The Washington Decree

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  Now all hope was gone. All that was left was his meager apportionment of time, and the pain; the rest of life’s options were spent. T. Perkins had yelled to him not to give up. But he had, nonetheless.

  * * *

  —

  Death row woke up the next morning after a few hours’ calm. Some of the militiamen up by the unit’s entrance began shouting slogans, and others joined in with songs proclaiming Moonie Quale the country’s next president, who would preside over an era where everything was put back to “normal,” where Americans could once again hold their heads high. Some complained loudly that it was all because of Bud Curtis, that it was even his fault that life on death row was intolerable. Their exertions earned them another dousing with the fire hoses, after which Bud could sense how their silent hatred permeated his cell, right down to the steel cot upon which he would be sitting the last twenty-three hours before they finally took his miserable life.

  Death row was fully manned, and more than one guard let himself be affected by the inmates’ rotten mood and whacked the bars of Curtis’s cell with his nightstick as he went by.

  “We just might take you first, you miserable cocksucker,” they snarled at him.

  As punishment for their disobedience the day before, they weren’t fed until three o’clock that afternoon, about the same time as Daryl Reid received his much-publicized last meal. The priest had already been in to see him before proceeding to give the rest of the prisoners his blessing. It was Sunday, in spite of everything.

  Daryl himself was one of the few inmates who appeared to be completely unaffected by the few hours in which he had to live, expressing his noisy satisfaction with each item on the menu. No one could avoid hearing in detail how much better his food was than the crap being served to the others. Yes, Daryl was determined to make it through the day without breaking down.

  For his own part, Bud wasn’t sure it would be so easy when his time came.

  * * *

  —

  He had worked hard all his life. A whole lot of people had found employment thanks to his diligence and great visions. And he’d never really crossed anyone when it came to doing business. He’d given everyone a fair shake. It wasn’t unreasonable for him to imagine that, besides gaining people’s respect for his efforts, he could also win their love. That his ex-wife, his daughter, and his many employees would forgive him his eccentricities and think of him and remember him with affection. Now, with his life almost over, he couldn’t see any indication that he’d succeeded. Not even with his precious Doggie. He knew she had respect for him and was capable of forgiving him his peculiarities, but she’d never expressed it. Maybe it was simply a fact of life that human beings offered more tenderness and encouragement to their progeny than their progenitor.

  Bud’s thoughts drifted back through the years, to the time when his father used to come home late every evening from the tobacco field with deep cracks in his worn-out hands. Had he ever told his father how thankful he was that he never drank up his wages like the other day laborers, that he appreciated the fact that there was food on the table every day? No, he never had. Nor had he ever hugged his mother as she had hugged him. He had moved on without thinking twice, as though life with his parents were something one had to endure and get over with. And now, here he was, without a hand to hold and no one to tell him his life hadn’t been worthless.

  Where was Doggie right now? Didn’t she want to come to him? Didn’t his lawyers, either? Or any of his family or old friends? If so, they had better hurry, because after Daryl was executed it meant no more visits for Bud. He knew the procedures. Nothing that could upset the condemned just before they were executed—that was Warden Falso’s policy. A policy that was surely based on experience.

  He tried to read a little from the Bible that lay open on his cot. Finding consolation wasn’t easy. What kind of consolation could make him forgive and forget the injustice committed against him? Make him forget the leather straps and the lethal needle?

  Perhaps he would go to heaven, but it was hard to say for a man who never in his life had thought in these kinds of terms.

  * * *

  —

  Daryl was looking good as they handcuffed him in the hallway in front of Bud’s cell. He’d consumed all the food that had been laid before him, and the two jumbo bottles of Coke had sent him running to his steel toilet four or five times. Now there he was, wearing a spotless white T-shirt, smiling contentedly with his belly full. He smoothed back his thinning, gray, frizzy hair and looked like he was about to take an enjoyable stroll in the countryside or visit old friends. Maybe he really saw it like this—that death was a good thing. And maybe it was. Not only for Daryl, who’d spent the past ten years of his life in this wretched place, but for Bud as well.

  “See ya tomorrow, Buddy Boy,” he said, and winked. “I don’t know if they allow smoking in heaven, so I better give you these back.”

  He tried to hand him what was left of the cigarettes Bud had given him the day before, but Bud shook his head. “Give them to one of the others, Daryl. May God be with you.”

  Two prison guards led him away, one hand under each arm. It was the last time Bud would have to watch a scene like this. It was all for the best.

  “Take care of yourself,” he heard Daryl say to each inmate as he passed. His was the only voice to be heard.

  They slammed the door separating the execution unit from the rest of death row, apparently a signal for the militia members to continue venting their hatred. They kicked and shook the bars of their cells and smashed their fists into the steel bed frames and toilets, screaming about how America was being eaten alive by worms in Washington and that Bud Curtis deserved being offed immediately.

  Bud barely even heard them. He’d given up caring. They could trash the whole prison and yell their lungs out for all he cared. In fact, he wished they would.

