Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [355]
INTERVIEWER When did that concept form in your mind? To kill somebody—
GILMORE I can't say. It had been building all week. That night I knew I had to open a valve and let something out and I didn't know exactly what it would be and I wasn't thinking I'll do this or I'll do that, or that'll make me feel better. I just knew something was happening in me and that I'd let some of the steam off and, uh, I guess all this sounds pretty vicious.
INTERVIEWER No. No. Did Jensen say anything to annoy you?
GILMORE No, not at all.
INTERVIEWER What prompted you to leave the truck and go into the office where Jensen was?
GILMORE I don't really know.
INTERVIEWER What do you mean by that?
GILMORE I mean, I don't really know. I said the place looked deserted. It just seemed appropriate.
INTERVIEWER Apparently, killing Jensen didn't do anything to take the pressure off. Why did you go out the next night and kill Bushnell?
GILMORE I don't know, man. I'm impulsive. I don't think.
INTERVIEWER You killed him the same way you'd killed Jensen the night before-ordering him to lie down on the floor, then firing point-blank into his head. Did you think killing Bushnell would give you some kind of relief you didn't get with Jensen?
GILMORE I told you, I wasn't thinking. What I do remember is an absence of thought. Just movements, actions. I shot Bushnell, and then the gun jammed-them fucking Automatics! And I thought, man, this guy's not dead. I wanted to shoot him a second time, cause I didn't want him to lie there half dead. I didn't want him in pain. I tried to jack the mechanism and get the gun working and shoot him again, but it was jammed, and I had to get my ass out of there. I jacked the gun into shape again but too late to do anything for Mr. Bushnell. I'm afraid he didn't die immediately. When I ordered him to lie down, I wanted it to be quick for him. There was no chance, no choice for him. That sounds cold. But you asked.
INTERVIEWER Was there any difference in the way you approached the two killings?
GILMORE No, not really. You could say it was a little more certain that Mr. Bushnell was going to die.
INTERVIEWER Why?
GILMORE Because it was already a fact that Mr. Jensen had died and so the next one was more certain.
ITERVIEWER Was the second killing easier than the first?
GILMORE Neither one of 'em were hard or easy.
INTERVIEWER Had you ever had any dealings of any kind with either of those men?
GILMORE No.
INTERVIEWER Well, what led you to the City Center Motel, where Bushnell worked? We're just trying to understand the quality of this rage you speak of. It wasn't a rage that might have been vented in sex?
GILMORE I don't want to mess with questions that pertain to sex. I think they're cheap.
INTERVIEWER But if, on the night you killed Bushnell, you had wound up with a friendly girl who could offer you beer and company and a relaxing time, wouldn't that have helped you feel better?
GILMORE I don't want to answer that question.
INTERVIEWER You seem to find it easier talking about murder than sex.
GILMORE That's your judgment.
Good stuff, thought Farrell. A good beginning.
All through Christmas week, however, there was a pall. No more interviews of merit. Farrell began to wonder if he had scared Gilmore off. Or was Gary disabled from the holidays? Looking over his bitter responses about Christmas in prison, it was not hard to read between the lines: my last New Year's on earth.
Barry also began to worry that the lawyers might be the cause.
Day after day, in that last week of the year, they went out and bantered with Gary, skipped around key points, ignored any reasonable follow-up to good responses, and read Farrell's more elaborate questions as if they were too literary for real men to get their mouth around.
Barry would call up Stanger's office and, with great difficulty, dictate new questions. A day or two later, the tape would come back so empty of content that Farrell would wonder whether the lawyers wanted to show they could not only produce, but hold back. He figured they must