Mark the Sparrow

by Clark Howard

  “Nine minutes to ten.”

  Jesus Christ, he thought, feeling sick all over again. Nine minutes. Goddamn. What the fuck had happened to Genevieve and Cloud?

  “Put on the shirt,” Dukes said gently.

  “Sure.” Mouth slightly agape, Whitman mechanically drew the shirt sleeves over his arms and pulled the garment around his slumped shoulders. He buttoned the shirt unevenly and stuffed it carelessly into his trousers.

  I still don’t believe it. I don’t believe they’re going to let me die. They can’t. There are people behind me, and a foundation—

  The radio on the floor in the corner announced the time at five minutes before ten, and the announcer said, “There is still no word of a stay of execution for Weldon Carpenter Whitman, who is scheduled to die at ten this morning in San Quentin’s gas chamber. Whitman was convicted of kidnapping and sex perversion in the infamous Spotlight Bandit crimes in the Los Angeles area more than three years ago. Through clever legal maneuvers, he has avoided several previous appointments with the executioner, but never before has he been as close to death as he is at this moment—”

  “Turn it off,” Whitman said, a surge of emotion returning to his voice. “Turn that fucking thing off!”

  The death-watch guard immediately switched off the radio. A silence shot through the Ready Room, accompanied by such a total absence of motion that the scene was like a movie still. At that moment, that suspended instant in time, Weldon Whitman knew that it was all over.

  I’ll be a son of a bitch, he thought. I’m about to die.

  At one and a half minutes before ten, the final ritual began. Captain Dukes reached into the tiny holding cell, took the condemned man’s arm, and gently drew him out. As Whitman stepped forward, he realized that despite the carpet, his bare feet felt very, very cold. As if they were already dead.

  It was nine steps to the Prep Room door. Dukes walked to one side of Whitman and half a step back. The other death-watch guards fell in behind them as they passed. At the door, as he passed through, Whitman saw those who were waiting: deputy warden, doctor, chaplain, the man on the telephone. He saw the open hatch of the death chamber itself, and remembered the witnesses who would be looking at him from the other side. He suddenly felt as if his bowels were about to evacuate. Mortified at the thought that he might have to walk in there and sit down in front of all those witnesses with his pants full of shit, he hesitated a step. But he was not permitted to pause because Dukes did not let him. The captain’s big hand closed over the back of his arm just above the elbow, and at the same time another hand clutched his other arm. Then he was quickly guided into the chamber: stepping over the lip of the big oval doorway, being handed to a pair of death-watch guards who had come around him and preceded him into the chamber.

  The room of death was starkly bright inside. It reminded Weldon Whitman of a giant steel cunt, clean-shaven, unlubricated, cold. He could not help grinning idiotically at the thought. But his grin lasted only an instant, then dissolved as he became aware of the faces of the witnesses. They peered at him through three tall windows set in three of the chamber’s eight sides. Their faces were openly curious, showing no embarrassment. Curious himself, Whitman began to scan them, searching for someone familiar. But before he found anyone he was firmly turned around and urged into the left one of the pair of death chairs. He was seated, his back partially to the witness room, and Dukes was suddenly standing next to him, pulling a thick leather strap across his chest and fastening it, confining him to the chair in a straight upright position. And other hands were fastening other straps. Wrists, arms, legs, feet.

  “Listen, Captain,” he said thickly, his eyes wide and dazed, “a stay is going to come in for me any second now. I have this friend named Rob, you see, and—and this friend named—named …”

  He stopped speaking and stared at the hatch. The members of the death watch were filing out.

  Oh Jesus no don’t leave me in this fucking place all alone!

  He felt the captain’s hands touch the front of his shirt. They attached the stethoscope head to a rubber tube which extended outside the chamber where the doctor waited with the rest of the instrument to listen to his heart stop beating. Whitman looked up, staring wide-eyed at Dukes.

  “Listen for the pills to drop,” the captain said. “Then count to twenty and take a couple of deep breaths. You’ll go quick that way.”