  Falso’s voice rang out over the speaker system a few times, warning them to shut up, or else. Presumably they were disturbing Falso’s death ritual on the other side of the steel door. But what did it matter if Daryl received a little vocal accompaniment on his way to meet his maker? Was it upsetting the military chaplain as he said the last rites? Maybe the screaming made it impossible for Falso to hear himself pronounce the death sentence.

  Finally, Bud put his hands over his ears. He hated them, one and all.

  “Bastards!” he heard himself yell. “You’re all a bunch of bastards! Goddamn murderers and bastards—that’s what you are! I’m the only one here who doesn’t have blood on his hands. You disgust me—all of you. You should never have been born. You were all a goddamn, fucking, horrible mistake!” He took a deep breath to achieve higher volume. “That goes for you fucking pig cops, too! Do you hear me, you fucking murderers, or are you too busy taking care of Daryl?”

  By now one of the militiamen had hammered his toilet loose, and a small stream of water was making its way out of his cell and down the hallway. Another had succeeded in ripping out his sink and had begun smashing it against the bars of his cell, screaming: “Come here, Curtis, let’s wash your filthy mouth out with soap. Let me ram this down your throat, then we won’t have to listen to you anymore!”

  Bud almost laughed; everything was so grotesque. “Beautiful, you idiots,” he said quietly. “Wreck everything, then you can wallow in your own shit until they come to take you away.” He noticed how reacting loosened him up, so he started screaming again as loud as he could. “Go ahead, fuck up your beds so they’re uncomfortable as hell the rest of your days!” He shrieked with laughter, and the more they carried on, the more he laughed.

  Then they heard the unit’s main door being unlocked, and two officers rushed in and ran the length of the hallway, appraising the situation. They looked ready to panic. Bud recognized one of them as the portly Freddie Cambell from the guard post the day before. It was the first time Bud had ever seen h
im on death row. Freddie looked around in confusion, shouted something to his partner, ran down to the door to the death chamber, and began banging on it.

  A minute later more guards arrived to cool the inmates down with the fire hoses. Bud was hit right in the face and could feel the skin practically being blasted off. The stream of water pinned him to the back wall for the ten seconds it was trained on him, then he fell to the floor, hitting his head on the edge of his bed frame and almost passing out.

  After three minutes of total chaos, there was only the sound of dripping, trickling water. Falso was back, taking stock of his men’s work, but Curtis couldn’t quite hear what he was saying.

  It was something about enough being enough, and they had no other choice.

  Then they entered his cell and beat him about the head and shoulders until he began drifting into unconsciousness again—where nothing mattered or hurt anymore and his soul could find peace.

  A half hour later they revived him with a bucket of water. And it began all over again.

  CHAPTER 34

  It was after two o’clock Sunday morning. The curfew had just begun by the time the milk truck stopped in front of Josefine Maddox’s yard in southern Virginia. Doggie was totally exhausted in both body and soul.

  “Do you have a cell phone?” she asked the driver when he let her out of the milk container. Solid ground and the sudden fresh air made her dizzy.

  “No, we’re not allowed to make private calls during working hours.”

  “How about a CB radio?”

  “You think that’s a jumbo jet cockpit I’ve got up there?”

  “But I have a problem,” she told the driver.

  He gave her a weary look. He’d been on the job more than twenty hours; what did he care if she had problems? Hadn’t he done all that he could?

  “I have to meet a man in Washington at noon.”

  “What? You’re fucking kidding!” He looked seriously annoyed. “What kind of shit is this? Why’d we drive all the way down here, then?”

  “That transistor radio you gave me, remember? You heard the same program as I did, right? So you know what’s happened. Didn’t you want me to hear what they were saying about me and my father?”

  He stared at her blankly.

  “My dad’s innocent. I’ve got to go to Washington and speak with the president.”

  “Tell me, wasn’t it Washington you escaped from yesterday? Why do you want to go back now? You expect them to have the red carpet and champagne ready?” Then he smiled for once. She hadn’t heard him this talkative.

  “A lot has happened since yesterday. I still have friends in Washington; they’ll give me a hand.” She took a deep breath. “Listen, we know President Jansen had nothing to do with his wife’s death, right? If what Bugatti said on Tom Jumper’s program is correct, then it’s someone high up in the government who’s behind it, and the president has a right to know, don’t you think?”

  “It’s curfew. We have to wait till five before we can go.”

  “Then you’ll drive me up there?”

  “It’s on my way, isn’t it? But it’ll cost you.”

  “Of course, what else? Is fifteen hundred dollars enough?”

  “Two thou,” he said matter-of-factly. A man of principle.

  “Okay, that’s a deal. But there’s one other thing. . . .” She handed him the $2,000 and added $1,500, then told him how she’d relieved herself in the tank, and about the pieces of plaster all over its stainless steel floor. She’d expected him to be pissed off, naturally enough, but she wasn’t ready for his explosion of rage. After all, she had told him voluntarily and was willing to pay him extra. But the skin of his dark face became noticeably lighter, and he went into a kind of spontaneous war dance of fury. She’d never heard such an uninterrupted string of curses and oaths in her life. If there was one thing for sure, he yelled, it was that he had to report for work in New York the next evening, and the milk container had to be as sterile as an operating theater during a heart transplant. What had she been thinking, filthy whore, shitting on the floor of his tank?

