“Alan …” I said.
But Bob cut me off. “No. No. I think we have to deal with this. It’s a simple situation. I can’t work with you, Steve. I can’t work with you anymore.”
I gritted my teeth. I stuck my chin out at him, letting the smoke roll out of my mouth and nose. “Why don’t you just hit me?” I asked him. “Why don’t you just punch me out, god damn it? I deserve it, man. I’ll fall down. I’ll bleed. You’ll love it. It’ll be great.” I should have shut up then, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Then you can go home and hit your wife too,” I muttered. “She likes it.”
I saw his head go back a little at that, absorbing the blow. For a second, I thought he really would take a swing at me. I half hoped he would anyway. But his lip only curled slightly and his eyes remained flat and icy.
“I guess …” he said quietly. “I guess we can’t all live in the world of your imagination, Steve. I’m not going to hit anybody, no matter what they want. If Patricia needs some other kind of relationship, she’ll have to go find that. If she wants to work with me to keep us together, then I’m willing to work. But whatever happens, my marriage isn’t any of your goddamned business. The only thing you need to know about me right now is that I think you’re a tawdry, sexist, thoughtless, mentally unbalanced man. And I can’t work with you anymore.”
Alan moaned again, covering his eyes with his hand.
I turned to him desperately, leaned toward him, pressing my fists down on his desk. Why didn’t it ever occur to me how much I needed a job until I was about to lose it?
“Alan, listen,” I said. “I’ve got the shooter.”
He lowered his hand. “You what?”
Bob made that gesture he favored, that stay-calm motion with his hand. He lapsed into his schoolmarm style of instruction. “I don’t think we should confuse two different issues …”
I cut him off. “I know who he is.”
“Who?” said Alan.
“The guy, the real guy. Who shot Amy Wilson.”
“You got the shooter?”
“Look, even if he knows who killed Kennedy …” said Bob.
“Shut up, Bob,” said Alan. He considered me, frowning. “How got him have you got?”
I straightened away from his desk. I raised my cigarette to my lips. Gripped in my fist, it had split near the filter. I had to draw hard to make the smoke come through.
“I know who he is,” I said.
“All right. Who is he?”
“Huh?”
“The shooter. Who is he?”
“He’s … he’s a guy. A guy who was there.”
Holding his breath, Alan pinched his nose in the web of his hand. He closed his eyes, opened them. “You’re telling me the shooter was a guy who was there? Well. Well. Good work, Steve. But let’s not jump to any conclusions. I want that confirmed by two unnamed sources before I hold the front page or anything.”
“I’m telling you!” I said, throwing my arms around. “The CA has his name. She just won’t give it to me.”
“What about the defense?”
“This is ridiculous,” said Bob.
“No,” I said. “It’s not in their files.”
“The cops?”
“They don’t remember. Or they’re sitting on it.”
“Have you tried the Yellow Pages under S?” said Bob.
I made a noise that astonished even me. A throaty growl, like a cornered animal. I moved to the wall and crushed my busted cigarette against the side of the wastebasket. I stood with my back to them, staring at an Associated Press plaque for journalistic excellence. Things did not look good for our hero, or at least for my hero.
Behind me, Bob let out a weary, mournful sigh. “Alan,” he said, “I’m sorry. Really. I know this is causing problems for everybody. But I want to be clear about this. I’m ready to leave. I owe you a lot and I love this paper, but I’m not going to spend my life in an environment that’s become intolerable.”
Alan moaned.
Whereupon, suddenly, inspiration struck. I was running my hand up through my hair at the moment. I was feeling the sweat come away, cling to my palm. I was thinking about Barbara and what I would say to her when I came home with no job again. I was wondering how long it would be before she figured out the truth. Five minutes? Ten? I could see her standing in the doorway, pointing sternly into the distance. And me with all my belongings wrapped in a handkerchief tied to a stick, hefting the stick to my shoulder as I trudged off miserably into the snow. It was ninety-five degrees outside, but the way my luck was running, the snow was a dead cert.
And then it came to me. Just like that. Like a hallelujah. Bells pealed. Choirs sang. The federal budget balanced. A glorious sun rose heavenward to the east and showered its beneficient rays on this great land of ours. Oh ho, I thought. Oh ho ho. What end is dead, what door is closed, what road has no turning to a man piss-desperate to hold on to his job?
I turned from the wall. Bob cocked a look at me. If hate were a laser he’d have had a view through my forehead to the back of the room.
“I’m sorry, Steve,” he said gently. “I truly am.”
“You have to give me notice, Alan,” I said.
“Notice?” said Alan. He moaned.
“That’s in my contract. You can’t just boot me. You have to give me notice.”
Even the blank calm of Bob’s expression, even the sheets of ice that had dropped down to cover his eyes were not enough to contain the radiance of triumph that shone from within him. He had won.
“Just how much notice do you want, Steve?” he asked kindly.
I glanced at my watch as I started toward the office door. “Five hours and seven minutes,” I said.
3
The sun had not lost its color at all and blazed white even as it angled westward above the salt flats around Osage. Below, beneath the quivering lines of heat that rose from the highway, the dark figures of state policemen moved in clusters near their cars. Aside from these, and the cruisers steadily patrolling the perimeter, the great square complex of the prison seemed very still. You had to draw in close before you noticed the men in the gun towers, before you saw them turning their heads slowly to scan the long plains.
Within the walls, it was quiet too. The prisoners had been fed an early supper and locked down in their cells for the night. A double shift of guards stood watch on every block. The guards walked their sections grimly, warily. They could hear the prisoners in their cells speaking in harsh growls, the occasional angry outburst. And they could hear, beneath that murmur, beneath the unceasing rasp of movement and machinery, sprightly music from the television sets along the walls. On the screens, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd were going Back to the Future for the third time. That was the after-dinner video. There would be other videos all night long. Arnold McCardle had scheduled the soft-core porno films for later so that they would hold the men’s attention during the actual moment of Frank Beachum’s execution.
There was more activity in the visitors’ center. The kitchen staff was at work there. They were swabbing down the floors and tables, arranging the tables side by side. They worked quickly as they wanted the smell of disinfectant to dissipate before the dignitaries and witnesses arrived. They would set out refreshments on the long tables then: coffee, soda water and chips before, wine and sandwiches afterward for those who wanted them.
The prison’s main conference room was also busy; full of people. Luther, Arnold, Reuben Skycock-the whole execution team-were there. So were the engineers who would see to the phones and machinery, so was the doctor who would monitor the prisoner’s heart, and the nurse who would find the vein in his arm, and the guards who would strap him down. Everyone who would be involved in any way in the final procedure was gathered around the meeting table or lined up against the walls, listening quietly while Luther briefed them on their duties one last time.