  Dukes stepped quickly over the lip and out of the chamber. The chamber door swung shut immediately; Whitman felt a slight pressure on his ears. Then he heard a soft hissing sound as the air lock sealed the chamber.

  A moment of silence followed. Terrible silence. The most silent silence he had ever experienced.

  This is how it feels to be dead, he thought.

  Almost at once the pureness of the quiet was broken by a subdued plop as the cheesecloth bag of cyanide eggs dropped into the lead bucket of acid. At the sound of it, Whitman tensed and stiffened, instinctively straining at the taut leather straps that held him. Then, as quickly as he had reacted, he unreacted; he realized that he had only seconds to live, and he suddenly relaxed. There was no longer any reason to be tense or hopeful, because now there was no turning back; once those cyanide eggs dropped, the state was unequivocally commited to the execution.

  Weldon Whitman rested his head against the hard metal back of the death chair, closed his eyes for the last time, and waited for the gas. He thought of what Captain Dukes had said to him a moment earlier. Count to twenty and take a deep breath. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—

  Fuck it.

  He thought instead of that night up in the Hollywood Hills and how good it felt when he put his dick into that little spic broad’s mouth and how she—cried—and kept—grabbing—at——that—fucking——cross while———he——

  Weldon Whitman’s head fell to one side and a drool of saliva trickled from the corner of his mouth and dripped down to make a dark spot on the new white shirt.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Three hours after Weldon Whitman’s execution, Robert Cloud and Genevieve Neller sat together in a small, private waiting room in a building across the bay in San Francisco. Cloud was clean-shaven, his hair neatly trimmed, and he wore his best suit and a tie. The room they were in was tastefully sedate and very small; large enough for no more than six persons to sit comfortably. It was furnished in velvet-upholstered Victorian armchairs and a side table with a vase of fresh flowers against one wall.

  Cloud and Genevieve had been there for half an hour. They had been sitting in the little room in silence; with Weldon Whitman dead, there seemed to be little between them to say. Each of them wanted to talk, but neither of them wished to force conversation, and each was concerned about intruding upon the private thoughts of the other. The little waiting room soon became too quiet, however, and an uncomfortable depression would be sensed growing invisibly around them. When Genevieve felt it, she decided it was time to talk awhile.

  “I received the most beautiful letter from Weldon this morning, Rob,” she said in an almost blissful voice.

  Cloud turned to her, only then remembering the promise he had extracted from Whitman to write her.

  “He wrote it yesterday as soon as they moved him down to the holding cell,” she said. “He felt, as we did, that he was definitely going to die this time, and he said he wanted his last written words to go to me. He wrote the letter right after he read mine to him. Then he had it mailed special delivery so that I would receive it while he was still alive.”

  That was a nice touch, Cloud thought. Especially since he had expected to stay alive. Curiously he wondered what Whitman had thought when he finally realized that he was going to die.

  “I can’t let you read the letter, Rob,” she said, “because—well, it’s extremely personal. But I want you to know that Weldon did not believe that the information you took to the governor for him yesterday was going to do him any good. And, of course, it didn’t.”

&
nbsp; “No, it didn’t,” said Cloud. Because he had not taken the information to the governor. He had not taken it to anyone. Weldon Whitman’s last lie had gone no farther than Robert Cloud.

  Genevieve patted him on the arm. “In the letter Weldon said to thank you for trying anyway, and for everything else. He also said that he didn’t want me to know the nature of the information you took to the governor for him. He said he was afraid I would be hurt by it. But he said that if on the outside chance he did get a stay, he wanted me to be the first one to visit him so that he could explain it to me personally.” She paused for a moment, then gently squeezed Cloud’s arm. “Can you tell me what it was that he sent to the governor, Rob?”

  “Do you have to know?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right,” Cloud said quietly. “Weldon wanted to confess to all the crimes he was convicted of, except the car theft and the Calder and Luza sex crimes. He also wanted to name an ex-partner of his that he believed to be the real Spotlight Bandit.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes,” Cloud said.

  “There was no mention of his former wife?”

