CHAPTER 24
Lloyd Henreid, who had been tagged "the baby-faced, unrepentant killer" by the Phoenix papers, was led down the hallway of the Phoenix municipal jail's maximum security wing by two guards. One of them had a runny nose, and they both looked sour. The wing's other occupants were giving Lloyd their version of a tickertape parade. In Max, he was a celebrity. "Heyyy, Henreid!" "Go to, boy!" "Tell the D. A. if he lets me walk I won't letya hurt im!" "Rock steady, Henreid!" "Right on, brother! Rightonrightonrighton!" "Cheap mouthy bastards," the guard with the runny nose muttered, and then sneezed. Lloyd grinned happily. He was dazzled by his new fame. It sure wasn't much like Brownsville had been. Even the food was better. When you got to be a heavy hitter, you got some respect. He imagined that Tom Cruise must feel something like this at a world premiere. At the end of the hall they went through a doorway and a double-barred electric gate. He was frisked again, the guard with the cold breathing heavily through his mouth as if he had just run up a flight of stairs. Then they walked him through a metal detector for good measure, probably to make sure he didn't have something crammed up his ass like that guy Papillon in the movies. "Okay," the one with the runny nose said, and another guard, this one in a booth made of bulletproof glass, waved them on. They walked down another hall, this one painted industrial green. It was very quiet in here; the only sounds were the guards' clicking footfalls (Lloyd himself was wearing paper slippers) and the asthmatic wheeze from Lloyd's right. At the far end of the hall, another guard was waiting in front of a closed door. The door had one small window, hardly more than a loophole, with wire embedded in the glass. "Why do jails always smell so pissy?" Lloyd asked, just to make conversation. "I mean, even the places where no guys are locked up, it smells pissy. Do you guys maybe do your wee-wees in the corners?" He snickered at the thought, which was really pretty comical. "Shut up, killer," the guard with the cold said. "You don't look so good," Lloyd said. "You ought to be home in bed." "Shut up," the other said.
90 Lloyd shut up. That's what happened when you tried to talk to these guys. It was his experience that the class of prison corrections officers had no class. "Hi, scumbag," the door-guard said. "How ya doin, fuckface?" Lloyd responded smartly. There was nothing like a little friendly repartee to freshen you up. Two days in the joint and he could feel that old stir-stupor coming on him already. "You're gonna lose a tooth for that," the door-guard said. "Exactly one, count it, one tooth." "Hey, now, listen, you can't—" "Yes I can. There are guys on the yard who would kill their dear old mothers for two cartons of Chesterfields, scumbucket. Would you care to try for two teeth?" Lloyd was silent. "That's okay, then," the door-guard said. "Just one tooth. You fellas can take him in." Smiling a little, the guard with the cold opened the door and the other led Lloyd inside, where his court-appointed lawyer was sitting at a metal table, looking at papers from his briefcase. "Here's your man, counselor." The lawyer looked' up. He was hardly old enough to be shaving yet, Lloyd judged, but what the hell? Beggars couldn't be choosers. They had him coldcocked anyway, and Lloyd figured to get twenty years or so: When they had you nailed, you just had to close your eyes and grit your teeth. "Thank you very—" "That guy," Lloyd said, pointing to the door-guard. "He called me a scumbag. And when I said something back to him, he said he was gonna have some guy knock out one of my teeth! How's that for police brutality?" The lawyer passed a hand over his face. "Any truth to that?" he asked the door-guard. The door-guard rolled his eyes in a burlesque My God, can you believe it? gesture. "These guys, counselor," he said, "they should write for TV. I said hi, he said hi, that was it." "That's a fuckin lie!" Lloyd said dramatically. "I keep my opinions to myself," the guard said, and gave Lloyd a stony stare. "I'm sure you do," the lawyer said, "but I believe I'll count Mr. Henreid's teeth before I leave." A slight, angry discomfiture passed over