The Red Scream

by Mary Willis Walker

  “Time to die?

  Go bye-bye?

  Don’t you cry.

  Gonna cook my goose?

  Make me the caboose?

  Set me loose.

  Time for the red scream?

  Or just a bad dream?

  Man, let off some steam.”

  The guard didn’t bat an eyelash.

  “Still rhyming, Louie,” Molly said in a low voice.

  He turned quickly and looked directly at her. Molly stifled a gasp. His mouth was collapsing. The flesh around his slit of a mouth had wrinkled and sunk inward like a rotted Halloween jack-o’-lantern. He was drying up, caving in. If the state didn’t kill him soon, there wouldn’t be much left to kill.

  “Two years, Molly. You ain’t been here once in all that time.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “As soon as you got what you wanted out of me, you stopped coming.”

  She felt herself pulling up from somewhere in her chest the voice she had always affected with him in the past. It was a low, calm voice that never expressed judgment or anger, a voice that entered the most appalling of discussions without rising or cracking. “Louie,” she said in that old familiar voice, “you knew the deal was for the series of interviews. Did I ever say I would keep coming after that?”

  “No.” He sat with his chained hands in his lap and tilted his head to the side coyly. “But it don’t seem right, not polite.”

  Accustomed to his bursts of rhyme, Molly had always treated them as regular conversation. “It don’t seem polite to call me a liar either.”

  He let his head drop back so that his long chin pointed at her and his stringy neck with its huge Adam’s apple was exposed. “I knew that would bring you.”

  “If you wanted to talk you could have written me, Louie.”

  He shook his head and said nothing, waiting for her.

  They sat in silence. Then he said, “You wrote a book. Does it cook? I’d like to look.”

  The hairs on the back of Molly’s neck prickled at the thought of his reading the book. “Are you saying you’d like to look at my book?”

  “I ain’t a big reader, as you know, but I would like to see my poetry printed in a real book.” He grinned without opening his mouth. “I thought you might bring me one.”

  “So you haven’t seen the book at all?” Molly asked.

  “Nope.”

  “But you recently made a statement saying it was a pack of lies,” she said.

  “You wrote down the things about Mrs. McFarland just like I told ’em, didn’t you?” His voice was thin and aggrieved.

  She nodded.

  “Then you wrote lies. God as my witness.” He moved his hands up in the start of a gesture which was cut short by the chain attached to his cuffs. Quietly, he said, “Sister Addie says we are forgiven, but we need to set right the things we can.”

  “All right,” Molly said. “Here’s something you can set right. I have some questions for you.”

  He was silent and she could see from the way his eyeballs shifted down and to the right that he was conjuring up a rhyme. Finally he said, “Sure thing. Give it wing. Let it sing. Ring a ding.”

  “Okay. An article in the American-Patriot this morning said you made a statement yesterday and gave it to Addie Dodgin. I want to know if the newspaper quoted you right.”

  He made a little puckering motion with his lips that she recognized as an indication to go on.

  “First of all, the article said you made a statement claiming you did not kill Tiny McFarland, that your confession was not true.” She tried to catch his eyes but he was staring down at the tabletop. “Did you say that, Louie?” she asked.

  “What else did it say?”

  “That you said the authorities in Hays County fed you information about the killing so you could make a convincing confession. Did you say that?”

  “What else?” he asked.

  She tried to keep her voice neutral, as if she were just listing another item. “That you said everything you told me about the McFarland case for my book was a lie and that I led you on and encouraged you to tell those lies. Did you say that?”

  He looked directly at her and smiled so she could see what had happened inside his mouth: many of his teeth were gone, leaving big empty gaps. Prison dentistry, no doubt.

  “Well, did you?” she asked again.

  He closed his mouth. “That’s the one that really gets ya, ain’t it?” He moved his head forward, closer to the mesh cage. “Ain’t it? Got you where you live.”

