Remo sat up and lighted one. He took a long drag. He had less trouble this time and smoked it all the way down. As he smoked, he considered how his life had turned around. Twenty years ago, Popcorn and he would have been on opposite sides of the law. But behind bars, they had been friends of a sort.
When he was through smoking, Remo whispered into the emptiness, "Thanks, Popcorn."
Chapter 12
Harold Haines felt the warden's office go dark around him. Distantly he heard Warden McSorley's voice call through the roaring in his ears.
"Haines. What is it, man? You're turning white." The warden's voice seemed far away, so Harold Haines didn't bother to answer it. The darkness seemed to expand. All that Harold Haines saw, or cared to see, were the yellow pages of the condemned man's rap sheet in his suddenly cold hands. "Harold?"
"It's him," Haines croaked, his eyes not wavering from the pages. "It's not just a guy with the same name. It's him. Williams."
Then the fading typed letters on the rap sheet started to jiggle uncontrollably. Harold felt himself shake. The world was a very small place as seen through the diminishing tunnel of his vision.
"Harold!"
Haines looked up, his eyes opaque. The warden's heavy hands were on his shoulders and he was shaking Haines violently.
"Snap out of it. Here, take a chair."
Haines felt himself being guided to the hard wooden chair that except for the leather straps and copper halo was identical to the electric chair Haines had just operated. He knew this because a year ago he had salvaged an identical wooden chair from storage to serve as a replacement for the old chair, which had given out. He sat down, unmindful of the irony.
Warden McSorley towered over him, his arms folded, his care-seamed face concerned.
"This is the guy," Haines repeated. "Remo Williams."
"You said that before. And you know how it sounds. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Maybe the work is getting to you."
"Stop talking at me like I'm one of your goddamned cons!" Harold Haines shouted with sudden vehemence. "That man on death row shouldn't be there. He's already dead!"
"Nonsense. Williams is a transfer prisoner. He arrived last week from ... well, it's in the file you're holding."
"I know. He's from Trenton State Prison, New Jersey. "
McSorley showed empty hands. "There it is."
"Exactly. "
"So what's the problem, Harold?"
"You don't have a con in that cell, you have a ghost."
"Harold, I've known you a long time-" McSorley began.
Haines cut him off with a curt, "Long enough to remember that until five years ago I was retired."
"Well, yes," Warden McSorley said slowly.
"I retired back around twenty years ago, when the death penalty fell out of political favor. Forty-five years old and I was out of work. The state give me a short-money pension because after a lifetime of frying felons, they know I'm not exactly going to assimilate into another line of work. Hell, who's going to hire an execution technician? And to do what, rewire houses? So I come to Florida, live in a trailer park, and watch game shows until I start to think about wiring up my easy chair as the best way out."
"Now, Harold . . "
"Can I finish? Thank you, I would have gone crazy, but the death-penalty thing loosened up. And even though I see the faces of the men I put down in my sleep, I offer my services to the state of Florida. The rest you know."
"Yes, the rest I know," MeSorley admitted.
"One of the faces in my dreams belonged to that Williams guy," Haines snapped. "Not exactly a common name. Remo Williams. A name you'd remember. Especially if it belonged to a cop who beat a pusher to death back to Newark, New Jersey, so long ago I don't even remember the year. This rap sheet says your Remo Williams snuffed a pusher in an alley. He was a cop, too."
"You must be misremembering. You've put down ... how many men?"
"I stopped counting long after it was too late for my peace of mind," Haines said sourly. "That guy you got in there, Warden, I did him. I remember he went easy. One jolt. And it was over. I remember feeling bad about it, too. Him being a cop once. Snuffing a pusher. What's that? Nothing. He should have gotten off. Maybe life. Never the chair. I felt sick about it for weeks after. He was one of the last guys I burned up there." Harold Haines's eyes focused in on themselves. "One of the last guys, and now he comes back to haunt me. . . ."
Warden MeSorley looked at Harold Haines without comment. He took the file folder from Haines's trembling fingers and retreated to the solidity of his big desk. He flipped through the folder, reading silently.
When he was done, he laid the folder flat and placed his blunt hands atop it like a worshiper laying hands on a prayer book. His expression was thoughtful as he spoke. "We've known each other a long time, Harold. What I'm about to tell you, I will deny with my dying breath."
Haines looked up, his brown eyes hunted and dull. "The young man you just executed, Mohammed Diladay," McSorley went on. "Do you remember remarking that we were doing him awfully soon after the last execution?"
"I think I said they were going through here like shit through a goose."
The warden winced. "Yes. Well, I'm burdened with the largest population of condemned men in the nation. I have to move them through the system as efficiently as I can. The Diladay boy would normally have had a grace period of a month after his last appeal had been turned down, except that I received a phone call from the governor urging me to expedite his execution. When I asked his honor for his reasons, he said something vague about moving the process along, which was no answer. But I recognized a certain ... concern in his voice."
Warden McSorley paused. His lower lip crowded up around his upper lip. He went on. "I thought perhaps there was something political, even personal about his request to execute Diladay so quickly. There was really no need to hurry the process. Diladay had no chance of commutation, unless it came from the governor's own office. But now I wonder."
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Harold Haines asked.
Warden McSorley picked up the Remo Williams file.
"Williams is next, by virtue of the state of his appeal and the time he spent on death row up in Jersey," he said thoughtfully. "It strikes me as I listen to you that perhaps the governor's concern was not with Diladay, but with Williams."
"Poor bastard. They killed him once and now they want me to do it again."
"I don't believe in ghosts, Haines. And when you settle down, you'll feel the same way, I'm sure. You may have thought you executed this man-and I believe you're sincere in that belief- but obviously you did not."
"I wonder," Harold Haines muttered.
"Hmmm?"
"Where has this guy been the last twenty years and what's he been doing that they want to kill him all over again?"
"I think I'll make a call," Warden McSorley said pointedly. He dialed the number himself after consulting a thin leather-bound directory.
"Yes, Warden Reeves, please. This is Warden McSorley down in Florida State.... Yes, I'll wait.... Hello? Sorry to bother you this early, Warden Reeves. I'd like some information about a prisoner you had up there at one time. A Remo Williams.. . . Certainly, call back anytime today."
Warden McSorley hung up. Harold Haines stood up.
"Don't you want to wait for the callback?" McSorley asked.