the guard's face, and he exchanged a glance with the two that had brought Lloyd in. Lloyd smiled. Maybe the kid was okay at that. The last two CAs he'd had were old hacks; one of them had come into court lugging a colostomy bag, could you believe that, a fucking colostomy bag? The old hacks didn't give a shit for you. Plead and leave, that was their motto, let's get rid of him so we can get back to swapping dirty stories with the judge. But maybe this guy could get him a straight ten, armed robbery. Maybe even time served. After all, the only one he'd actually pokerized was the wife of the guy in the white Connie, and maybe he could just roll that off on ole Poke. Poke wouldn't mind. Poke was just as dead as old Dad's hatband. Lloyd's smile broadened a little. You had to look on the sunny side. That was the ticket. Life was too short to do anything else. He became aware that the guard had left them alone and that his lawyer—his name was Andy Devins, Lloyd remembered—was looking at him in a strange way. It was the way you might look at a rattlesnake whose back has been broken but whose deadly bite is probably still unimpaired. "You're in deep shit, Sylvester!" Devins exclaimed suddenly. Lloyd jumped. "What? What the hell do you mean, I'm in deep shit? By the way, I thought you handled ole fatty there real good. He looked mad enough to chew nails and spit out—" "Listen to me, Sylvester, and listen very carefully." "My name's not—" "You don't have the slightest idea how big a jam you're in, Sylvester." Devins's gaze never faltered. His voice was soft and intense. His hair was blond and crewcut, hardly more than a fuzz. His scalp shone through pinkly. There was a plain gold wedding band on the third finger of his left hand and a fancy fraternity ring on the third finger of his right. He knocked them together and they made a funny little click that set Lloyd's teeth on edge. "You're going to trial in just nine days, Sylvester, because of a decision the Supreme Court handed down four years ago." "What was that?" Lloyd was more uneasy than ever. "It was the case of Markham vs. South Carolina, " Devins said, "and it had to do with the conditions under which individual states may best administer swift justice in cases where the death penalty is requested." "Death penalty!" Lloyd cried, horror-struck. "You mean the lectric chair? Hey, man, I never killed anybody! Swear to God!" "In the eyes of the law, that doesn't matter," Devins said. "If you were there, you did it." "What do you mean, it don't matter?" Lloyd nearly screamed. "It does so matter! It better fuckin matter! I didn't waste those people, Poke did! He was crazy! He was—" "Will you shut up, Sylvester?" Devins inquired in that soft, intense voice, and Lloyd shut. In his sudden fear he had forgotten the cheers for him in Maximum, and even the unsettling possibility
91 that he might lose a tooth. He suddenly had a vision of Tweety Bird running a number on Sylvester the Cat. Only in his mind, Tweety wasn't bopping that dumb ole puddy-tat over the head with a mallet or sticking a mousetrap in front of his questing paw; what Lloyd saw was Sylvester strapped into Old Sparky while the parakeet perched on a stool by a big switch. He could even see the guard's cap on Tweety's little yellow head. This was not a particularly amusing picture. Perhaps Devins saw some of this in his face, because he looked moderately pleased for the first time. He folded his hands on the pile of papers he had taken from his briefcase. "There is no such thing as an accessory when it comes to first-degree murder committed during a felony crime," he said. "The state has three witnesses who will testify that you and Andrew Freeman were together. That pretty well fries your skinny butt. Do you understand?" "Good. Now to get back to Markham vs. South Carolina. I am going to tell you, in words of one syllable, how the ruling in that case bears on your situation. But first, I ought to remind you of a fact you doubtless learned during one of your trips through the ninth grade: the Constitution of the United States specifically forbids cruel and unusual punishment." "Like the fucking lectric chair, damn right," Lloyd said righteously. Devins was shaking his head. "That's