  Molly had forgotten how infuriating he could be. “The article also said you have become a born-again Christian and that you want to do the right thing.” Molly put her hands together in a mocking prayer gesture. “Did you say that, Louie?”

  “Well, I answer to God now. Don’t have to answer none of your questions, do I?”

  She waited, trying to keep a grip on her temper.

  “I mean what good’s it to me to answer? What did I ever get out of answering all them questions took up so much of my time two years ago?”

  She said nothing.

  “Yoo-hoo,” he said in a high voice, “I’ll tell you. I got zip. I got dip. Goose egg. Mumbly peg. Molly Cates. Special rates.”

  “What are you saying, Louie?”

  “Maybe you should share some of the wealth with me since I cooperated so good. Maybe I deserve some of them big profits you’re raking in.”

  Molly had to struggle to keep her voice low. “Louie, we talked about that and you signed a waiver, if you recall. I paid you for the use of some of your poems and you agreed.”

  “You’re cheating me, just like people always done. You used some of my poems in your book, but you never did nothing to get the rest of them printed down in a book of their own like I asked. And the money I got’s all gone.” He lapsed into the high whine she remembered from his monologues about how unfair the world had been to him. Of course, it had been unfair to him, savagely unfair, but she hated the whining anyway.

  “Louie, I told you at the start I would never pay a penny for interviews or give you any kind of approval over what I wrote. But you chose to talk to me anyway.”

  “Worked out real good for you, didn’t it? You got a book. Gonna get rich. Television movie—miniseries maybe. About me. Why shouldn’t I get some money from it, huh?”

  She felt anger building in her like a steam kettle. “First of all I’m not getting rich. And second, I don’t think it would be ethical for you to benefit from your crimes.”

  “But it’s just dandy for you to benefit, ain’t it?”

  He had her on the defensive, squirming and explaining, and she hated the feeling. It was so ludicrous she should laugh, but it made her furious. “What good would money be to you anyway, Louie?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked with his eyes narrowed almost shut.

  “You’re going to be dead in three days.” The minute the words were out, she wished she could recall them. It was inexcusable—to bully a helpless, chained, condemned man like that.

  He looked up quick, with a grim set to his thread-thin lips. “No, I ain’t. I ain’t gonna be dead in three days.”

  Christ, he was thick. Her anger flared again. She’d already proven herself a bully; why not go all the way? She planted her elbows on the tabletop. “Louie, believe me. No matter what you say or do, you’re going to die in three days. Your goose is cooked. It is time for the red scream.”

  He shook his head and bent his lips into the smile she hated. “No, ma’am,” he said. “It won’t happen ’cause you won’t let it.”

  Breathless with surprise, she rose partway out of her chair. “Me? Louie, I have nothing to do with this. Nothing. I have no power to change it, even if I wanted to.”

  The guard, seeing her sudden movement and hearing the rise in her voice, came to life and took a step toward the cage door. Molly sat back down and waved him away with a sheepish smile.

  Louie was scowling at her, his tiny
close-set eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘if you wanted to’? You always said you was against the death penalty.”

  Molly took a deep breath. “I am against it.”

  “So what did you mean?”

  “I meant that you’re caught up in the mill of the criminal justice system and no one can stop it from grinding you up.”

  “Ain’t you even going to hear what I got to say?” Louie demanded. “Before, you always listened to me. That’s why I talked all them hours—because you listened so good. But that was when you wanted something from me, I guess, before I was a cooked goose.” The whine had returned.

  “Louie, you were a cooked goose then. You were cooked ten years ago when that Travis County jury convicted you of capital murder. But sure I’ll listen. What you got to say?”

  He raised his head and spoke in a loud, firm voice. “This is true. Through and through. I tell it to you.” He stopped and glared at her.

  “So tell me,” she said, through tight lips.

  He raised his cuffed hands as high as the chain permitted and placed his spatulate fingertips against his chest. “God above as my witness, I really didn’t do that Mrs. McFarland.” He shook his head. “She wasn’t one of mine and I shouldn’t ought to of said she was. Sweet Jesus and Sister Addie forgive me.”

