
“I wrote her a letter, you know. Something … I thought maybe she’d want something to have. I wanted to give it to her while she was here but …”
“It’ll be precious to her. It’ll be her most precious thing.”
“It seemed like nothing, you know. Way she looked at me when they took her. Just a damn letter.”
“… precious …” was all his wife could manage to say.
“Because I wanted to be there for her, you know.” “I know.”
“I wanted her to know that.”
“She will.”
He pressed his lips together. “Wishes and horses,” he said. “Thing is to just get through this now.”
“Don’t be afraid, sweetheart. I’ll be right there. And Jesus’ll be with you.”
“Hate to make you see this.”
“I’ll be right there.”
He nodded. “If I can see you, you know …? If I can see your face …”
“You’ll see me.”
“That’ll help.”
“I’ll make sure.”
He held her hands tighter. He didn’t glance at the clock. It would be soon. Looking into her eyes, words welled up out of him. “I sure didn’t mean this to happen to you, Bonnie.”
“I know, I know.”
“This sure wasn’t what I had planned, you know, for us.”
“It’s all right, Frank.”
He shook his head a little. “Man. Man. This life. I tell you. It sure didn’t go right, did it? Hard to make out, I swear, Bonnie. Hard to make out what it was all for, you know, in aid of. Only thing ever made sense to me was you, you and Gail. That made sense of everything. It was too short. You know? Maybe all you can ask for, I don’t know, maybe I should be grateful probably, I don’t know. Sure seemed like, you know, like I just got it figured. I just had it figured out. Then this damn thing.”
“Nothing ever mattered to me either, nothing but you and Gail. I never loved anybody until you, the first time I saw you,” Bonnie said.
“Damn thing. And what’s the point, you know?”
“You gotta have faith, Frank. You gotta have. I just know God has some plan. I know he means something in this.”
“Hard to see, you know. Hard to make out. Wish I had time, more time. Doesn’t seem like there was hardly any time for us.”
“No. No. But I love you so, Frank. I love you so much. We’re gonna be together forever, I swear.”
“Damn thing. Like some kind of joke or something. Hard to figure.”
“You gotta have faith. Jesus won’t desert you.”
“I know.” He sighed.
And the door to the cell opened.
Bonnie’s breath caught. She clutched his hands tightly. She didn’t take her eyes away from his. He tried to hold on to her, to her look, but finally, he turned away and saw Luther Plunkitt standing just inside the cell. Benson came in behind him.
The superintendent lifted one hand in a gesture of apology. His smile was apologetic too. “Sorry, Frank, we’re gonna have to ask Mrs. Beachum to leave now.”
Frank nodded. “Give us a minute, okay?”
And Luther nodded. “Sure,” he said.
Frank turned back to Bonnie. Her eyes were filling now, her lips trembling.
“Oh God,” she said.
“No, no, no,” he whispered.
“I swear I don’t know how I’m gonna …” She didn’t finish. She held his hands tightly.
“I won’t get a chance later, you know, to say goodbye,” he said.
She could only shake her head.
“You take care of our gir
l, Bonnie.”
“I will. You know I will.”
He took the letter he had written out of his pocket. He pressed it into his wife’s hands. “You give her this. When she’s older, you know. I don’t know what good it is …”
“I’ll give it to her. It’ll mean everything to her.”
“Take care of her, Bonnie.”
“I promise.”
“And yourself. Take good care of yourself.”
She sobbed, the tears streaming down her cheeks. Frank did not think he could bear it.
“We’ll meet again, baby,” he said. “This time forever. We’ll meet again.”
Bonnie tried to say, “I know.”
“You talk to me, you hear,” he said. “I’ll be there. I’ll be listening. You tell me how my girls are.”
“I will. I promise.”
He stood up, still holding to her hands, pushing his chair back with his body. He drew her up too. They stood looking at each other, holding their hands together between them.
“Oh God, Frank,” Bonnie said. “How did this ever happen to us?”
Frank felt himself losing control so he drew her into his arms and held her tightly against him so she wouldn’t see his eyes go damp.
“God bless you,” he whispered in her ear. “God bless you, Bonnie. You gave me the only life I had that was worth a damn.”
She whispered over and over that she loved him as Frank held her head against his shoulder and stroked her hair.
Outside the cage, Luther nodded to Benson and he came forward. He placed his key in the wall switch, then the mechanical, and the bars of the cage slid back.
Frank released his wife. Crying, she studied his face, ran her eyes over every inch of it. Frank bit his lip to keep it steady. Then he took her by the arm, guided her toward the bars. He felt her sleeve slip from his fingers as she passed through. The bars rattled shut between them.
Luther and Benson stood aside respectfully to let Bonnie pass. She walked with her head down to the cell door. When she got there, she looked back at him. But she couldn’t say good-bye.
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