Chapter 5
Everyone knew why Remo Williams was going to die. The chief of the Newark Police Department told his close friends Williams was a sacrifice to the civil-rights groups.
"Who ever heard of a cop going to the chair... and for killing a dope pusher? Maybe a suspension, maybe even dismissal, but the chair? If that punk had been white, Williams wouldn't get the chair."
To the press the chief said: "It is a tragic incident. Williams always had a good record as a policeman." The reporters weren't fooled. They knew why Williams had to die. "He was crazy. Christ, you couldn't let that lunatic out in the streets again. How did he ever get on the force in the first place? Beats a man to a pulp, leaves him to die in an alley, drops his badge for evidence, then expects to get away with it by hollering 'frame-up.' Damn fool."
The defense attorney knew why his client had lost. "That damned badge. We couldn't get around that evidence. Why wouldn't he admit he beat up that bum? Even so, the judge never should have given him the chair."
The judge was quite certain why he had sentenced Williams to die. It was very simple. He was told to.
Not that he knew why he was told to. In certain circles you don't ask questions about verdicts.
Only one man had no conception of why the sentence was so severe and so swift. And his wondering would stop at 11:35 that night.
Remo Williams sat on the cot in his cell chain-smoking cigarettes. His dark brown hair was shaved close at the temples where the guards would place the electrodes.
The gray trousers issued to all inmates at New Jersey's Trenton State Prison already had been slit nearly to the knees. The white socks were fresh and clean with the exception of the gray spots from ashes he dropped.
He had stopped using the ashtray days before. He simply threw the finished cigarette on the gray painted floor each time and watched its life burn out. It wouldn't even leave a mark, just burn out slowly, hardly noticeable.
The guards would eventually open the cell door and have an inmate clean up the butts. They would wait outside the cell, Remo between them, while the inmate swept. And when Remo was returned, there would be no trace that he had ever smoked in there or that a cigarette had died on the floor.
He could leave nothing in the death cell that would remain. The cot was steel and had no paint in which to even scratch his initials. The mattress would be replaced if he ripped it. He couldn't even break the bulb above his head. It was protected by a steel-enmeshed glass plate.
He could break the ashtray. That he could do, if he wanted. He could scratch something in the white enamel sink with no stopper and one faucet.
But what would he inscribe? Advice? A note? To whom? For what? What would he tell them?
That you do your job, you're promoted, and one dark night they find a dead dope pusher in an alley on your beat, and he's got your badge in his hand, and they don't give you a medal but fall for the frameup, and you get the chair.
It's you who winds up in the death house. The place you wanted to send so many hoods, punks, killers, pushers-the scum that preyed on society. And then the people, the right and good people you sweated for and risked your neck for, rise in their majesty and turn on you. All of a sudden, they're sending men to the chair-the judges who won't give death to the predators, but give it to the protectors.
You can't write that in a sink. So you light another cigarette and throw the old butt on the floor and watch it burn. The smoke curls and disappears before rising three feet. Then the butt goes out. But by that time, you have another one ready to light and another one ready to throw.
Remo Williams took the mentholated cigarette from his mouth, held it close before his face to see the red ember feeding on that hint of mint, then tossed it on the floor.
He took a fresh cigarette from one of the two packs at his side on the brown, scratchy wool blanket. He looked up at the two guards whose backs were to him.
They had never walked the morning hours on a beat looking in windows and waiting to be made detective. They'd never been framed with a pusher who, as a corpse, didn't have the stuff on him. They went home at night and left the prison behind them. They were the clerks of law enforcement.
The law.
Remo looked at the freshly lit cigarette in his hand and suddenly hated the mentholated taste, which was like eating Vicks. He tore off the filter and tossed it on the floor. He inhaled on the ragged end deeply and lay back on the cot, blowing the smoke toward the seamless plaster ceiling.
Remo had strong, sharp features and deep-set brown eyes that crinkled at the edges, but not from laughter.
Suddenly, Remo's facial muscles tightened and he sat up. His eyes suddenly detected every line on the floor. He saw the sink, and for the first time he really saw the solid gray metal of the bars. He crushed out the butt with his toe.
"How much time do I have?" Remo asked. The words were slow coming out. How long had it been since he had spoken?
"About a half hour," one of the guards said. He was a tall man and his uniform was too tight around the shoulders. "The priest will be here in a while." Remo closed his eyes. They were dry.
"I haven't been to church since I was an altar boy," he said. "Hell, every punk I arrest tells me he was an altar boy, even the Protestants and Jews. Maybe they know something I don't. Maybe it helps." He sighed as he lay back down on the cot. "Yeah, I'll see the priest."
Remo drummed his fingers silently on his stomach. What was death like anyway? Like sleep? He liked to sleep. Most people liked to sleep. Why fear death?
In a few minutes he heard the soft padding of feet in the corridor, louder, louder, louder. They stopped outside his cell door. Voices mumbled, clothes rustled, keys tingled and then with a clack the cell door opened.
Remo blinked in the yellow light. A brown-robed monk clutching a black cross with a silver Christ stood inside the cell door. A dark cowl shaded the monk's eyes. He held the crucifix in his right hand, the left apparently tucked beneath the folds of his robe.
"The priest," the guard said to Remo. To the monk he said, "You've got five minutes, Father."
The cell door shut and the key clicked in the lock. Remo sat up on the cot, his back to the wall. He motioned to the empty space beside him on the cot. Holding the crucifix like a test tube he was afraid to spill, the monk sat down. His face was hard and lined. His blue eyes seemed to be judging Remo for a punch instead of salvation. Droplets of perspiration on his upper lip caught the light from the bulb.
"Do you want to be saved, my son?" he asked. It was rather loud for such a personal question.
"Sure," Remo said. "Who doesn't?"
"Good. Do you know how to examine your conscience, make an act of contrition?"
"Vaguely, Father. I..."
"I know, my son. God will help you."
"Yeah," Remo said without enthusiasm. If he got this over fast, maybe there'd be time for another cigarette.
"What are your sins?"
"I really don't know."
"We can start with violation of the Lord's commandment not to kill. How many men have you killed?"
"Including Vietnam?"
"No, Vietnam doesn't count."
"That wasn't killing, huh?"
"In war, killing is not a mortal sin."
"How about peace, when the state says you did, but you didn't? How about that?"
"Are you talking about this conviction?"
"Yes." Remo's voice was small. He stared at his knees.
"Well, in that case..."
"All right, Father," Remo interrupted suddenly. "I confess it. I killed the man." The lie came easily. His trousers, fresh gray twill, hadn't even had a chance to get worn at the knees. Remo noticed that the monk's cowl was perfectly clean. Spotlessly new. He looked up at that hard face beneath the cowl. Was that a smile?