Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [291]
So he went to La Costa with square-edged economic concerns banging around like bricks in his head and wasn't there a day before on Friday, the 26th, in the evening, he got a phone call from Moody. "We think we can get you in to see Gary tomorrow afternoon," said the lawyer. "If there's ever going to be a chance, now's the time."
Geebs, you wouldn't believe the volume of mail I'm getting. 30 to 40 letters a day. A lot of young chicks, fifteen, sixteen, but of course I always was a handsome little devil. And you wouldn't believe how many Christians and religious fanatics there are in this world, l received so many bibles I could open a church-need a bible? One man wrote and said, if he could trade places with me he'd do it. l think I'll write him back and say, "Brother, they will be there to pick you up bright and early Monday morning." I'll bet they'd have a hard time finding his ass.
Hey, I'm allowed to invite five witnesses to my execution, Would like to invite you so I can tell you goodbye in person. Let me know . . .
Gibbs thought: That has got to be a first. I have been invited to Weddings, Birthdays, and Graduations, but I never heard of being invited to an execution.
He wrote back: "If you want me there, I'll be there."
Moody and Stanger were preparing the way for Schiller. To the authorities at the prison, they explained that they were dealing in technical matters out of their own ball field. Tax planning had to be done on Gary's potential earnings from his life story, and incorporated into a will, which made for many complicated factors in the contract.
They were bringing a man named Schiller from California to discuss this with Gary. "He's going in as your consultant?" Moody and Stanger were asked. "Yes," they said, "our consultant." They were telling the truth. Just couching it carefully.
Schiller flew to Salt Lake and drove out to Point of the Mountain early Saturday afternoon. He was full of adrenalin, and scared of blowing it.
The guard picked up a phone and was on it for ten minutes before he let Larry in. To his astonishment, Schiller did no more than pass through two sets of sliding barred doors and there on the other side, not twenty feet down the hallway, in a locked room on the right, was Gilmore looking out a small window. Across the hall, on the other side, in a room with an open door, were Vern and Moody and Stanger, all grinning at him. Now, he could see that Gilmore was smiling, too. They had brought it off.
Vern made the introductions, and Larry sat down with his overcoat on, in the chair Vern had been using, and let the door stay open.
He looked across the ten-foot width of the hall to the room where Gary stood behind a small window, and their eyes locked. Schiller recognized immediately that this man loved to stare into your head.
You had to talk as if he were the only force that existed.
Schiller didn't mind such contests. He always felt a subtle advantage.
He had vision only in one eye. The other person would stare into a flatness of expression in the other eye and wear himself out.
Gilmore, however, had positioned himself behind the small window in such a way that if Schiller leaned to the left, he, in his turn, could also lean to the left and thereby keep the window frame in the same relation to both of them. It was as if he were looking through a pair of sights. Being farther away from the glass, Schiller began to have the feeling that he was in the prison, while Gilmore was outside and free and peering in.
Anyway, Schiller started his rap. He said, in a formal tone, "You obviously know the reason I'm here," indicating