Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [313]
Arrangements were made instead with Senator Gam's office.
Law clerks started shuttling pages down to his office five blocks away, and using his telecopier to get it to Washington. Into the brief, they had thrown everything, including-Barrett was sure he could find it-the kitchen sink, but the main emphasis was that Bessie Gilmore did not have the authority to act on behalf of her son. It was his case, not hers.
Whereas, the other side, sure enough, was arguing that Gary was mentally incompetent, and that gave Mrs. Gilmore the right to step in. It was one heavy issue. It worried Bill Barrett. Since the attempted suicide on November 16, no psychiatrist had assessed Gilmore So there was, at present, no solid base for the condemned man's sanity or lack of it. Between the 7th of December, when they handed it in, and Monday, the 13th, when the Supreme Court was likely to come back with an answer, there would be lots of time for worry.
Still, through these days of waiting, Barrett reread the four-day brief, and felt pretty good about certain sections:
All suicides aren't pathological or an indication of incompetence.
The U.S. Supreme Court in the recent case of Drope vs. Missouri, 420 U.S. 6 (975)noted:
" . . . the empirical relationship between mental illness and suicide is uncertain and a suicide attempt need not always signal 'an inability to perceive reality accurately.' " 40 U.S. at 8.
Mr. Gilmore had sufficient experience of prison life to estimate . . . what it would be like for him to languish in prison. Historical, religious, and existential treatises suggest that for same persons at some times, it is rational not to avoid physical death at all costs.
Indeed the spark of humanity can maximize its essence by choosing an alternative that preserves the greatest dignity and same tranquility of mind.
Chapter 15
FAMILY LAWYERS
Schiller had been going over finances to see what he would require for releases, motel and hotel bills, stenographers, and office equipment, and decided he was going to need another $60,000 above ABC's contribution. There was only one way to raise that. Acquire Gary's letters to Nicole and sell them.
The ethics, however, as far as Schiller was concerned, were a trade-off. After all, he had trusted Gilmore. He had turned over a $52,000 check in one shot, a dramatic way of showing that he would not dole out the money. Schiller had his reasons. He didn't want everybody to keep thinking of David Susskind. Once Gary's lawyers could call the bank and know the check was good, they would be ready to see Larry Schiller as a big businessman, not a small one. This was his sensible motive. He also had what he called his romantic motive.
Romanticism, after all, turned him on, songs like "The Impossible Dream," and the lyrics of Oklahoma and Carousel, "The Sound of Music" with the Alps in the background. So he wanted to show that he wasn't trying to out-con a con, but instead was delivering his best thing, was saying, "I'm smart enough not to try to feed you a hundred dollars a week. I don't want to put your mind onto thinking how to outfox me. I want to deal with you, the man. The money is only mechanics. Here it is, up front. You can rip me off now, but you won't because I trust you. A nice businessman in an office will cheat me faster than you."
That was Schiller's unvoiced address to Gary Gilmore. He said it in his head several times a day. He knew it was a logic Gilmore could recognize.
On his side, Gilmore was certainly being unreasonable about the letters. They were intrinsic to the transaction, and as far as Schiller was concerned, part of his capital. So he felt no compunction about acquiring them however he could. At the end of the first week in December he went over to see Moody and Stanger, and explained what he wanted.
They replied that they did not know how to obtain them.
Now, Larry lost his temper with the lawyers