Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [365]
That morning, January 10, Shirley and some of the attorneys were discussing final legal operations and when she stepped out of the conference room into the hall, she was almost knocked down by press people. Didn't even have a statement. The conference had been called to determine which group could do what, but the lawyers hadn't come to any conclusions. Shirley started to say, "I have nothing to say," and dropped her papers. The haste with which she stooped to pick them up got some of the press laughing, as if she was trying to conceal dark deeds. Shirley couldn't get over how the media thought the ACLU was the center of a lot of legal action coming up.
In fact, they had about decided there were good reasons for the ACLU to stay out. In the Utah community they were seen as such a radical group, that they hurt a cause by coming in.
So, it was one glum conference. They felt they had no real standing. Their best hope was with Richard Giauque who had informed them that Mikal Gilmore was arriving in Salt Lake tomorrow. If Giauque could bring in a suit by the brother, or Gil Athay come in with one for the hi-fi killers, then the ACLU could enter as Friends of the Court. But the only real shot they could fire on their own was a taxpayers' suit. That was on the shakiest ground. They had such slim pickings that the best idea proposed this morning was for somebody to go out to the hospital and try to see Nicole. Maybe she could get Gary to change his mind about dying. Dabney said he would give Stanger a ring.
STANGER Jinks said, "How much influence does Nicole have over Gary?" I said, "Why, what are you talking about?" He said, "Well, we were thinking that possibly we could get her to try to talk Gary into fighting."
GILMORE They're clutching at straws, aren't they?
Schiller decided it was time to set up an office in Utah for the big Push. Told his secretary in L.A. to call some agencies and hire a couple of hard workers to type the transcripts. Single girls who could make the move to Provo and be able to work twenty hours a day, if necessary. Keep their mouths shut. Under the circumstances, Schiller wasn't about to look for local Provo talent. He arranged to have phones put in at the Orem TraveLodge and began making as many as two trips a day between Salt Lake and Los Angeles. With better than a week to go, the new hired girls, Debbie and Lucinda, came to Utah, and set up his office in the motel. First thing he told Debbie was, "I want the night phone numbers of two Xerox repairmen."
When she said, "Can't we always get a repairman?" he told her, "Debbie, I may need a guy at three in the morning. Get that number. Give him a twenty-dollar bill. If he goes out to dinner, I want to know. I want him to call us. That's the way it has to operate."
Wanted to break her in right.
In the meantime, he was making plans to sneak a tape into the execution. It had to be small enough to fit inside a pack of cigarettes. He didn't know whether he'd use it or not, but had to have the tool. Psychologically, he told himself, he would spend thousands for things he might never use, just to feel secure.
Of course, he wasn't really spending thousands. Schiller made a deal with a private investigator in Las Vegas who would sell him this minuscule tape recorder for $1,500 and buy it back for $1,300. Schiller would have to advance the entire amount up front and there'd be the cost of airfare to Vegas and back. Even so, he'd have an extra implement that might prove crucial for no more than few hundred dollars.
All the same, he was getting in deep, but deep. The last week was shaping up, no question about it, as an $11,000 week. Off-duty policemen had to be hired as guards. He wanted Vern's home protected for the last three or four days, and talked Kathryne Baker into moving out of her house with her kids. Then he set up his office in the motel practically like a fortress. Was obliged