The Executioner's Song (119 page)

This Sunday, however, was different. It was, of all coincidences, her own birthday, and Howard’s family was coming for supper. So all the while that Toni had been planning her visit to the prison on this: last evening, she also had been cooking the meal for the evenin party, and worrying how she could visit Gary early enough so she could get back by seven for Howard’s folks.

It was ten of six before they even let her into the visiting

and then she had to wait twenty minutes with the other guests. When they opened the door for Gary, he saw her first and put arms around her and gave a hug as if he were cracking all the ice winter with one squeeze, held her so hard and long, she didn’t he would ever let go. Her mother was right with her, and said, “Now; it’s my turn.” So Gary released Toni with one arm, and hugged but he never let go completely. In fact as soon as Ida stepped he lifted Toni till her feet came offdae floor, and gave her kiss on the lips. He was still holding her fifteen minutes later she absolutely had to leave.

Gary said then, “You are coming back, aren’t you?” That was first Toni considered it. It was the look in his eyes. “Go home,” said, “and take care of your family, then come back.” But it was to be complicated. Not to mention her in-laws, this was also the tary day Toni would have with Howard all week. He was working a construction job in southern Utah and only got home on

Before she could say yes or no, Gary gave her another big day kiss. Then Moody and Stanger took her mother and herself along the corridor through the wire fences and the crowd

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now massive. Toni knew why they called them the press. They almost squeezed her to death. But that was no more weird than leaving this prison to go back to her birthday party.

Sunday had started for Bob Moody at six in the morning with a High Council meeting. That lasted until eight. At nine-thirty, he went to Priesthood meeting, came back to take his family to church, went out to the prison, and came back to pick up his family when Sunday School concluded at i P.M. Then, all of the Moody family went home to dinner. By 4 P.M. Ron Stanger and he were ready to drive to the prison.

In the parking lot were Vern and .Ida, then Toni,,and two middle-aged cousins of Gary’s named Evelyn and Dick Gray. All of them, together with Father Meersman, were taken over to Maximum Security, and Lieutenant Fagan was cordial on this night and showed the facilities. The prisoners had been fed early, and the gates between the visiting room and the main dining room for Maximum Security were open so that they could pass back and forth between the two rooms during the evening. A considerable space altogether. Perhap so much as a hundred feet of movement in the longest direction, half of that the other way, plus a couple of smaller extra rooms adjacent for more private conversations. Lieutenant Fagan’s office was open, and the kitchen, and the booth with the glass window where formerly they talked with Gary.

All this was at the front of Maximum Security just back of the two sliding gates that separated them from the exterior. At the rear of the visiting room, also barred by a gate, was the long hallway through Maximum off which were set the various cell rows. Moody had never been back there, and was not familiar with the area, so much as respectful of it. It was like the hallway that led to the cellar stairs in a large oppressive old house. Just as you imagined you could hear groans in those old cellars, so from the cell blocks Came cries and shouts and moans and slamming sounds clear up to the visiting room, but muted, as if under the rock.

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Since they planned to be there through the night and wanted to save their good clothes for morning, Moody and Stanger had come with a change. They had also brought crackers and soft drinks which proved unnecessary, for the prison offered light refreshments all evening. Tang and Kool-Aid and cookies and coffee. Then, Father Meersman procured a TV set and plugged it in. Somebody had managed to bring a portable stereo with a few records, and what with the three or four guards circulating through the kitchen and dining room and visiting room, and, at various times, Father Meersman and Cline Campbell and the two lawyers and the cousins and Vern and Toni and Ida, it was almost enough people for a party. Not to mention the guard on duty all through the night in the bulletproof glass-enclosed booth that overlooked the visiting room.

