Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [372]
GILMORE If I talk to Nicole before I'm executed, I'm not going to ask her to do any particular thing, and I may encourage her to go on living and to raise her kids. Uh, I don't want anybody else to be able to have her, though.
MOODY You're really on the horns of a dilemma.
GILMORE Yeah, you might say it's giving me a little pause.
MOODY She has a pretty heavy responsibility to those kids.
GILMORE Aw, no more responsibility than anybody has for their kids. Listen, your kids come through you but they're not really of you. I mean . . . everybody is an individual little soul. Those kids come through her but they are not a part of her.
MOODY Do you think they could get along as well without her as with her?
GILMORE I guess this sounds like a cold-blooded thing, but I'm not really over-concerned about them kids. They're not going to starve to death. (pause) I'm concerned about Nicole and myself.
MOODY Might it be kinder and more loving to instruct her to forget you, get over you, and find a man for herself and her children who would give them a chance for a better life than they've had?
GILMORE Kinder and more loving to who?
MOODY To her and the children.
GILMORE I'm not going to answer that.
Well, a coherent philosophy came no more easily to him than to anyone else.
All this while Schiller was having his own reaction to Farrell. He didn't like the way Barry tended to shape his questions upon conclusions he'd already made. In a way, very Catholic, thought Schiller.
Catholics were supposed to know what they thought. Sometimes the habit carried over from church to a lot of other things. Start with preformed conclusions, and your investigation would move on tracks.
In his own classy way, Barry could be as narrow-minded as an FBI man. He certainly wasn't exploring karma enough. Nor was Schiller certain that Barry had a good sense of Gilmore.
The real friction, however, was that Farrell didn't like to listen to tapes when they came in. For Schiller, that was the creative experience of the day. He'd have an immediate reaction. At such times, he felt he understood Gilmore at a moment-by-moment level. But Barry didn't like to listen. He waited for the tapes to be typed up. That left him a full day behind. Still, Farrell argued, he couldn't work until they were on paper. Then he could underline them and analyze them. Schiller would say, "Don't you hear his voice? Gary is ready to answer questions on this subject now." Barry would reply, "Well, I want to look at the transcript." Of course, their relations never got uncivil, except for that blowout over Jimmy Breslin.
Chapter 26
NOTHING LEFT
In December, after the Supreme Court turned them down, Anthony Amsterdam called Mikal. The decision, he explained, had not said the State of Utah was right and they were wrong. Only that the request to have the case heard immediately was being refused. That was merely a setback. Bessie or Mikal could still file the same argument in a lower Federal Court. The case would go up again.
Mikal, however, replied that Gary had called his mother and asked her not to take any further steps.
Bessie's decision to stay out looked final. Any new action, therefore, would have to be brought, Mikal said, by himself. He also told Amsterdam that he did not know what conclusion he would come to.
Mikal thought he might have to go to Utah to decide. He confessed to Amsterdam that he hated the thought of such a trip,
Mikal ought to recognize, Amsterdam said, that the Damicos wouldn't necessarily want him to visit his brother. Amsterdam said he did not pretend to know Vern Damico, but the uncle and his attorneys could have a financial interest in Gary's death. They would hardly be unaware of the possibility that Mikal could change Gary's mind. They could believe themselves full of human decency and family love, yet still offer