Lethal Injection

by Jim Nisbet

  “Two cans of Pearl in a sack,” Royce said, “cold.”

  “ ’At’s a good beer,” drawled the second man down the counter. As he spoke, a large picture of Bobby Mencken appeared on the screen behind the news commentator. It startled Royce.

  “Specially when it’s cold,” the man down the bar continued, exhaling a cloud of smoke, “so’s y’can’t taste it.” He pursed his lips and loudly spit a flake of tobacco off his tongue.

  “Can you hear this?” Royce asked the man between them.

  “Same shit every night,” the man said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Turn it up.”

  Royce stood on the rungs of his barstool and found the volume knob.

  “… tonight at midnight. Mencken was convicted in 1983 of shooting a convenience store operator five times in the face for nine dollars during a robbery in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 1982.” The commentator spoke in the neutral, emphatic monotone taught him by a New York school of broadcasting, and sounded quite foreign in this Texas bar. “Mencken,” he continued, “was apprehended fleeing the scene of the crime, moments after it was committed. He spent the next nine months in jail, while the district attorney’s office built a case against him. Even though the prosecution provided no hard evidence and called no eyewitnesses to testify, Mencken was convicted of first degree murder with special circumstances. The entire case was based on the facts that police had apprehended Mencken fleeing the scene of the murder, and when the murder weapon was recovered the next day Mencken’s fingerprints were on it.”

  “Uh-oh,” somebody said.

  “The jury deliberated less than two days. Because of the special circumstances, that the murder was committed in the course of an armed robbery, Judge Howard Lemur was able to hand down the maximum sentence prescribed by Texas law, death by lethal injection. The American Civil Liberties Union immediately filed appeals on Mencken’s behalf. But the Superior Court upheld the conviction, and, late last month, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.” The commentator turned the top page of his stack of papers face down on his desk, as the picture of Mencken faded behind him. “Mencken was the seventh person,” he added, “to face capital punishment in Texas since the United States Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty in 1976.” The camera angle changed. The commentator turned his face into it. “What are the Cowboys going to be up against in the fall? Sports in a moment.”

  “Fuck the Cowboys,” said the man down the bar, rubbing his eyes with the heel of the hand that held his cigarette.

  Royce reduced the volume and sat back on his barstool. No witnesses, the commentator had noted, but they sent Mencken over anyway.

  “Damn,” said the man next to Royce. “Shot the dude five times in the face?”

  The woman behind the bar dropped two cans of beer into a brown paper bag in front of Royce. “Who says it was a dude?” she asked over her shoulder. “That’ll be two-fifty,” she said to Royce.

  “It was? It was a woman? Hell, Ella, what kinda feller’d shoot a woman five times in the face?”

  “That kind.” She nodded at the television.

  “But why? Why would he do it?”

  “Maybe she was ugly,” said the drunk next to him.

  Everybody looked at him.

  “Gawd amighty, George,” the man next to Royce said, but he laughed anyway.

  The woman behind the bar shook her head. “George,” she said, “that’s about enough outta you.”

  Royce looked at the bag containing the two beers. He brushed it aside with his forearm and neatly spread a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “Got any whiskey?” he asked.

  “You’re in Texas, ain’tcha?”

  “Straight up.”

  She placed a shot glass on the counter and filled it. Royce raised it and toasted the second man down the bar. But he was really thinking of Mencken when he said, “Here’s to humor in the face of the unknown.”

  “Goddamn,” said the woman, “here’s somebody knows something about horses.”

  Royce downed the shot.

  “Why would a man shoot anybody five times in the face?” the first man asked.

  “ ’Cause he didn’t like him,” George volunteered.

  “Hm,” nodded the first man. “Y’might have somethin’ there, George.”

  “That’s why you would shoot somebody five times in the face, George,” the woman said.

  “Nah,” said George. “I’d jist use a shotgun an’ be done with it.”

  “Maybe he just didn’t want the woman to recognize him later,” the first man said.

  “Let alone recognize herself,” George said.