  She didn’t answer, just stuck another hundred-dollar bill in his breast pocket and left him fuming in front of his dairy truck. Then she suggested that, if he asked nicely, he’d probably be able to borrow a broom, a rag, and a wet mop from Rosalie Lee’s sister.

  * * *

  —

  Rosalie’s sister’s place was set back from the road, the paint peeling off its walls as though it hadn’t been kept up for decades. It looked dismal and destitute in the pale moonlight. Half the shutters lay on the ground, the front porch railing had collapsed, and there were piles of trash and discarded junk everywhere. Things that had cost blood, sweat, and tears at the time were now rotting and rusting away, negating a life of toil and modest dreams.

  She knocked on the door several times and waited. Maybe she’s not here anymore, she thought, and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Mrs. Maddox!” she shouted, up towards the second-floor windows. “I’ve been sent here by your sister. Please, won’t you open the door?”

  It took another five minutes before the shape of a little, worn-out woman appeared behind the screen door. “I have a knife,” came a slow, rusty voice.

  Doggie pressed her face against the screen. “I’m not going to do anything to you, Mrs. Maddox, okay? Rosalie sent me down here. Maybe I can stay and sleep a few hours. I can pay you.”

  She wanted to see the money, she said, and Doggie waved two hundred-dollar bills. She didn’t say hello as she opened the door.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Maddox,” said Doggie, handing her the money.

  Josefine Maddox didn’t look at all like Rosalie. She was small and wiry, and her face was completely expressionless. A grubby kimono hung from her bony shoulders, and her tattered slippers were two sizes too big. Still, there was something imposing and dynamic about the woman. Her life had doubtlessly had more than its share of trials, but her deportment showed that not only had she dealt with them, but she still hadn’t given up the fight.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What have you done?” she asked, sticking the money into the pocket of her kimono.

  “I attacked the vice president.”

  “Did he die?” she asked.

  “No, he’s just fine. It was nothing, really.”

  “You can stay here till it gets light, then you have to leave.”

  Doggie nodded.

  “It’s not safe here,” Josefine continued. “The militias have been inside my house two times. They’re camped in the forest behind here.”

  “Did they do anything to you?”

  “The militias? Goodness no! It’s the soldiers you’ve got to watch out for. Yesterday they cut the phone lines. They probably expect the militias will be back, which they likely will.” She pricked up her ears. “Listen, they’re shooting again. It’s closer than yesterday.”

  Doggie held her breath but heard nothing. This Mrs. Maddox must have had the hearing of a Doberman.

  “The soldiers asked me to clear out, but where the hell to? I don’t know anyone lives around here no more, and I ain’t going back to New York, neither. It’s the city of Satan. Worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, as far as I’m concerned, and always has been, amen! So I’m staying, I am. Sure as Jesus is my Lord and savior.”

  There was a knock on the door. It was the driver.

  He gave Doggie a cold look and handed her some money. “Here’s two thousand. I’m keeping the sixteen hundred. You’re going to have to find someone else to drive for you. You’re not coming with me.”

  She tried to give back the money. “But how can I find someone else to help me? Listen, I’m really sorry about what I did. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t hold myself any longer. You know how many hours I had to sit there.”

  “Find someone else,” he repeated,
and turned towards Josefine to ask to borrow some implements to clean out his milk container.

  “How much do you want, then?” Doggie pleaded, rummaging around in her plastic bag for more banknotes.

  “I don’t want your fucking money. I’m not driving you!” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the milk tank with a mop and broom.

  * * *

  —

  Doggie Rogers sat in the kitchen, staring at a cup of weak tea, trying to figure out how to tackle the situation. “I wonder, do you know anyone who can drive me to Washington when the curfew’s over?”

  Josefine shook her head.

  “You said they cut the telephone lines. Does that mean you have no phone connection at all? No cell phone?”

  The way the old lady laughed was answer enough.

  Doggie bit her lip. The people who were after her knew she had Frank Lee’s cell phone, of that she was certain. Two hours ago she’d called Uncle Danny, believing his phone was safe, only to find out he was John Bugatti’s lover. Doggie didn’t know how the government’s state-of-emergency surveillance system functioned—it wasn’t something they advertised in the White House—but she was sure they kept a close eye or ear on powerful journalists like Bugatti. Which meant they knew she wanted to meet him that afternoon at the teahouse in Washington. Which also meant they knew she was presently somewhere in Virginia. Why else would her cell phone have rung just after her conversation with Uncle Danny? Rosalie wouldn’t have called her in the middle of the night, and she was the only one who knew the number. Or was she? Doggie doubted it could have been one of Frank’s friends. His brother Dennis had said he never used his cell phone, so why would someone suddenly call him?

  No, the only possibility was that the phone was tapped, she was convinced. The phone call had been in order to track her whereabouts. The only question was: