“What about sound?” Reece asked.
“You tell me.”
He started the tape, and as the screaming began, both men agreed that the sound was fine.
* * *
For Chance, the nightmare wouldn’t end. It couldn’t. It was real. Gibby was actually unconscious in the chair beside him. That was a real man being butchered on tape, with real killers nodding along and commenting as it played. At one point, the big one seemed to realize that Chance was still in the room.
“You want to watch?”
He turned the machine so Chance could see what a man looked like with his stomach opened up and his intestines looped like a tie around his neck. The horror on that man’s face was like nothing Chance had ever seen, both eyes staring down as he screamed and screamed, and bloody hands dipped inside for another coil.
It came out in a matter of seconds.
Chance passed out in another ten.
* * *
When Chance woke, the first thing he saw was the camera, pointed at Gibby, and the big man dialing in focus. “How much do you need?”
“Not much. Fifteen seconds.”
The small man crossed the room, and stood behind Gibby. “I’m out of the frame?”
“Visible from the neck down. The kid is front and center.”
As if he understood, Gibby began to stir. “Chance? What’s happening?”
His voice was so slurred Chance thought, Concussion; but that was a bottom-of-the-list worry.
“Okay. Filming.”
A blade appeared at Gibby’s neck, and he was alert enough to feel it. Chance closed his eyes, but heard the struggle. When he looked, he saw muscles twist as his friend rocked the chair, and the small man’s fingers twined deep into his hair, holding his face to the camera, keeping the chair upright. Chance wanted to scream; he wanted to fight. After a lifetime, the big man said, “That’s it. Fifteen seconds.”
The blade came away from Gibby’s skin, the fingers out of his hair. “Let me see.”
Chance stared straight ahead as they played back the tape. Gibby was still confused, but he’d say Chance’s name soon enough.
He’d say the name, and want to know why.
Chance conjured words so they’d be ready on his tongue: I’m a coward and ashamed, and I want you to hate me.
Chance closed his eyes, and spent some time in that place. He wanted to die. He wanted to live. When Gibby remembered what Chance had done, the world would never be the same. How could it be? How could it ever?
But it wasn’t Gibby who changed the world.
Loud sounds drew Chance into the moment. There was an argument brewing, and it was serious. The big man towered over the other, his face such a deep, angry red that his eyes looked black. His shoulders were drawn up around his neck, his fingers hooked and stiff. “You promised a solution.”
The small man held up his hands. “I did, yes. And we’ll figure it out.”
“They’ve seen my face.”
“Mine as well.”
“I’m not going to prison for something as small as a videotape.”
“If you would just load the equipment—”
“Fuck the equipment!”
“Please don’t push me on this.”
“You do it or I do it. Those are the choices.”
“And there’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”
The big man stepped closer—a foot taller, twice as heavy. “If you’d told me the truth up front, I’d have never come. We have rules for a reason.”
The small man glanced at Chance, but nodded sadly. “I did make you a promise.”
He stepped aside, sweeping out an arm, as if inviting debate on which boy to kill first.
The big man dipped his head and grunted once, lumbering forward with an expression that Chance would not forget if he lived a thousand years. No heat in his face. No soul in his eyes. He closed his fists as if he would simply beat the boys to death, and then find someone else to kill for fun. But the small man had a different plan. He allowed his friend a single step more, then conjured a blade, and opened his neck like an envelope.
37
The warden’s day quickly went from bad to worse. His secretary called in sick, he spilled coffee on his best shirt, and by eight thirty, he’d received two calls from the governor asking that he reconsider a media presence at the execution. It seemed images of Lanesworth Prison were already running on major affiliates up and down the East Coast, and the governor was unhappy.
I see your prison on every network program but Captain Goddamn Kangaroo!
That was the most polite part of the conversation.
The governor, it turned out, was not a forgiving soul.
“Alice.” The warden stepped into the secretary’s vestibule. “It is Alice, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. From records.” She frowned from behind the small desk, an iron-haired woman with enough spine for three men. “I have covered this desk before.”
“Of course you have.”
“December 3, 1968. Good Friday, the following year. Two days in March of ’70…”
“Yes, I remember. Thank you. May I ask you a question, Alice?” He did not wait for a response. “Do you watch the evening news? I mean the national news. I’m wondering if there’s been much interest in tomorrow’s execution.”
“You don’t watch the news?”
“But you do, I presume?”
“Walter Cronkite. 60 Minutes. It can’t just be The Lawrence Welk Show, now, can it?”
She sniffed in disapproval, which the warden ignored. “The execution?” he asked. “Much interest?”
“Oh yes.” She nodded solemnly. “There’s been tremendous interest, what with Juan Corona caught last year, and Mack Ray Edwards and that other one, I can’t remember his name. Then there’s the Gaffney Strangler, the Broomstick Killer. Only last month, four girls have gone missing in Seattle, and probably more we don’t know about yet. I shouldn’t be surprised, working where I do and knowing what evil dwells in a man’s heart; but it seems there are always new depths yet to plumb. There’s even a new term they’re using. Serial killer, if you can believe such a thing. So yes, the news is talking, and people are listening; and I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. A good execution is exactly what this country needs.”
“Umm, yes. Well. Thank you, Alice.”
“Yes, sir, and God bless you for what you do.”
Filled with righteous approval, she spoke as if he, himself, would drop the switch. He hesitated a moment, and she nodded a final time, her chin folding so firmly into her neck that the warden backed away, as if allergic to such utter conviction. He made his way to the northeast tower, which looked down on to the main gate and its approach. The guards nodded at his appearance, then melted into the corners to give him space. The warden mopped his face from the long climb, then looked down on to the dusty approach, and said, “Good God Almighty. How many?”
The nearest guard said, “Protesters or news vans?”
“Vans, I suppose.”
“Thirty-seven, last I counted.”
The other guard said, “Thirty-nine,” and pointed off in the distance, where two more vehicles made bright spearheads on plumes of boiling dust. The warden shaded his eyes, and stared down at TV people in their fine clothes and blown hair. As for the protesters, he guessed there were at least a few hundred, with more certain to come. He counted seven buses from churches with names like Grace Baptist and Mount Zion Church of Christ. They’d parked haphazardly in the fields, and a few were still spilling parishioners out into the heat, most of them holding placards with slogans like ONLY GOD SHOULD TAKE A LIFE or BELIEVE IN THE REDEEMER. By midday, the merely curious would begin to arrive, as would those who supported the death penalty, and those darker souls who wished nothing more than to be nearby when a human being was cooked alive from the inside out.