  “Now we’re talkin’,” the woman said. “The clerk runnin’ the convenience store committed the robbery, and left behind some innocent heifer with her face blown off, so the cops couldn’t tell it was the wrong heifer, and not the clerk. Only trick was gettin’ that innocent jerk’s fingerprints on the murder weapon, so then the clerk can accidentally lose it some place where the cops’ll find it. At the Policeman’s Ball, maybe. Jerk has a record so they know who he is. A year later he runs a stop sign, they run him through the traffic computer, bingo,” she snapped her fingers, “he’s on ice. Case solved. Meanwhile, the clerk’s livin’ it up in Brazil on the contents of the cash register.” She looked at Royce. Royce looked at her. “ ‘Nother shot?”

  Royce nodded.

  “That’s pretty good, Ella,” George said.

  “Hey,” said Ella, pouring Royce a shot, “I grew up watchin’ Perry Mason.”

  George frowned. “Y’mean your kids grew up watchin’ Perry Mason.”

  “Stick to the current line a thought, George,” Ella said sternly.

  George opened his mouth, nodded and tapped the bar with a rigid forefinger. “There’s just five or six hitches in it, which is about how many it takes to hold a mare fulla loco weed.”

  Ella lowered her voice. “What mare, George?”

  George ignored her. “But one of the main ones is, ain’t no convenience store clerk gettin’ to no Brazil on no nine dollars, even if it is right next to Texas.”

  “I thought you were drunk, George,” Ella said.

  George shook his head. “Not that drunk.”

  “Have a belt.” She placed a glass on the bar front of him.

  “On me.”

  “Obliged.” George placed a couple of fingers delicately around the shot glass. The woman behind the bar filled it. George drank it all.

  “Now go fall off your horse,” Ella said.

  “I think we were right the first time,” the man nearer Royce said.

  “What,” Ella said, replacing the whiskey bottle beneath the counter, “he’s drunk?”

  “No, I think that colored feller on the television there killed that clerk because he didn’t want to be recognized.”

  “They burned his ass anyway,” George said.

  “But,” said the other man, “was it really him that did it?”

  Royce, staring into the bottom of his empty shot glass, heard himself say, “Nobody else saw him.”

  The other man covered Royce’s forearm with thick, calloused fingers. “That’s right, hombre, nobody else saw him do it. It coulda been anybody.”

  “It mighta been you, Herb,” George said.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Herb was excited.

  “He said he was innocent,” Royce muttered.

  Herb frowned. “He did?”

  “Not exactly. He said ‘I didn’t,’ and he meant it. ‘I didn’t,”’ Royce repeated absently. “But something stopped him.”

  “Where’d he say that?”

  Royce looked up.

  “Why—can’t you see?” George interrupted, “can’t you see? This feller was there, right there, when they shot that guy fulla dope in Huntsville. Deathbed confession, it was. This feller here was right there an’ he heard every word of it, too.” George smiled. “Didn’t ya, young feller?”

  All three eyed him curiously.

  Royce lo
oked down at his glass again and cleared his throat. “Oh, I—saw it in the paper, while back. I kinda followed the trial, you know, in the papers. Couple years ago,” he added lamely.

  “It’s all right,” Ella said in a consoling tone, patting Royce’s arm. “Some of us can read; some of us can’t.”

  “Yeah,” Herb agreed doubtfully, looking up at the television flickering silently above Royce’s head. “Even so, seems like they wouldn’t come down that hard on a man, without they had some kinda hard evidence.”

  “That’s true,” George said. “I thought they hadda have at least two eyewitnesses before they’d give a man the death penalty.”

  “God forbid it should be the two a you,” Ella said. “Couldn’t tell a bull from a steer if it tried to mount you.”

  George squinted at Ella and passed one hand over the three or four days’ of gray beard on his weathered face. “If it was ta mount one a us,” George said, “it was ’cause you was the only other see-lection in the pasture.”

  “Why you cottonmouth sonofa—”

  “Give us another round, Ella,” Herb said, loudly and quickly. “One for yourself and the young feller here, too.”

  “I’m not—” Royce began.