  Cloud stared at her, mouth momentarily agape.

  “I’ve known about her for a long time, Rob,” Genevieve said. “I obtained a copy of Weldon’s complete criminal record from a friend of mine who’s a clerical supervisor at the California Bureau of Investigation. It showed that Weldon was married to a Carol Whitman at the time he was sent to Folsom prison for robbery, and that she later divorced him.” Genevieve looked away from Cloud. “I know a lot about Weldon that we’ve never discussed, Rob,” she said cryptically. “I know, for instance, that he was a sex pervert.”

  Cloud looked incredulously at her. “Gen, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  She turned back to him. “Yes, I do, Rob. I know. I know for a certainty. And please don’t ask me how I know, because I can’t tell you.”

  Cloud swallowed dryly. Christ, he wondered, what had Whitman done to her? He shook. his head briefly. He would never know. He could only guess.

  “The one thing I’m not certain of,” Genevieve said, “is just how perverted he was. I don’t know in my own mind if he was a criminal pervert or not.” She paused, keeping her eyes directly and unmovingly on Cloud. “But I have a feeling that you know, Rob. I have a feeling that you could tell me once and for all. Did Weldon commit the Calder and Luza crimes?”

  Cloud met her eyes with equal directness. “No, Gen,” he lied.

  Her shoulders dropped and she sat back, visibly relieved. “I’m glad for that much,” she said in barely a whisper.

  They sat in silence then until the door to the room opened and a short, middle-aged man in a dark suit entered. He was carrying a book-size walnut box with a silver catch on its lid. Cloud rose and stepped to the middle of the room to meet him. They exchanged quiet words and he had Cloud sign a receipt on the side table where the flowers stood. Then he gave Cloud the walnut box and left. Cloud went back over to Genevieve.

  “It’s time to go, Gen.”

  Genevieve got up. She looked at the box Cloud was holding. “Is that—?”

  Instinctively she reached for the box, but Cloud held it back from her. “Wait until we get to the car,” he said.

  Clutching the box under one arm, holding Genevieve around the shoulders with the other, Cloud walked down a thickly carpeted hallway to a set of double glass doors. He used his shoulder to push open one of the doors and presently they were outside the building on the edge of the parking lot. Cloud led Genevieve toward her car. On the way they passed a sign that read: PARKING FOR CREMATORIUM ONLY. Cloud clutched the box he was carrying a little more tightly.

  “That ex-partner of Weldon’s,” Genevieve said when they were halfway across the lot. “I suppose he hadn’t previously named the man because he wanted to protect his ex-wife.”

  “His ex-wife and one other person,” Cloud said, lying again. He hated to keep lying to Genevieve, but he felt he had to leave her with something.

  “One other person? Who?”

  “You, Gen,” he said.

  “Me?” Despite her efforts to control it, a single tear streaked her cheek.

  “Yes. You especially. Whit didn’t know whether the real Spotlight Bandit could find his ex-wife or not; but he knew that you could be found. He was more afraid for you than for anyone.”

  Genevieve began to cry very quietly. But beneath her tears she wore a slight smile.

  When they got to the car, Cloud tried to guide Genevieve around to the passenger side, but she stopped and faced him, drying her eyes.

  “I’d like to say goodbye right here, Rob,” she told him. “I’m not going back to Sacramento.”

  Cloud saw her suitcases on the back seat of the car. He stared at her, unable to conceal his surprise. He had planned on having to stay with her for a while, until she got over what had happened. Now he realized he should have known better.

  “I sold everything I had to a secondhand dealer this morning,” she said. “All that I kept were clothes and personal things that would fit in the trunk. I’m going away.”

  “Where to?”

  “I’m not sure. I thought I’d just drive for a few weeks: up the coast to Oregon and Washington; maybe on into Canada or even up to Alaska.”

  “And when you get tired of driving?”

  She shrugged. “Find a little town someplace where they need a librarian.”

  “Just leave everything behind?”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip briefly. “Do you think I can?”

  Cloud nodded. “I’m sure you can.”

