Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [304]
GILMORE Well, I imagine that the guy would do a pretty good job anywhere. He knows how to talk to anybody. What time we do it?
MOODY Beginning at nine.
GILMORE I hope it ain't any later than that. Man, I get tired and like I wake up at five in the morning . . . When you talk to some syndicate like ABC you got to be at your best . . . Does Larry sit in a position that he can give me signals? If he doesn't want me to answer the question, just rub his chin, that's cool.
4
As soon as Earl got back from Judge Snow's court, he started writing another Mandamus. To his pleasure, when he looked up the State law, procedures were the same as for Federal. All he had to do was paper-doll the documents he'd written for Denver and put in new names. He had his secretary type it through lunch hour, and was ready to file appeal by early afternoon.
He went upstairs to the Utah Supreme Court Clerk, and told Chief Justice Henriod that Judge Snow's order might not be ready until late afternoon and so if the Court didn't stay open past five, there would be no way to stop reporters from getting interviews with Gilmore tonight. It was not normal procedure, but Judge Henriod indicated he'd keep things going. Dorius said, "I'll run from Judge Snow's Court as fast as I can."
He did. But first he was obliged to go over a few other hurdles.
Judge Snow's proposed order had been drafted by the news media lawyers and while Earl was arguing over a couple of their points, the Court Clerk handed him a note. Damn if the Tenth Circuit wasn't going to hear the Writ of Mandamus against Ritter tomorrow afternoon. Earl would have to make an appearance in Denver just when everything would be argued here.
On top of that, comes 4 P.M. Judge Snow decided to move the proceedings over to a big media room where he could broadcast his decision. That began to use up the clock. Finally, Dorius said to himself, "The Judge has signed the order, whether he had handed it out or not." He told an assistant to grab a signed copy as soon as he could, and Earl sprinted up the Hill to Utah Supreme Court.
Three Justices were sitting and they read his document, and granted a temporary Stay for this evening. The Mandamus, they said, could be argued tomorrow. That would stop TV from interviewing Gilmore tonight.
The corridors of the floor of the State Capitol Building were beginning to look like a political convention. Nothing but microphones, marble walls, TV lights. Earl gave a couple of interviews, then rushed downstairs to the Attorney General's office to start educating a couple of his fellow attorneys into what had to be done in Utah Supreme Court tomorrow. He had been handling all this material up to now.
That evening, at home, Dorius reminded himself that Gilmore's execution was probably only four days off. The sixth of December. If they could just keep the press out another four more days, the prison would be able to make its point. Reporters didn't go barging into a bank president's office to say, "Tell us what you know." But they couldn't comprehend that a Warden might have the same interest in decorum.
Sam Smith called right on these thoughts to say that he appreciated the work Earl had done with force-feeding, but was going to wait awhile. Gilmore, at the moment, seemed in no danger of dying. In fact, fasting made him more feisty. He was throwing back his food trays at the guards. It was reassuring, therefore, Sam Smith said, to know they could force-feed if and when they had to. Wasn't a pleasant prospect to execute a man who hadn't had a meal in two weeks.
Earl went to sleep thinking that he would have to argue tomorrow against Donald Holbrook. The lawyer was a close friend of Earl's family, and had even bought his parents' house. He supposed that if there was any individual he idolized in his profession, it was Holbrook, who had a tremendous reputation in Salt Lake. Earl hoped he'd be worthy of the confrontation.
Next morning Earl got a phone call from his office. The largest kind of news. The United States Supreme Court had just put