One of the guards said, “We could push them out to the state road, if you want.”
The warden took his time in responding. He watched the two news vans draw near; saw that another bus was trundling down the road behind them. “Let’s leave ’em be,” he said, and left the rest of it unspoken: that with all he had to do for X, a little chaos might not be a bad thing.
For the next ninety minutes, the warden worked in his office, trying to arrange seating for the family members who planned to attend the execution. It was an unpleasant job, but he wanted to do it right. That meant revisiting many of X’s murders in an attempt to discern which families had suffered the most, and thus had the better claim for good seating. The father who’d lost two sons, but quickly? Or the husband whose wife had endured a long week of brutal torture? It was painful math, and the warden welcomed each interruption when it came.
The first was Ripley with an update on X. “Still agitated. Still asking about Byrd.”
“Any more visitors?”
“Two of his lawyers. Actual lawyers, I mean.”
“Any talk of last rites?”
“None.”
Nor would there be. X would die as he’d lived, without apology or regret.
The second interruption came forty minutes later, and was entirely unexpected, unimagined, even. “Sir?” Alice spoke from the open door. “You have a call on line two. It’s your wife.”
“Thank you, Alice. Would you close the door?” She did as he asked, and the warden stared at the phone, almost afraid to touch it. His wife never called. “Sweetheart?” he said. “Everything okay?”
“I’m calling because I know how hard this day will be for you, and that tomorrow will be even harder, given your thoughts on execution.” She spoke softly. “We’ve not been much use to each other these past years, but I am with you in this matter.”
“Sweetheart, that is so very kind.”
“At least until tomorrow,” she said. “When you kill that horrible, wicked man, and send his soul to hell forever.”
The line went dead, and left the warden staring at the receiver as if he’d never seen one. Slowly, he replaced it on the cradle. That’s when Ripley came back to his office, and the world really went to shit.
* * *
Five miles down the state road, Reece was parked in the shade of an abandoned gas station whose windows were broken out and boarded over. The Coke machine was broken, too. So were the bathroom doors, the pumps, and the faded, plastic sign that, once upon a time, said ESSO. It was a grim place, remembered only by those who passed it by on the dusty two-lane. But the pay phone still functioned, and that’s why Reece was there.
He checked his watch, and thought, Soon.
More worried than he cared to admit, he checked his fingernails for the third time, making sure he’d scrubbed off all traces of Lonnie’s blood.
He had.
Of course he had.
“This waiting,” he said. But it wasn’t the wait.
It was X. It was the gamble.
Almost absentmindedly, he opened the trunk, and looked down into it. “You boys still breathing?” Neither could respond, taped up as they were, and jammed in so tightly. But they were still breathing, so Reece gave them a nod. “Stay quiet, and you might get out of this alive.”
Reece closed the trunk, and shaded his eyes to peer up the road. A few buses had rattled past en route to the prison, but nothing much had come from the other way, just an old sedan, a timber truck, and a combine that rolled past at twenty miles an hour. A mile down, though, there was a wink of light where the road bent north to avoid the river.
“Here we go.”
The shimmer hardened into a Buick sedan driven by a soft and balding middle-aged man who looked like every such man who’d ever lived. The car slowed, and turned into the lot; and Reece walked out to meet it. “Any problems?”
Squeezed in behind the wheel, the driver squinted in the bright light, and shrugged. “Traffic was a little tight, going in. Protesters and such. The guards didn’t want to talk to me, but I told ’em what you said I should, and that got this Ripley fella out there pretty quick.”
“You put the package directly into Captain Ripley’s hands?”
“Is that the name on the receipt?” The driver pushed a piece of paper through the window. Reece checked the signature, and nodded. “Then that’s who I gave it to.”
“Describe him.” The driver did. A perfect match. “Go on, then.” Reece produced a hundred-dollar bill, and watched it disappear.
When the car was back on the road, Reece checked his watch again, adding up the minutes. He knew the guards, the prison’s ways. That told him about how long it would take.
* * *
The package sat untouched on the warden’s desk, a rectangle wrapped in brown paper, and sealed with tape. Perched on the edge of his chair, the warden decided he’d be happier if Ripley had handed over the package, saying it contained nitroglycerin or body parts, anything that had nothing to do with X. “Tell me again what he said.”
“He said, ‘This is for X, and he’ll want to see it. You tell Warden Wilson it’s in his interests to make sure he does.’”
“He called me by name?”
“Yes, sir.” Ripley nodded once, but looked a little green, too.
“Have you ever seen this man before?”
“No, sir. He said he was a paid messenger, and didn’t know the name of the man who’d hired him. The man he described, though, sounds a lot like Reece.”
The warden could easily believe it. Only Reece looked like Reece.
“You want me to go?” Ripley asked. “Privacy, I mean.”
Ripley didn’t have a family, but he did have a live-in girlfriend and three out of his original four dogs. The killing of that first dog had taught him early to take the carrot over the stick, and he’d been on X’s payroll for years. The warden had never asked how much money Ripley had made off the relationship, but it would be a considerable amount. The warden shook his head. “If this package concerns X, it concerns you, too.”
With no other choice, he drew the package across the desk, and slit the tape with a pocketknife. Inside, were a videotape cassette and a sealed envelope. Turning to the envelope, he read aloud what was written on its front. “To Warden Bruce Wilson, #2 Prison Farm Lane, husband to Gertrude, father to Thomas and Trevor.”
“That’s strangely specific.”
“He’s reminding me how vulnerable I am.”
The warden used the same knife to open the envelope. Inside, was a phone number on an index card, and a single piece of paper folded neatly in half. The warden read what was written there, then handed it to Ripley, whose lips moved as he read it in silence.
Dear Warden,
The enclosed videotape is to be IMMEDIATELY viewed by our mutual friend in the subbasement, and I trust you to make the necessary arrangements. In case you find yourself squeamish, I’ve kept a second copy of the same tape, and will deliver it to our mutual friend’s attorneys, if necessary. You can imagine our mutual friend’s displeasure should he discover any malfeasance on your part. I, of course, would also be VERY UNHAPPY.