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Instead, he had to listen to Gary talking to Fagan. "Ritter definitely issued a Stay," Gary said to Larry finally. "Says it's illegal to use taxpayers' money to shoot me."

"Yeah," said Schiller softly. There was a long pause and then he declared, "You couldn't define what the roughest torture is. What Ritter just did, is." "Yeah," said Gilmore, "Ritter's a bumbling, fumbling fool. Yeah, yeah," he said, "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Foul cocksuckers. A taxpayers' suit. I'll pay for it myself. I'll buy the bullets, rifles, pay the riflemen. JesusfuckinggoddamnedChrist, man, I want it to be over." He sounded like he was close to crying.

"You have a right for it to be over," said Schiller, "an inalienable right."

"Get ahold of Hansen," said Gilmore.

"Get on the fucking phones, girls," shouted Schiller to Lucinda and Debbie. "Get an attorney in Salt Lake City named Hansen."

Gilmore said, "He's the fucking Attorney General of the State of Utah."

"Attorney General of the State of Utah, okay?" Schiller repeated to the girls.

"Tell him to go to the next highest Judge, and get Ritter's bullshit thrown out."

"Maybe," Schiller thought, "I've seen too many movies myself."

He could hear his voice exhorting Gary to live. It was the kind of pep talk he had heard in many a flick.

"Gary," Schiller was saying, "maybe you're not meant to die. Maybe there's something so phenomenal, so deep, in the depths of your story, that maybe you're not meant to die right now. Maybe there are things left to do. We may not know what they are. Maybe by not dying you may be doing a hell of a lot for the whole fucking world, Maybe the suffering that you're doing now is the way you're giving back those two lives. Maybe you're laying a foundation for the way society and our civilization should proceed in the future. Maybe the punishment you're going through now is a greater punishment than death, and maybe a lot of fucking good's gonna come from it."

Abruptly, he realized he was affecting himself a good deal more than he was moving Gilmore, "Oh, am I going to sound like a schmuck in the transcript," thought Schiller, and aloud he said, "You're not listening to me, are you?"

"What?" said Gary. "Yeah," he said, "I'm listening."

"Let's look at the other side of it," said Schiller, "Let's get through the next hour together. You know they're making you suffer like nobody's suffered."

Gary's voice sounded like it was close to snapping. "Do me a favor," he said. "I got to get off this fucking phone. Because Mr. Fagan wants to use it. Get ahold of your girls."

"Right."

"Give 'em each a kiss for me. Tell 'em to get ahold of Mr. Hansen. Find out what the fuck can be done to overcome that guy immediately. That fool Ritter. He'll do any given thing on any fucking given day. And call me back."

"You gotta call me," said Schiller. "I can't call you."

"I'll call you back in a half hour."

"In one-half hour. Keep your shit together."

"Yeah."

"It's shit," said Larry, "but keep it together."

"Jesus Christ," Gary replied. "Shit. Piss. Gawd!"

It had taken until 1 A.M. for Judge Ritter to come back to the Bench.

"The Utah death penalty statute," he read aloud to everyone in the courtroom, "has not been held constitutional by any courts . . . Until doubts are resolved . . . there can be no lawful executions. Consent of the defendant gives no power to the State to execute." It went on, and Judith Wolbach began to breathe again, and happiness went through her. The terror she liked to keep away went back to its far-off place. She could have embraced Judge Ritter. In his resonant old voice, he concluded, "There is too much uncertainty in the law and too much haste to execute the man." God, that voice sounded as good to her as old newsreels of Franklin Delano Roosevelt! Then the Judge signed the Temporary Restraining Order for Dabney and Wolbach, and set January 7th, ten days later, at 10 A.M., for a hearing on these questions.

It was a dejected gang that went back to the Attorney