  She felt her anger rising sour in her throat. His syrupy tone of voice and the sight of him with his hands over his heart enraged her. “Cut out that phony ‘Sweet Jesus’ crap, Louie. Don’t try that old jail house con on me. You sat right over there”—she pointed to the spot where they had sat for the interviews—“and hour after hour you told me about the movie in your head that built up from the time you were eight years old, the fantasy of killing women and having sex with them. You told me about all those black-haired women on the highway.”

  “That’s true,” he whined. Then he repeated it in a whisper: “That’s true. God will forgive me.”

  Molly found herself gripping the ledge in front of her. “Then you told me about driving into Austin that hot, hot day, with the fantasy bursting out of your head. You hadn’t been able to find a woman, you told me, so you took the 2222 exit in Austin and drove west and found this little windy road and the gravel driveway. You told me about driving partway in and parking your old white Mustang with the one brown door.” She felt her speech speeding up and couldn’t stop it. “You went into the house, you said, the door was open, and you stole a Sony television and a silver bowl and a knife. When you were walking back to your car you saw a small blond woman in a white dress standing in the garage. You shot her and stripped off her clothes and shaved her head so you could have sex with her, but you couldn’t do it because she was a blonde and—”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” he protested. “I know what-all I told you. I shouldn’t of.” His chains rattled as he tried to lift his hands. When they held him back he shoved his hands down into his lap. “I shouldn’t of said it. But it wasn’t my fault. You asked me to tell you about it. You kept asking me. I was already convicted and you came here to hear about it, the big one—Tiny McFarland—the one that really interested you. You wouldn’t of kept coming if I didn’t tell you. It was what you wanted to hear. So I told you. You’re to blame, too. ’Cause it was like we told the story together.”

  He leaned his head forward until it was a bare inch from the wire mesh, so close Molly could smell his sweat and rotting breath. “But it ain’t true. I never even saw the bitch. She weren’t one of mine. Back then, down in the jail in Hays County, I just said I did it because it was the easiest thing to do. They come in—the sheriff and all them Rangers—and said my car had been seen at this one and sure I done it. She was rich so they paid more attention to that one and there was like this movement that caught me up. It was kind of exciting, like being famous.”

  He was an effective liar, she conceded to herself. No wonder he could often talk stranded women into his car. “Louie, I don’t believe you. What about the jewelry you described, the television, the silver bowl? That wasn’t in the paper.”

  “One of them Rangers, a big one, told me about that. He described the house and all, told me what happened there. I don’t recollect his name, but the one with the nose all pushed in like it had got broke more than once.”

  Molly felt that her body temperature had just gone up several degrees. She wanted to take off her jacket, but she had never wanted to do that in front of Louie.

  “But even if he hadn’t told me those things,” Louie said, “I still could of made a good confession.”

  “How?” Her voice cracked on the word.

  “It’s easy. They ask you questions. You know. Like ‘Louie, what did you do after you parked your car on the gravel driveway?’ And then I know where I’m supposed to have parked. They ask, ‘Louie, did you get to the west part of town on 2222 or did you come on such and such?’ See, I can figure out almost everything. And I got a real good memory. And when I made a mistake they’d just say, ‘Oh, he’s done so many women he can’t keep all them bitches straight.’ ”

  That’s exactly what they did say. Molly sat back on the hard chair and took a breath to try to get rid of the buzz of fear in her brain. This couldn’t be true; it was just Louie doing his thing again. “Louie, you disappoint me. I thought you were going to be different from the others. I thought you’d go down owning up to what you did. Remember what you told me—how on death row the men make a big deal about going down tough, not letting the red scream break out? You said you’d never cry and you’d never give in to the red scream. What baloney! Here you are at the last minute suddenly whining you’re an innocent man.”

