George Proctor perspired in the stupefying Florida heat as he left his parked car and approached the prison gatehouse, which, except for its pastel green coloring and lack of a sign, might have been a forgotten Fotomat booth.
"Business?" a guard wearing mirrored sunglasses inquired in a laconic voice.
"The usual," Proctor said, flashing his ID. "Client."
"Pass on through," the guard said, signaling to the booth. Another guard hit a switch and the tall fence rolled back on creaky casters. Proctor stepped through the opening, thinking that today's business was anything but usual.
It had started with an appearance before a judge at the Florida Supreme Court -a judge known to be sympathetic to death-row appeals. The judge had gaveled the appeal down so fast that George Proctor was halfway down the courthouse steps, briefs in hand, before it dawned on him that the telephone call he had received the night before was no prank. That, and the judge's uncharacteristic coldness, were somehow related.
Proctor entered the main doors and identified himself for the guard in the cramped control booth and was escorted through the growing din and into the conference room. After a brief wait, Remo Williams was brought in.
He sat down with an even deader look to his eyes than before. Proctor had wondered why those eyes had seemed so familiar before. Now, seeing Williams again, he thought he understood. The man had cop eyes. The flat expressionless eyes that come to police officers after too many years of seeing too much of society's dark underbelly. Proctor never connected that flicker of recognition with the artist's drawing he had seen in a supermarket-checkout-line tabloid. He never read those rags-except when the person ahead of him paid with a check. And then he always put the things back unpurchased.
"It's not good, is it?" Williams asked in a voice as dead as his eyes.
"The State Supreme Court turned us down." Proctor emphasized the word "us" to let Williams think they were in this together. In fact, he had already decided this would be their last meeting.
"Then you're going up to the Supreme Court." Proctor couldn't lie. He took a deep breath.
"I have to be honest with you, Williams," he said. "I did file, but I don't think I can continue with this case."
Remo's eyes tightened. "What?"
"Look, I don't know what's going on," Proctor said miserably, "but I put this before justice Hannavan, and he turned me down cold. The guy is an incurable softy." Proctor looked around the room before speaking, even though it was empty but for a single out-of-earshot guard. "I ... I think they got to him."
"They? Who?"
Proctor leaned forward, his eyes on the woodenfaced C.O. Even though this conversation fell under the client-confidentiality statutes, he dropped his voice.
"The same ones that got you transferred to this state," he said. "The ones who called me last night."
"Be straight with me. Who?"
"I don't know who, but they have to be connected on the federal level. I was warned that I had been videotaped doing cocaine at a party."
"Oh, that's just peachy," Remo said. "My lawyer, the cokehead."
"It was only a line. Maybe two," Proctor said quickly. "Strictly recreational. But they're threatening to slap me with a possession-with-intent-to-sell beef But I'm innocent. Really!"
"You sound like a con," Remo said nastily.
"I feel like a political prisoner, Williams. This is scary police-state stuff. Someone wants you dead. And they want you dead yesterday. I had no sooner left the hearing than I received notice that the governor had signed your death warrant. I filed for a stay with the U.S. Supreme Court and got us a short date."
"For when?"
"The day after tomorrow."
"What do you think our chances are?"
"Not great. Your excecution is set for tomorrow morning. "
Proctor steeled himself for the ex-cop's reaction. He didn't know what to expect. Remo's cop eyes seemed to recede into his head. Actually, it was an illusion caused by a slight bowing of the man's head. The overhead light threw his socket hollows into shadow, making them look like skull holes.
I'm looking at a dead man, Proctor thought, suddenly chilled. Poor bastard.
"They can't execute before the appeal is decided," Williams said quietly, not looking up. "Can they?"
"Normally, no. But in this case, I don't know. Look, I'm sorry, I shouldn't even be telling you any of this, but I would lose my practice if I took an intent-to-sell fall. And for what? A pro bono appeal that was dumped in my lap? Put yourself in my place. What would you do?"
"Put yourself in my place," Remo said between set teeth. "What would you expect from your lawyer?"
"I'm sorry. I really am."
"The least you could do is refer me to another lawyer," Remo grated. "Fast!"
"That's the other thing," Proctor added. "I called your former lawyer, hoping to dump this on him. I got a delicatessen. I redialed, figuring I had misread the letterhead, and got the same place. I checked with the Jersey bar. The man who represented you went out of business twelve years ago. He's been dead four."
"Impossible. I saw him only last ... month. I think. "
"Not unless there are two of him. For God's sake, Williams, who are you? Nobody gets railroaded like this. It wouldn't surprise me if they had the Supreme Court rigged."
"I'm Remo Williams," Remo said vaguely. "Aren't I?"
"If you don't know, who would?"
George Proctor watched as his client seemed to shrink in his tight-fitting apricot T-shirt. His eyes were staring down at his hands, which lay flat on the counter in front of the glass partition. He looked calm-calmer than Proctor thought he had any right to look.
"He said he had already killed me," Williams intoned without looking up.
"Who?"
Williams raised his face, his eyes bleak. "The executioner. They buried Popcorn this morning."
"I have no idea what you're babbling about."
"Mohammed Diladay. They called him Popcorn. He was executed this morning."
"That's odd. There was no press coverage."
"The executioner walked by my cell," Remo went on. "He did a double-take. Said something about having executed me up in Trenton State twenty years ago."
"You're not making this up, are you? I mean, it's a little late for an insanity plea."
"A few nights ago," Remo went on as if talking to himself, "I dreamed that I had been executed. At Trenton. It seemed real. And for some reason, the executioner's face looked familiar."
"Oh, Christ!" Proctor said hoarsely. He grabbed up his valise hastily.