  Genevieve smiled gratefully. “I’m glad you think so. And what about you? Will you be all right?”

  “Me? Sure, I’ll be okay.”

  “Where will you go? What will you do?”

  He shrugged, as she had done. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go see Ben Droller and try to get a magazine job on Argus.”

  Their eyes met in silence for a moment. There was a suggestion of slight embarrassment, coupled with an urgency to have the parting over with.

  “This is best, don’t you think, Rob?” she said. “To end it once and for all?”

  Cloud nodded again. “Yes, it’s best.”

  Genevieve opened the door and got in the car. “I’ll just put that on the seat beside me,” she said, reaching for the box he held.

  “All right.” Cloud handed her the ashes of Weldon Whitman. After she took the box, she pulled his head down and kissed him tenderly on the lips.

  “I love you, Rob. In a very special way.”

  “I love you too,” he said. “Probably in the same way.”

  They kissed again, briefly.

  “Goodbye, Rob.”

  “Goodbye, Gen.”

  He closed the car door and watched as she started the engine and drove slowly away.

  It was midafternoon when Cloud got off a bus at the downtown Greyhound station in Sacramento. He walked outside and stepped into a cab, giving the driver the address of the Niebold and White law offices. It was just seven blocks from the station; when they got there, Cloud handed the driver a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Wait for me. I’ll be out in a few minutes and I’ll want to go to the airport from here.”

  He entered the building and took the elevator to the top floor where the offices were. He walked past the receptionist so brusquely that it startled her.

  “May I help you, sir?” she said in a perplexed voice.

  Cloud ignored her and went directly down the hall toward Morris Niebold’s office. On the way he passed Carla Volt’s office, and noticed that the door was open and she was not at her desk. It was the same with Borden White’s office: door open but no Borden White. Instinctively Cloud knew they would be in Niebold’s office. A meeting of the vultures, he thought. He burst unceremoniously into the office, the alarmed receptionist close behind him.

  The three of them were having a drink around Niebold’s specially made de
sk. They all turned quickly toward the door, as startled as the receptionist had been. Carla turned so quickly that she spilled some of her drink on her dress.

  “Goddamn it!” she said angrily, seeing who it was.

  Niebold flushed with anger. “Your barging into places uninvited and unannounced is becoming quite tiresome, Robert,” he said curtly. His eyes flicked to the nervous receptionist. “Sharon, call the police.”

  “Do that and I’ll tell the newspapers what I came to tell you,” Cloud warned.

  Behind Cloud, the receptionist started to hurry back down the hall.

  “Sharon, wait,” said Morris Niebold. He eyed Cloud suspiciously, weighing Cloud’s remark about telling something to the newspapers. “Never mind about the police, Sharon,” he said. “Just close the door, please.”

  The woman reached in apprehensively and pulled the door shut.

  “You bastard,” said Carla Volt when the door was closed. “You’ve probably ruined this dress.”

  “Never mind your dress,” Niebold snapped. “All right, Robert, what is it you want to say?”

  Cloud stepped to the front of the desk. “I want to warn you not to try to use the Weldon Whitman case as a stepping stone to get your boy Borden elected governor.”

  “Why not, may I ask?”

  “Because Weldon Whitman was guilty, Morris. He committed the Luza crime. And if Borden White starts campaigning on the premise that he wasn’t guilty, I’ll wait until just before the election and then blow his candidacy wide open.”

  Niebold’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I don’t believe you, Robert. I don’t believe Whitman was guilty.”

  “I can prove it.”

  “How?”

  “I have an independent witness who was given a religious necklace by Whitman that was taken from Glory Ann Luza the night she was attacked.”

  “Circumstantial evidence,” Niebold said with a peremptory wave of his hand. “We can get around that.”

  “I can also produce, through G. Foster Klein, who is now a judge in Los Angeles, the man who did commit the Calder kidnapping, and who loaned Whitman the car in which Whitman committed the Luza crime. And, incidentally, Doris Calder can’t refute any of her testimony against Whitman, even though it was in error, because she has committed suicide.”