  “I’m not young either,” Herb hastened to interrupt. “I’m completely over the hill. Let’s have them, Ella. George is buyin’.” Herb deftly slid George’s change toward Ella.

  George didn’t move. “Hey,” he said.

  “Why, thanks,” Ella smiled acidly, snatching the bills. “That’s a mighty fine apology. Ya fuckin’ old coot.”

  George shook his head, flapped his hand ineffectually, and said nothing.

  Ella poured four whiskeys, then held her glass aloft. “To George,” she said. “Never a finer cowpoke poked a cow.”

  George raised his glass and shook his head. “To the innocent man,” he countered.

  Lost in thought, Royce looked up and stared at George. George gestured at Royce with his glass. “The innocent man, mister, wherever he is.”

  This word innocent had its effect on Royce. It should have come up a lot earlier tonight, but it hadn’t. The confidence that had allowed him to go to work tonight was deeply shaken. He had tried and failed to dismiss the evening’s deeds as the machinations of Justice and the State, and of himself as just a cog in them. But a gnawing uncertainty was working on undermining and eroding his confidence in that process. And now, at the tail end of a silly conversation, he was being asked to superciliously toast the very specter of his uncertainty.

  So he did. “To the innocent,” he said. Then he added, “And the guilty, whoever we are. May we find our respective sinecures in hell.” He tossed off his whiskey and set the glass, a little too loudly, down on the bar.

  No one else drank to his toast, but sat or stood, their drinks raised, and looked at him. Royce ignored them. “Bartender,” he said.

  Ella raised an eyebrow.

  “Could I trade you back these two Pearl beers, as a down payment on a bottle of Ezra Brooks?”

  Ella shrugged and carefully placed her shot, untouched, beneath the bar. “That’s tradin’ up,” she observed, taking the paper sack.

  “Sonofabitch, hombre,” George said suspiciously. “That was one mean amor y pesetas you put on us poor sinners, there.”

  Royce eyed him. “You a churchgoer?”

  “Hah!” Herb slapped the bar.

  George squinted one eye. “If I get your drift, mister, you think we’re all goin’ ta hell one way or another, no matter who we are or what we done.”

  “Naw, George,” Herb put in, ever the one, apparently, to defuse a situation. “I’m sure he thinks it’s just one big barrel a happy horse apples, just like you do.”

  “Shee-it,” George growled softly, without unsquinting his glare at Royce.

  Royce narrowed his eyes and wondered if George was right. The light in the bar was beginning to take on a yellowish quality.

  Ella came back up the boards with a tall sack wrapped around a bottle. “Seventeen bucks,” she said, placing the package on the counter, and added, “No tax for a man who can discuss higher concepts.”

  Royce added a ten to the ten already on the bar and left.

  After the screen door had clapped shut and Royce’s truck had gotten onto the highway, Herb raised his glass and said, “To the innocent.”

  The other two drank with him.

  FIVE

  By the time he arrived home at a few minutes after four, Franklin Royce was a confused man. So confused that he snuck up on his wife’s Mercedes in the driveway and allowed the pickup’s high front bumper to quietly crush a rear taillight lens, which betrayed what he really thought of that car of hers. He had resented paying for it, not because a Mercedes was what she wanted, but because he couldn’t afford it. But she said a doctor’s wife should have a Mercedes, simple as that. Never mind that they’d had to drive five hundred miles to find it. Never mind that every time a tumbleweed rolled up under it the thing would catch on fire. Never mind that a tune-up cost almost a thousand dollars and—

  For that matter, never mind that a new taillight lens would cost a hundred and sixteen dollars. That’s right. One hundred sixteen dollars, plus installation.

  After all, it was a Mercedes. Pamela’s Mercedes.

  Goddamn right, Pamela’s Mercedes. He cut the wheel, backed up, cut the wheel the other way, drove forward. The other taillight trickled to the asphalt.

  Two hundred thirty-two dollars. Plus installation.

