Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [399]
Of course, next day, the stories would be vindictive, but then the press had been rough on the State of Utah all the way. At least, the execution would take place without a mob scene in the dawn and everybody trying to get into the prison grounds at once. Now the scene would take place at six o'clock the night before, and the antagonism of the press might even wear out by morning. Drinking all night, they would be stupefied at dawn. By the time Gilmore was transferred from Maximum to the cannery, these reporters would be so happy to come in from the cold, they would probably wait grumbling in whichever room they were penned. This plan, they believed, had to come from Washington. Somebody in the FBI, Department of Justice, at least.
When Schiller went through the outside gate, they only asked, "Who are you?" "Larry Schiller." "Who with?" "Time magazine." They gave him the go-ahead. He started down the hill to the parking area but the guard standing there was Lieutenant Bernhardt, who had let Schiller in that first time close to two months ago when he had said he was an estate consultant. Now, Schiller drove by, looking straight ahead, but out of his rear-view mirror, he could see Bernhardt getting into a vehicle to chase after. So, Schiller stopped and got out. Bernhardt came up saying, "Get the hell out of here. You're not supposed to be in until six-thirty in the morning." Bernhardt even started screaming, which called attention to Schiller, last thing he wanted.
Bernhardt got on the radio and called someone. Then he said, "All right, you're in. But you're staying until six the fuck in the morning. Just remember that. You're not getting to see Gilmore." He shouted it all out in front of any number of the press. Whatever small cover Schiller might have had, was blown. He was going to be waylaid for the next few hours by microphones.
Later, Tamera slipped him the mini-bottles she had picked up at the gate from Cardell. Reporters milled around, talking and stamping their feet. Soon, everybody was back in their vans. Six o'clock came, and that was it. They were locked in. The long winter night came down off Point of the Mountain, passed over the parking lot and the prison, and chased the last of the evening pale across the desert.
PART SIX
Into the Light
Chapter 31
AN EVENING OF DANCING AND LIGHT REFRESHMENT
Julie Jacoby went out early to the vigil, and with her in the first car was Reverend John Adams who was an old hand at demonstrations and wanted to speak to the Salt Lake County Sheriff about protection for the vigilants.
Only trouble is they were not let inside the grounds. The State Police steered them over to an access road. After a while, they learned that very few reporters were available to cover them. It got dark, it got cold, but they conducted a religious service.
Forty or fifty people had turned out, and they read a litany by the illumination provided by a television crew who were kind enough to tilt their lights until the group making the responses could see the print.
At John Adams's suggestion, Julie had scoured her house for heavy clothing and brought it along for people who might show without enough protection. Then the minister borrowed her Subaru and kept ferrying new vigilants out from the Howard Johnson Motel in Salt Lake, a rendezvous point. Through the night he brought people back and forth.
2
At five in the afternoon when Toni went in to visit with Gary, the press already collected in the parking lot crowded around her at the gate leading to Maximum. It would be a lot worse when she came out. More press. Walking down that corridor between the wire fences over the snow with the wind coming in off the mountain, Toni was thinking of the first time she'd gone to see Gary at the prison, two days before his birthday. She hadn't known then whether she was ready to forgive him or never would but after seeing how tickled he was at her visit, she asked what