Every couple of hours somebody would come from the pharmacy with medication. As the evening went on, Bob Moody came to recognize they were giving Gary some kind of speed. Doubtless, the pharmacists saw it as a blessing and kept it coming, and in the early hours of the evening, Gary did keep getting happier and happier. In the beginning, he was so delighted to see Toni, and held her for so long, and kissed her with such cousinly gusto, that Bob and Ron and Vern and the others just sat back and waited, didn’t want to interrupt when Gary was so obviously delighting in her visit. Besides, there were chores to accomplish. The guards had brought in a couple of cots with mattresses, and provisions were being laid out for the evening, and then Toni was hardly there very long before Ron and Bob had to take her down between the barbed-wire fences into the swarm ,of press. It was practically an operation. Until they got her into the track, it felt like their eyes were being seared with strobe lights and their souls with the general mania. For they were magical to the press tonight. They had seen the man and could report on him.

They kept saying “No comment,” and looked for Schiller, and talked enough to keep the media close up with their microphones and tape recorders. That gave Veto time to slip around and have a talk with Larry.

Moody and Stanger might have been temporarily satisfying

majority of these reporters, but there was a great deal of press, and

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Larry and Vern also became the center of a swarm. In the squeeze, Veto could only whisper, “Have you got the liquor?” and Schiller said, “Yeah.” “How,” whispered Vern, “am I going to get it in?” “Put the little bottles under your armpits,” said Larry, “and keep your elbows close.” “Fine,” said Vern, “but how do I get it under my coat?” The press was surrounding them as tightly as a crowd packed around two players of the winning team caught on the field after the game.

Schiller turned and shouted, “Can’t you let this man have a little privacy? You’re hounding him. Get back.” Physically he pushed on the press a little, not laying on rough hands so much as using the mixture of pressure and slight hysteria that worked best with reporters, “Give him a little privacy,” he repeated. They retreated two feet, maybe three, room enough for Vern to do something with the liquor. By the time Larry turned around, Vern was ready to go back to the glare of the lights in the visiting room with the record player going and the TV set, and Gilmore beginning to spend his last night on earth.

The little bottles went fast. Gary would dip into a back room and take a nip, then come out with a wink. Moody thought it was appropriate. If that was what the man wanted, then he ought to be able to enjoy a drink. It had been years since Moody had tasted alcohol, but this was a social event. If some corner of Moody’s mind could hear the criticism that Gilmore was going to meet his maker in the morning, and that might be wiser on a sober head, still Moody thought, this is more Like a last meal. If he wants to go out drunk, he has a right. He thought of how Gary had deliberately not requested his six-pack of Coors at the end because he did not want the world to think he would be unable to face it without something to help him. But now, the speed was coming in, and the booze.

Yet, at the sight of Gary’s pleasure, and the way he enjoyed the feeling of slight intoxication, for he didn’t get very drunk, it began as a nice evening. Gary even took one of the guards into one of the back offices and gave him liquor from the curved medicine bottles Schiller had also sent in.

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Bob, himself, loved the idea that he was able to go up to Gary, shake hands with him, hold him, look at him for a second, face to face-it was unexpected how great a need had developed to do something as simple as that after all these weeks. In fact, this was the first face-to-face meeting without urgent business to discuss. So, it was a pleasure to see Gary become loose and grow to enjoy the night.

It was easy and it was relaxed. During the course of the hours, Ron or he would get up and walk out and get a soft drink in the kitchen, and Evelyn and Dick Gray would go back and forth, and Vern. There was not any terrible feeling Of a clock or any sense that outside the prison, lawyers might be preparing to seek a Stay.

Early that evening when they first came into the room and Gary was there without a pane of glass between, actually able to go up and touch, Stanger greeted him warmly, shook hands, put his arm around his shoulder in kind of a semihug, a masculine hit on the shoulder. It was kind of a victory, if you will, thought Stanger, that they were together. He stayed in that sense of glow.