  His face tightened as though the skin had just shrunk another size and the area around his nose yellowed. “I’m not saying I’m innocent. I’m saying I didn’t kill that Tiny McFarland. Not her. And now I’m a real Christian I don’t lie no more. You just ask Sister Addie.”

  She snorted and said, “What kind of fool would believe that?”

  He tried to lift his hands again, but remembered about the chain this time before it jerked him back. He let his hands fall back into his lap. “I want to tell the truth and, Molly, I been thinking. There might be a way to prove it.”

  She felt like putting her hands over her ears; she didn’t want to hear any more of this.

  He leaned forward so far his bony nose almost pressed against the mesh of his cage. “I think you can prove I didn’t do it. Molly, listen. It’s about the car. That white Mustang I had, the one with the brown door on the driver side? The one I told ’em I dumped in Lake Worth and got rid of?”

  They had dragged the lake for several days but never found the car. It was one of the ragged ends left in this case.

  “Those witnesses at the trial—the little girl and the baby-sitter—they said they saw that car at the McFarland house. I never did understand that—little girl like that lying. See, they were lying through their goddamned teeth. They had to be. They had to be. That’s why I put them on my witness list. So they could see what they done. Not for revenge. God don’t like that. But for them to see and repent.” His face was screwed up with an intensity she had never seen in him before.

  “Are you listening?” he asked. “This is important. After the Greta Huff thing in Hays County I heard on the TV that they’d connected me and my car to it. So there I was in Forth Worth having a bad moment, I got to admit. Greta, old Greta, she was one of mine—Jesus forgive me—and I did have that car. So what I did, I went and had it painted—see, ordinarily I would have just dumped it somewhere but I was real fond of that car, best car ever, so I had it painted—a real pretty bright blue. Cost me $150 cash money, my last cent in the world. And the next day the damned thing broke down. Radiator burnt out, after all that money I spent on it. Had to junk it.”

  Louie Bronk lifted his eyes and looked right into Molly’s. “Now here’s the thing,” he said. “That was over the Fourth of July ’cause I remember I took it to the body shop up there in Fort Worth to get painted
and they said it’d take four days ’cause it was over the holiday. So I got it back on the sixth and it broke down on the seventh.”

  Molly was listening hard in spite of herself, caught up in his account. He must have noticed some change in her because he said, “Yes, ma’am, now you got it. Miz McFarland, she was done on July the ninth. There ain’t no way in hell those people in Austin seen that car because by then it was blue and it was broke down.”

  Molly held her hands up to stop him. She felt like he’d been digging a hole in front of her and if she wasn’t very careful she would fall right into it. “Louie, stop right there. If you have something like this, you should give it to Tanya Klein, your very able attorney, and let her look into it. That’s what she’s there for.”

  “No. Molly, I tried to. When she was here Monday. I tried, but she don’t listen. She’s not … like you say, able. Or maybe she’s just not trying. You’re the only one who—”

  “Louie, you’ve had eleven years for this. Why do this now, with only three days left?”

  His eyes opened in surprise. “Why? I heard on the TV about Charlie McFarland’s second wife. Then this morning that baby-sitter. Can’t you see? Someone got away with it eleven years ago. And if you get away with doing it once, you’re going to do it again—sometime. Like me. Someone’s copycatting me, just like they done eleven years ago.” He sat up straighter. “Now that just ain’t right. Sister Addie, she says you got to do what you can to set things right. She believes me, Molly. She got my statement in the newspaper.”

  Molly sat up straight in her chair. She was getting damned sick of hearing about Sister Addie. “Louie, I want to be perfectly clear about this so you don’t have any false hopes. There is nothing I can do. For you to tell me any more would be pointless.” She looked down at her watch. “I’m going to have to leave now, but—”

  “You got to do it for me.” His whole body tensed.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “You got to.”

  In exasperation, she held her palms up in front of her. “What makes you think I got to?”

  “Because I know you.”