where the law was unclear," he said, "and up until four years ago, the courts had gone round and round and up and down, trying to make sense of it. Does `cruel and unusual punishment' mean things like the electric chair and the gas chamber? Or does it mean the wait between sentencing and execution? The appeals, the delays, the stays, the months and years that certain prisoners-Edgar Smith, Caryl Chessman, and Ted Bundy are probably the most famous-were forced to spend on various Death Rows? The Supreme Court allowed executions to recommence in the late seventies, but Death Rows were still clogged, and that nagging question of cruel and unusual punishment remained. Okay-in Markham vs. South Carolina, you had a man sentenced to the electric chair for the rape-murder of three college co-eds. Premeditation was proved by a diary this fellow, Jon Markham, had kept. The jury sentenced him to death." "Bad shit," Lloyd whispered. Devins nodded, and gave Lloyd a slightly sour smile. "The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which reconfirmed that capital punishment was not cruel and unusual under certain circumstances. The court suggested that sooner was better... from a legal standpoint. Are you beginning to get it, Sylvester? Are you beginning to see?" Lloyd didn't. "Do you know why you're being tried in Arizona rather than New Mexico or Nevada?" Lloyd shook his head. "Because Arizona is one of four states that has a Capital Crimes Circuit Court which sits only in cases where the death penalty has been asked for and obtained." "I don't follow you." "You're going to trial in four days," Devins said. "The state has such a strong case that they can afford to empanel the first twelve men and women that get called to the box. I'll drag it out as long as I can, but we'll have a jury on the first day. The state will present its case on the second day. I'll try to take up three days, and I'll fillibuster on my opening and closing statements until the judge cuts me off, but three days is really tops. We'll be lucky to get that. The jury will retire and find you guilty in about three minutes unless a goddamned miracle happens. Nine days from today you'll be sentenced to death, and a week later, you'll be dead as dogmeat. The people of Arizona will love it, and so will the Supreme Court. Because quicker makes everybody happier. I can stretch the week- maybe—but only a little." "Jesus Christ, but that's not fair!" Lloyd cried. "It's a tough old world, Lloyd," Devins said. "Especially for `mad dog killers,' which is what the newspapers and TV commentators are calling you. You're a real big man in the world of crime. You've got real drag. You even put the flu epidemic back East on page two." "I never pokerized nobody," Lloyd said sulkily. "Poke, he did it all. He even made up that word." "It doesn't matter," Devins said. "That's what I'm trying to pound through your thick skull, Sylvester. The judge is going to leave the Governor room for one stay, and only one. I'll appeal, and under the new guidelines, my appeal has to be in the hands of the Capital Crimes Circuit Court within seven days or you exit stage left immediately. If they decide not to hear the appeal, I have another seven days to petition the Supreme Court of the United States. In your case, I'll file my appeal brief as late as possible. The Capital Crimes Circuit Court will probably agree to hear us-the system's still new, and they want as little criticism as possible. They'd probably hear Jack the Ripper's appeal." "How long before they get to me?" Lloyd muttered. "Oh, they'll handle it in jig time," Devins answered, and his smile became slightly wolfish. "You see, the Circuit Court is made up of five retired Arizona judges. They've got nothing to do but go
