Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [397]
Justice Brennan had not been contacted. The advice came from Washington that if Athay were to call and express the urgency of the situation, it might have impact. Justice Brennan had shown inclinations favorable to cases like this. So Athay, provided with an unlisted phone number, phoned person-to-person, and a voice came on and said, "This is Justice Brennan speaking." Athay had no more than introduced himself and said, "I'm involved in the Gary Gilmore case," when "Oh, my" he heard on the other end, and a click. He placed the call again. He could swear the same voice came on to say, "I'm sorry, he's out of town." He felt aghast. He knew, yet how could he ever know for certain whether he'd reached Justice Brennan or not?
Athay had now exhausted everything he could do for Dale Pierre.
3
Waiting through Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon was murder. Schiller had a list of questions pinned to the wall next to the telephone. If Gilmore called again, and he wasn't there, Barry could take the call, or if Barry was also out, one of the girls would talk. The questions were ready. You didn't have to hem and haw, or conceal identities. Gary understood they were in a countdown.
All the same, Schiller was depressed. The high ambitions he had had for this interview were by now pretty thoroughly defeated. Mikal had left Utah, and with him had gone Schiller's best chance to get a few last-minute insights to Gary. He felt as if he had lost contact.
Who could believe Gary would have gotten so angry about Moyers?
When Mikal threatened to be a major obstacle to the execution, Gary must have set out to neutralize him. Became the big brother Mikal had never seen. The role had gotten too good. Gary was carrying on as if Schiller had really violated him. After all, belief in your own role was crucial to a hustle. But Schiller felt it was a steep price to pay..
Moody telephoned from the prison, "You're going to get a call from the Warden." he told Schiller. "You are going to see the execution."
Though the news had been in the papers, he had not yet received official word. So he was worried. If Sam Smith refused him at the gate, there would have to be last-minute legal maneuvers. The statutes might be all on his side, but such a situation would still be horrendous with tension.
In five minutes, the phone rang again. Deputy Warden Hatch was saying, "Warden Smith has asked me to advise you to appear tomorrow morning at six AM. at the prison gate with no cameras and no recording devices, if you wish to witness the execution of Gary Mark Gilmore." Schiller said, "Thank you. Will you please deliver this message to the Warden. The statement I made to Gus Sorensen is correct. I do not intend to violate any rules and regulations that he has set up. Please assure him that I will conduct myself in the manner in which he would want me to conduct myself."
In that last phone call with Moody, he had been told that Gary wanted liquor brought in, and they had discussed how to do it.
Schiller told Debbie to go to the Pharmacy and buy a couple of curved bottles. "If the pharmacy doesn't have them for sale," he told her, "just buy cough syrup, and pour it out."
Debbie wanted to know why the bottles had to be curved. He had to explain they were like a hip flask, and made less of a bulge under your coat. Then he decided the amount would be insufficient, so he sent Tamera over to Western Airlines to purchase, if she could, some 1 1/2-ounce bottles of the sort they served on airplanes. In Utah, however, Western wouldn't go near liquor on Sunday. He called the Hilton and found out they didn't sell or serve until late that day. Finally, he heard of one Salt Lake bar where individual-drink bottles were sold, so he had Tamera call the Deseret News to send somebody over. Schiller figured they'd call a high-level meeting about it.
Meanwhile, Tamera had come to feel sentimental about getting this liquor to Gary. Of course, by now, everybody was liking him.
Even the people that didn't like him, liked him.
Schiller could smell it in the air. Everybody