Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [113]
Outside, people kept rushing up to the office window. Kids would come tearing along, look in, take off. At one point, a crowd got to gather in front of the picture window of the office, and stood there looking at paramedics pounding away on the chest of Benny Bushnell. He was on a stretcher in front of the counter now. Ida had one nightmarish glimpse of the gore. The office looked like a slaughterhouse.
Paramedics kept running back and forth between the office and the ambulance. They wouldn't let Chris and David Caffee inside. Chris still felt half unconscious. When the phone rang, she and David had been asleep, and woke up to hear the sound of Debbie screaming, "Ben's been shot." Chris had said out of her sleep, "You know, this isn't a real good joke for late at night. This isn't funny." Half asleep, after being completely asleep, nothing made sense. They had rummaged around the house trying to find what to wear, then rushed over to the motel. Hours later, she would notice they put things on so fast, David's zipper was still down.
Chris worked her way to the front door of the motel and yelled, "Debbie, I'm here." She could see that Debbie, whose head barely came over the top of the counter, had heard her voice, for she left the office to go back into her apartment, then emerged from the private door. Debbie had little Benjamin wrapped in a blanket and was carrying a large plastic bag of diapers. Debbie now threw the baby on her. Just dumped him over. Like he wasn't real. Debbie wasn't screaming, but she looked weird.
Debbie said, "Ben's been shot in the head, and I think he's going to die." Chris said, "Oh, no, Debbie. Remember when my mom fell down the steps in D.C. and cracked her head open? Her head bled a lot but she's all right now. Ben'll be just fine." She didn't know what to say. How many times did somebody get shot in the head? She really didn't know what it meant.
Debbie went back in the house, and David looked at Chris and said, "If he's been shot in the head, he's already gone."
About this time, Chris began to notice that the baby was acting very odd. Benjamin usually recognized her. Chris had worked so often with Debbie in the day-care center that little Benjamin had seen Chris nearly every day of his early life. He was usually very lively and perky with her. Now Benjamin lay there like he was dead.
His eyes were completely still. Just flopped in her arms and didn't move.
4
Vern had known Bushnell slightly. They would chat while Vern sprinkled his lawn and Bushnell watered the motel flowers. One evening a pile of scrap lumber got left in the Damico driveway and had to be brought to Bushnell's attention. He apologized and said he'd get after the carpenters. Next morning the mess was gone. It gave Vern the impression of a conscientious man.
Now, Martin Ontiveros came up to Vern and said, "Gary did it." Vern said, "Gary who?" The kid said, "Gilmore." Vern said, "How do you know Gary did it? Did you see him do it?"
"No," said Martin Ontiveros.
"Then, how do you know I didn't do it?" Vern asked. "You didn't see it happen."
Vern said, "Go tell an officer. If you think it was him, go tell." Ontiveros now said Gary had just been up at the station, and there was blood all over his pants.
Vern thought, "Well, it has to bear looking into." He grabbed a cop who was married to a niece of Ida's, Phil Johnson, and asked him to check. Some talk went back and forth on a police radio. Then Phil came back and said, "It must have been him, Vern."
"Do you think he did it?" asked Ida.
"Yeah, he did it, the stupid shit," said Vern.
Glen Overton, who owned the City Center Motel, had just finished listening to the TV news when Debbie called. He lived in Indian Hills at the other end of Provo and came over fast in his green BMW, running every red light on the way.
When he arrived, the street was in chaos. Nothing but police and spectators jamming the sidewalk and all over the road. There