92 fishing, play poker, drink bonded bourbon, and wait for some sad sack of shit like you to show up in their courtroom, which is really a bunch of computer modems hooked up to the State House, the Governor's office, and each other. They've got telephones equipped with modems in their cars, cabins, even their boats, as well as in their houses. Their average age is seventy-two—" Lloyd winced. "-which means some of them are old enough to have actually ridden the Circuit Line out there in the willywags, if not as judges then as lawyers or law students. They all believe in the Code of the West-a quick trial and then up the rope. It was the way out here until 1950 or so. When it came to multiple murderers, it was the only way." "Jesus Christ Almighty, do you have to go on about it like that?" "You need to know what we're up against," Devin said. "They just want to make sure you don't suffer cruel and unusual punishment, Lloyd. You ought to thank them." "Thank them? I'd like to—" "Pokerize them?" Devins asked quietly. "No, course not," Lloyd said unconvincingly. "Our petition for a new trial will be turned down and all my exceptions will be quickly heaved out. If we're lucky, the court will invite me to present witnesses. If they give me the opportunity, I'll recall everybody that testified at the original trial, plus anyone else I can think of. At that point I'd call your junior high school chums as character witnesses, if I could find them." "I quit school in the sixth grade," Lloyd said bleakly. "After the Circuit Court turns us down, I'll petition to be heard by the Supreme Court. I expect to be turned down on the same day." Devins stopped and lit a cigarette. "Then what?" Lloyd asked. "Then?" Devins asked, looking mildly surprised and exasperated at Lloyd's continuing stupidity. "Why, then you go on to Death Row at state prison and just enjoy all that good food until it's time to ride the lightning. It won't be long." "They wouldn't really do it," Lloyd said. "You're just trying to scare me." "Lloyd, the four states that have the Capital Crimes Circuit Court do it all the time. So far, forty men and women have been executed under the Markham guidelines. It costs the taxpayers a little extra for the added court, but not all that much, since they only work on a tiny percentage of first- degree murder cases. Also, the taxpayers really don't mind opening their pocketbooks for capital punishment. They like it." Lloyd looked ready to throw up. "Anyway," Devins said, "a DA will only try a defendant under Markham guidelines if he looks completely guilty. It isn't enough for the dog to have chicken feathers on his muzzle; you've got to catch him in the henhouse. Which is where they caught you." Lloyd, who had been basking in the cheers from the boys in Maximum Security not fifteen minutes ago, now found himself staring down a paltry two or three weeks and into a black hole. "You scared, Sylvester?" Devins asked in an almost kindly way. Lloyd had to lick his lips before he could answer. "Christ yes, I'm scared. From what you say, I'm a dead man." "I don't want you dead," Devins said, "just scared. If you go into that courtroom smirking and swaggering, they'll strap you in the chair and throw the switch. You'll be number forty-one under Markham. But if you listen to me, we might be able to squeak through. I don't say we will; I say we might." "Go ahead." "The thing we have to count on is the jury," Devins said. "Twelve ordinary shleps off the street. I'd like a jury filled with forty-two-year-old ladies who can still recite Winnie the Pooh by heart and have funerals for their pet birds in the back yard, that's what I'd like. Every jury is made very aware of Markham's consequences when they're empaneled. They're not bringing in a verdict of death that may or may not be implemented in six months or six years, long after they've forgotten it; the guy they're condemning in June is going to be pushing up daisies before the All-Star break." "You've got a hell of a way of putting things." Ignoring him, Devins went on: "In some cases, just that knowledge has caused juries to bring in verdicts of not guilty. It's one adverse result of Markham. In some cases, juries have let blatant murderers go just because they didn't want blood that fresh on their hands." He picked up a sheet of paper. "Although forty people have been executed under Markham, the death penalty has been asked for under Markham a total of seventy times. Of the thirty not executed, twentysix were found `not guilty' by the empaneled juries. Only four convictions were overturned by the Capital Crimes Circuit Courts, one in South Carolina, two in Florida, and one in Alabama." "Never in Arizona?"
