"The New Jersey authorities claim you killed one of their corrections officers."
Remo paused. His eyes went blank. It was starting to come back. The constant hassling. The whispered threats. And the fight in the cell. He saw the hack's weather-beaten face go shocked as the blade dug into his guts. "He was riding me," Remo said. "He wouldn't get off my back. It was either him or me."
"Then you admit to killing him."
"Remo sighed. "Yeah," he said in a defeated voice. "I did the guard. But not the pusher in the alley. I was framed for that one." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Remo realized what he sounded like.
He sounded exactly like every other whiny con on the row.
"You know what I think?" Proctor was saying. "I think New Jersey dumped you on Florida to save themselves the cost of a new trial for that killing. They knew you would never be executed up there, no matter how many guards you killed. But in Florida you have an excellent chance of going to the chair within the next five years."
"Can they do that? Legally, I mean."
"It's highly unusual," Proctor admitted. "Frankly, I think the fix is in on you."
"They're trying to railroad me," Remo said bitterly. But his eyes were bleak. It was starting to sink in. After all these years, he might actually pay for a crime he never committed because of another killing that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been wrongly imprisoned.
Proctor shoved the papers back into his valise. "I'll do what I can," he said, starting to offer his hand in a farewell shake. His manicured fingernails tapped the glass partition and he withdrew the hand sheepishly.
Proctor stood up and signaled to the guard. A C.O. took Remo away, again calling, "Clear the hall! Dead Man coming through!" over and over until Remo began to feel very cold inside.
Half the cells on death row were empty as Remo made his way through the endless succession of control doors to his cell. He had missed his shower. And for the first time, he realized the significance of the black door which sealed off the corridor two cells down from his own cell. Beyond it was the electric chair.
Remo felt drained after the cell door buzzed closed and the guard had departed.
He paced the cell, feeling the craving for a cigarette return. But he remembered his last experience. What was wrong with him? he wondered. He was acting like a fish-a man new to prison. It must have been the sudden change in environment, he decided. The last thing he remembered was going to sleep in his old cell. They must have sedated him while he slept. Waking up in a new prison had been quite a shock. He was still struggling with it.
Later, all along death row, cells buzzed open as those who had the luxury of showers returned to their cells. Popcorn was the last. He shot Remo the V-for-victory sign as he passed the cell. But the gesture was made ironic by the hunted look deep in his dark eyes.
After the guards were gone, Popcorn asked, "What's the good word, my man?"
"Saw my lawyer," Remo said in a remote voice.
"I hope you got better news than I did."
"He told me I have an excellent chance of getting fried in the next five years."
"Five!" Popcorn guffawed. "Hell, man, he was jivin' you! You're next after me."
Remo stopped pacing like a man who had been impaled by an icy thought. He drifted up to the cinder-block wall that separated him from Popcorn's cell. Cell Number 1.
"Bullshit," Remo said hotly. But his voice was anxious.
"Man, you know I'm next. That's why they got me in the cell next door from ol' Sparky. You got the next cell up. What that tell you?"
"I can't be ahead of everyone else on the row," Remo said. "I just got here."
"Oh, yes, you can," Popcorn returned. "You done killed a hack. None of them others got that distinction in their jacket. Truth to tell, my man, you got Ted Bundy's old cell. Now, you think about that a spell."
Remo sat on his cot heavily. The color drained from his face like water down a porcelain sink. After a while he asked a dull-voiced question. "Who's Ted Bundy?"
"Shee-it!" Popcorn said in disgust. "Where you been livin'? In a cave?"
Chapter 7
That night, beef and rice were served for dinner. The beef was gray and Remo decided to pass it up. Although he wanted to keep up his strength, he had no taste for meat. He wondered if it was because of the bad news he had received.
But he ate all the rice and wanted-more. He found a single grain clinging to the side of his plastic tray and he greedily took it in his mouth, holding it there, tasting its pristine starchy purity, until slowly, reluctantly, he chewed it to a liquid and swallowed the taste.
"How often do they serve rice here?" Remo called out.
"Two, three times a week," Popcorn told him. "Wish it was more. They screw up the pasta, can't cook decent potatoes no matter how they do 'em up, but rice is something even a state cook can't screw up."
"Amen," Remo said. He started feeling better; his head even felt clearer. A calmness overtook him and he wondered if it was the grotesque pink coloration of the walls finally getting to him.
Before lights-out, the C.O. who did the head count stopped at Remo's cell and wondered, "I know you from somewhere?"
Remo didn't recognize the man and shrugged. The guard pressed on. "You look familiar. Something about the eyes. Ever been busted in Coral Gables?"
"I've never been to Coral Gables. I'm from Newark."
"Never been north of Delaware myself," the guard said in a puzzled voice.
"Maybe you be lovers in a past life," Popcorn put in loudly.
He was ignored. The guard inched closer to the bars.
"I'm going to place you, Dead Man," he said. His voice was neither threatening nor insulting. He used the term from long habit. "I don't suppose you've ever been on television."
"No," Remo said, ending the conversation.
The guard went away, the progress of his leaving marked by receding door clangings.
"What was that all about?" Popcorn demanded after the lights were out.
"Search me," Remo said as he stripped for bed. Sleep took him slowly. He had just started to drift off when he saw a face. It was not really a face so much as the impression of a face. It was gray. Or the background was gray. All Remo could clearly see was crisp white hair and a pair of rimless eyeglasses. There were no features under the hair and the eyes behind the glasses. Just the outline of an angular face. Drowsily Remo tried to peer closer. Just as the features started to resolve themselves, he snapped awake.
Lying awake, Remo fought to hold that fading image, as if, even awake, he could summon up that amorphous face in his mind's eye and force its true features to come into focus.
But like a lamp burn on the retina, it remained blurry until it faded. Finally Remo slept. He dreamed of rice. Huge mountains of steamed rice. It made his mouth water, even in sleep.
Chapter 8
"I been dwellin' on it," Popcorn was saying in between mouthfuls of the same scrambled eggs that Remo was dumping into the open toilet bowl rather than smell them a second longer. "And I decided I'm one lucky dude."
"How do you figure that?" Remo asked, wondering if he should try the hash browns. He brought a plastic forkful to his lips, touched it with his tongue, and decided to pass. The toilet flushed a second time.