  He stepped out of the pickup with the bottle of whiskey and slammed the door. After a couple of steps he stopped, turned around, opened the door of the pickup and stashed the bottle behind the seat. There was still quite a bit of whiskey left in it, judging by its weight, and he could always use a bottle in the truck. Medical reasons. Sheeeit, he slammed the door. He turned 360 degrees and opened it again. He found the old Gladstone bag on the floorboard and pulled it out. Then he turned toward the house, but something kept him from moving.

  All the lights were out. Pamela had long since finished watching Johnny Carson and gone to sleep. She could have left the porch light on for him.

  That’ll be the day.

  It was always like this, now. Coming home had long since been bad. But lately the actual idea of going home stuck in his craw like a fishbone.

  He heard crickets all around him, and particularly one loud one, which must have been in the weeds in front of him, next to the little sidewalk that led from the driveway to the house. The little sucker was really going at it. He remembered that the frequency of a cricket’s whirring was supposed to correspond directly to its ambient temperature. The hotter the temperature around it, the faster the cricket whirred. If it gets hot enough, the crickets explode. That’s why there’s no crickets in Saudi Arabia. Yarggh.

  He suddenly became aware of the immense Texas night. He leaned back and saw the millions upon millions of stars above him and almost fell over. He swayed and took a step forward. The cricket next to the walk stopped whirring abruptly. He took a step backward. Apparently the cricket was not to be fooled so easily. He backed up to the truck. Still no sound.

  “All right,” Royce said aloud. He placed the Gladstone bag in the bed of the truck and opened the door. He retrieved the fifth of whiskey and screwed off the cap.

  “I got time,” he said softly, and took a drink. It was good whiskey, very smooth. Made for sipping, they said, and in fact he hadn’t had very much. But there was a lot more than whiskey tampering with his equilibrium, more than whiskey and Pamela, even.

  Again he looked at the sky. There were a lot of stars up there.

  A lot of people down here.

  One less, tonight.

  As he watched the stars he became aware that one of them was moving. A shooting star? The tiny light cut a straight, rapid path through all the others around it. A satellite. Man-made. He watched it go until it disappeared beyond the nebulous aura of light above Houston, far to the east.

/>   When Frank Royce was a child, there had been no artificial satellites in the sky, and damn few airplanes. Except for occasional celestial events like a meteor shower, the heavens had remained relatively still. Comfortingly still, in retrospect.

  He remembered a gypsy legend. Gypsy children were told not to point out shooting stars but to watch them silently, because each one represented the soul of a fleeing thief. If you pointed out a shooting star, a thief would be caught. So, what if you pointed out a satellite? Who would get caught? A crooked politician?

  Interesting legend. It meant the gypsies sided with the thieves, whoever they were. Thieves were good guys. Thieves were . . . innocent? No, not innocent. Just … good guys. No. One of us? Yes. Good? Innocent? Not necessarily. Just one of us.

  For some reason, he felt like crying. He sighed heavily, leaned against the pickup, drank whiskey and watched the stars.

  Royce hadn’t heard the cricket when it started up again. When he noticed it whirring, he took up the Gladstone bag and started toward the house. The cricket ignored him.

  Aha, thought Royce, he’s not pointing me out; he’s decided I’m one of us; I’m a cricket. Maybe I won’t get caught tonight. Every time I come here I gotta start from the ground up.

  He’d just gotten inside the door and turned on the hall light when a drinking glass or bottle shattered against the wall next to his face. Bits of glass ticked against his damp shirt and fell on the Gladstone bag at his feet.

  Royce paused with his hand on the light switch and took a deep breath. Then he closed the door and turned to face his wife.

  He could make out Pamela’s form in the darkness, leaning against the jamb of the door that led into the kitchen.

  “You’re still up,” he said quietly.

  “No thanks to you,” she said.

  “Look—” he began.

  “I can see,” she drawled.

  He looked at the bottle in one hand and the bag in the other. “Been a rough night, Pam.”

  “It’s morning, Royce. Four-thirty o’clock in the morning.”

  He said nothing.

  “Been practicing medicine?” she said archly.

  “Not hardly,” he said.