93 "Never. I told you. The Code of the West. Those five old men want your ass nailed to a board. If we don't get you off in front of a jury, you're through. I can offer you ninety-to-one on it." "How many people have been found not guilty by regular court juries under that law in Arizona?" "Two out of fourteen." "Those are pretty crappy odds, too." Devins smiled his wolfish smile. "I should point out," he said, "that one of those two was defended by yours truly. He was guilty as sin, Lloyd, just like you are. Judge Pechert raved at those ten women and two men for twenty minutes. I thought he was going to have apoplexy." "If I was found not guilty, they couldn't try me again, could they?" "Absolutely not." "So it's one roll, double or nothing." . Yes." "Boy," Lloyd said, and wiped his forehead. "As long as you understand the situation," Devins said, "and where we have to make our stand, we can get down to brass tacks." "I understand it. I don't like it, though." "You'd be nuts if you did." Devins folded his hands and leaned over them. "Now. You've told me and you've told the police that you, uh..." He took a stapled sheaf of papers out of the stack by his briefcase and riffled through them. "Ali. Here we are. `I never killed nobody. Poke did all the killing. Killing was his idea, not mine. Poke was crazy as a bedbug and I guess it is a blessing to the world that he has passed on. "' "Yeah, that's right, so what?" Lloyd said defensively. "Just this," Devins said cozily. "That implies you were scared of Poke Freeman. Were you scared of him?" "Well, I wasn't exactly—" "You were afraid for your life, in fact." "I don't think it was—" "Terrified. Believe it, Sylvester. You were shitting nickels." Lloyd frowned at his lawyer. It was the frown of a lad who wants to be a good student but is having a serious problem grasping the lesson. "Don't let me lead you, Lloyd," Devins said. "I don't want to do that. You might think I was suggesting that Poke was stoned almost all the time—" "He was! We both was!" "No. You weren't, but he was. And he got crazy when he got stoned—" "Boy, you're not shitting." In the halls of Lloyd's memory, the ghost of Poke Freeman cried Whoop! Whoop! merrily and shot the woman in the Burrack general store. "And he held a gun on you at several points in time—" "No, he never—" "Yes he did. You just forgot for a while. In fact, he once threatened to kill you if you didn't back his play." "Well, I had a gun—" "I believe," Devins said, eyeing him closely, "that if you search your memory, you'll remember Poke telling you that your gun was loaded with blanks. Do you remember that?" "Now that you mention it—" "And nobody was more surprised than you when it actually started firing real bullets, right?" "Sure," Lloyd said. He nodded vigorously. "I bout damn near had a hemorrhage." "And you were about to turn that gun on Poke Freeman when he was cut down, saving you the trouble." Lloyd regarded his lawyer with dawning hope in his eyes. "Mr. Devins," he said with great sincerity, "that's just the way the shit went down."
He was in the exercise yard later that morning, watching a softball game and mulling over everything Devins had told him, when a large inmate named Mathers came over and yanked him up by the collar. Mathers's head was shaved bald, ix la Telly Savalas, and it gleamed benignly in the hot desert air. "Now wait a minute," Lloyd said. "My lawyer counted every one of my teeth. Seventeen. So if you—" "Yeah, that's what Shockley said," Mathers said. "So, he told me to—" Mathers's knee came up squarely in Lloyd's crotch, and blinding pain exploded there, so excruciating that he could not even scream. He collapsed in a hunching, writhing pile, clutching his testicles, which felt crushed. The world was a reddish fog of agony.
94 After a while, who knew how long, he was able to look up. Mathers was still looking at him, and his bald head was still gleaming. The guards were pointedly looking elsewhere: Lloyd moaned and writhed, tears squirting out of his eyes, a redhot ball of lead in his belly. "Nothing personal," Mathers said sincerely. "Just business, you understand. Myself, I hope you make out. That Markham law's a bitch." He strode away and Lloyd saw the door-guard standing atop the ramp in the truck-loading bay on the other side of the exercise yard. His thumbs were hooked in his Sam Browne belt and he was grinning at Lloyd. When he saw he had Lloyd's complete, undivided attention, the door-guard shot him the bird with the middle fingers of both hands. Mathers strolled over to the wall, and the door- guard threw him a pack of Tareytons. Mathers put them in his breast pocket, sketched a salute, and walked away. Lloyd lay on the ground, his knees drawn up to his chest, hands clutching his cramping belly, and Devins's words echoed in his brain: It's a tough old world, Lloyd, it's a tough old world. Right.