A little later, while the evening was still pleasant, Ron started talking about his boxing experience on the team at BYU, and Gary mentioned that he knew a little about it. They got up, and started sparring. Ron had assumed it would be a matter of throwing a mock punch or two, but Gary wanted to make it more of a contest. While he couldn’t really box, he was a street fighter, and threw a lot of punches. Ron kept stepping aside to avoid getting hit, but, of course, that wasn’t the purpose of the whole thing. Only Gilmore kind of got this glint. The harder he hit, the more there was to enjoy. Gary sure had his little mean streak.. Hit with fists closed, Ron had to catch it on his shoulders and hands. At one point, like it was still in fun, Gary analyzed his own style, said, “I don’t lead, I’m a counterpuncher,” and threw a lead. Ron slipped it, turned his shoulder into Gary to tie him up, then bailed out and walked away. Gary kept pursuing. It

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wasn’t like normal sparring where you go in, tap a man, then with draw to show how you could have hit the guy hard. Gary was throw ing one real bomb after another. A couple almost clobbered Ron good. Of course, for the first twenty or thirty seconds, Ron was still feeling beautiful. He was faster than Gary. It was just that after a minute, he began to count his age with every breath, and Gary was a couple of inches taller, and had longer reach. Soon, there was the same flavor Stanger would find whenever he walked into Maximum. All these cons worked out with weights, knowing they had bodies. Their pres ence leaned on you psychologically. It was as if their bodies said, “I got more right to be free than you, boy.” So, Ron was glad when he found an opportunity to clinch with Gary, hug him, grin, and indicate it was over.

After the boxing, Gary began to make some phone calls. Ron could hear him on the line with the station that played Country-and- Western, and he kidded them about how bad they were and thanked them for playing “Walking in the Footsteps of Your Mind.” Next, he went into Fagan’s office to make a call to his mother. Of course, Ron didn’t try to listen, but Gary came out all excited because he also was able to get a call in to Johnny Cash. Then he began to move around restlessly as if it bothered him that the record player was going, and there was nobody to dance with. Yet, things were still in a good mood. The boxing had set up a kind of intimacy between Gary and Ron. While ups and downs were beginning to appear in the evening, still, it was okay, and the mood was all right. Like any long night, there had to be peaks and valleys. During one of the lulls, Gary now came over to Ron and said he wanted to tell him something, wanted to be alone with him. They took a bench in a corner of the visiting room, away from the others.

Gary said he had $50,000, and looked Ron right in the eye. His pale gray-blue eyes looked as deep as the sky on one of those odd mornings when you cannot tell by the light of dawn whether good or foul weather lies ahead. “Yes, Ron,” he said, “I’ve got $5o,ooo, or to be exact about it, access to $5o,ooo, and I’ll give it to you. All I want is that the next time you go outside, leave me the keys to your extra clothes.” Those other clothes were in a locker back in one. of the little rooms. “There’s so much hubbub around here,” Gilmore said, “that the guards won’t know. Just leave your key.”

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“What do you have in mind?” Ron asked. Ron couldn’t believe how stupid he was acting, “Well, what, really, Gary, do you have in mind?” he asked again, and then it hit him, and he felt doubly stupid. “Ron,” said Gary, “if I can get through that double gate in your clothes, I’m out. There’s nothing past there but the outside door, and that’s always open. I’ll just skin up the barbed wire and flip over the mils at the top. That wire’ii put a few holes in me, but it’s nothing.” “Then, you drop?” asked Ron. “Yeah,” said Gilmore. “Then you drop, and start running. If I get out there, I’m gone. You leave those clothes, all right?”

Now Ron realized what had been going into those arduous calisthenics Gary had done every day. He forced himself to look back into Gary’s eye, Ron would say that much for himself, and he answered, “Gary, when we started, part of our bargain was no hanky-panky.” Then he made himself say, “I’ve grown very close to you. I’d do anything I could for you. But I’m not going to put my children and my family in jeopardy.” Gary nodded. Acknowledged it all with that nod. Didn’t seem discouraged so much as confirmed.

Ron was remembering that as Toni and Ida left, Gary had gone into a playful little scene where he put on Toni’s hat and Ida’s coat and pretended to get into the double door with them. All very funny at the time. Everybody was laughing, including the novice guard on the gate, a young kid Ron had never seen before, but all that guard would have had to do was, by mistake, open both doors at once. Gary would have been gone. Wow! It came over him. This guy meant what he said. If he had to stay in prison, he wanted to die. But if he could get outside, that was another game.