Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [116]
Johnny needed a pencil to write down the address that Gary was giving him, so he handed the phone to Brenda. She got herself together and said, "How are you doing, Gary?"
He told some story about a man robbing a store and there he was getting shot in the attempt to prevent it. It was a shitty story and he was a shitty liar. He really was.
"Will you come to me?" Gary asked.
"Yeah," she said, "I'll come to you. I've got some codeine and I've got bandages. Where are you?" He gave the address. She said it out loud for Johnny to write down. Toby Bath and Jay Barker stood there in their uniforms and also wrote it down.
It hardly improved matters that Gary was at Craig Taylor's. Craig had a wife and two children. Brenda could see the shootout. But as soon as she hung up, the cops proposed that Johnny go in his truck. They would hide in the back.
If Gary discovered he had brought the cops with him, everybody was going to get wasted. Johnny found himself lighting one cigarette right after putting the previous one, just lit, in the ashtray, and he said, "I don't want to go over." It was about as good a fear as Johnny ever felt. On reconsideration, the police agreed it was too risky.
Brenda said, "I'll go. I don't think Gary will hurt me. Just let me take care of his hand."
Johnny said, "You're not going."
The cops said no. Flat-out.
Brenda didn't know if she were relieved or miserable.
Johnny went down to Orem Police Headquarters with Toby Bath and Jay Barker to see what the plans might be. Meantime, the Orem Police Chief called Brenda and said, "Stall Gilmore as much as you can. We need time." They agreed that Brenda would communicate with the police through her CB, and so be able to keep her telephone line open for Gary.
Before long, Craig was calling again. He said, "Hey, Gary's getting kind of nervous. How long has Johnny been gone?"
"Tell Gary," Brenda said, "that as usual, Johnny's out of gas again." This might pacify him for a few minutes. Johnny was famous as the family character who always delayed everybody while he got gas. On the street outside her house, police cars were screaming around the corners.
Craig called again. Brenda told him she hadn't heard from Johnny but he'd probably gotten lost. People who lived in Orem, she explained, only had to deal with a checkerboard arrangement for their streets and that was easy. It got them spoiled. They didn't know what to do with the weirdly curved roads in Pleasant Grove where Fourth North didn't mind getting its ass skewed around Third South.
She called the police to tell them that Gary was getting impatient. Brenda felt like a traitor. Gary's trust was the weapon she was using to nail him. It was true she wanted to nail him, she told herself, but she didn't want, well, she didn't want to have to betray him to do it.
Craig had gone outside to be with Gary. They sat out in the dark on the bungalow porch. Having been asleep, Craig didn't know about any killings this night. He was still worrying over last night's, but didn't feel ready to ask Gary outright. Did say, "Gary, if I knew you had anything to do with that fellow Jensen's murder, I'd turn you in right now."
Gary said, "I swear to God I didn't shoot the guy." Looked him straight in the eye. He had a powerful knack of staring right into you. Again, Gary asked him to call. Craig went inside, picked up the phone, talked to Brenda once more. She was nervous. Craig could more or less sense she had called the police. She didn't say anything such to Craig, she just asked if he and his family were all right, and if Gary was being decent, and Craig said, "We're all right. He's fine."
He went back to the porch.
Gary said he had friends in Washington State, and he believed he would go underground. He mentioned Patty Hearst. Said he could connect with her old network. Craig didn't know if Gary really knew her, or was bragging. Craig asked once more if he wanted to go to the hospital. Gary said he was an ex-con, and the hospital wouldn't understand.