The Executioner's Song (92 page)

                You had to talk as if he were the only force that existed.

                Schiller didn't mind such contests. He always felt a subtle advantage.

                He had vision only in one eye. The other person would stare into a flatness of expression in the other eye and wear himself out.

                Gilmore, however, had positioned himself behind the small window in such a way that if Schiller leaned to the left, he, in his turn, could also lean to the left and thereby keep the window frame in the same relation to both of them. It was as if he were looking through a pair of sights. Being farther away from the glass, Schiller began to have the feeling that he was in the prison, while Gilmore was outside and free and peering in.

Anyway, Schiller started his rap. He said, in a formal tone, "You obviously know the reason I'm here," indicating by a slight shift of his eye that for all they both knew, the phones were tapped. "Bob and Vern have no doubt told you I am here to consult," he said with a little smile, getting all the benefit out of the word, "here to broach matters concerning your estate and assets and things like that, you know:" Now they each gave a little smile. About that time, a guard came and sat on a bench in the hallway not far away, and Gary said, "No need to worry about him," just as the guard picked up a magazine and started reading. "He," said Gilmore, "is one of the two guys who are with me all the time whether I'm in my cell or outside. Pretty good guys." He said it like the leader of a team who knew the other players are proud to be associated with him. Schiller was surprised to see how ordinary he looked. It was more than a week since he had seen him leave the hospital, and he certainly had a different appearance today. Vern had told Schiller that Gary was on a hunger strike, but there was no way of seeing it. He looked a lot healthier than the last time. And kind of calm.

                From what Vern and Moody and Stanger and Boaz had said, Larry was expecting a man replete with intelligence and wit. Instead, here was this fellow who looked like he wouldn't be comfortable in a restaurant with a tablecloth.

Schiller guessed he had fifteen or twenty minutes to get the message across so he talked in a fast, hard rap, never taking his eyes off Gilmore, and not a question was asked that first fifteen minutes, until finally Schiller had to say, "If you want to interrupt me, please do," but Gilmore said, "No, no, I'm listening." Then Schiller branched off into the speech he had given Kathryne Baker and Vern, except he used the word "shit" a lot, and "fuck-up" and "con me," and occasionally, would say, "I had a line run on me." All the while, he watched Gilmore and was wondering where's this guy with the high I.Q.? Schiller had gone completely through the fifteen prepared minutes and had been traveling on improvisation for quite a while before Gilmore finally took his first real cut at the ball and said, "Who's going to play me in the movie?"

Half an hour in. "Who's going to play me in the movie?" To Schiller, it meant: Your wits against mine. "You see," Gary drawled, "there's an actor I like. I can't remember his name, but he was in this movie called Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and he also did another flick with Sam Peckinpah." "I think," said Schiller, "It's Warren Oates you're talking about."

                "Well," said Gilmore, "I really like that guy. I want him to play me." He nodded, still looking right at Schiller and said, "I want, as part of our agreement, that this actor do me in the movie."

Schiller took time to reconnoiter. "Gary," he said, "you've been listening to me, but I don't know much yet about you. There may not be a story here. Let's get a good screenplay before we talk about anything else."

                "I think," said Gilmore, "that I would like Warren Oates to play me and I want that as part of the agreement."

                "I can't," said Schiller, "make that a part of the agreement. I can't get us involved in a condition that could put us in a straitjacket. Warren Oates might not be available. I might not want Warren Oates. There might be more suitable actors around. Or it might be that a big block of money could be obtained only if we were to take another actor. You are getting into my part of the business now. I have to say 'no' to the idea that Warren Oates is a condition of our agreement!"

                Gilmore gave a smile. "Larry, I hate Warren Oates," he said.

                "All right," said Schiller, with a big grin. "who do you really want?"

                "Gary Cooper," said Gary Gilmore, "I was named after him."

                That cracked the freeze. Gilmore looked ready to speak about himself now.

                "When you were a kid," asked Schiller, "what did you want to be?"

                "A gangster," Gilmore said, "one of the mob." He started talking about how he'd been a little hood as a kid, lifting things here, breaking in there. He and a friend had been in a wild car chase. Took the cops half an hour to catch them. His face lit up as he spoke. He was like a fellow telling you about attractive chicks he'd made it with.

After they had been going about forty-five minutes, Schiller said, "I've told you about myself, and you've told me something about yourself, and I guess we'll have a chance to talk again and make a decision as to whether I can be of service to you."

                Gilmore said, "You have a place to go?"

                "No," said Schiller," but they won't let me sit here forever."

                "Why not?" asked Gilmore. "Stay all night."

                "Really?"

                "Oh, yeah, Vern and I talk six hours long if we want."

Now, Schiller began to feel how much Gilmore was in control.

                From time to time, he would turn to the guard and say, Where's my pills? or, Get me my coffee, and do it in a tone that had no question he was going to get what he wanted. Bring me my coffee, like, Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia.

When more time went by, however, and the coffee had not arrived, Gilmore abruptly, screamed out: "WHERE'S THE COFFEE?"

                Schiller had been able to see a little irritation building, but this really came without warning, a shrill and screeching sound, that showed, so far as Schiller could see, Gilmore's absolute insensitivity to any ugly impression he might leave with Vern or the lawyers. It was like talking to a woman who suddenly starts caterwauling at her kids.

                Finally, an attendant in a white uniform brought in some pills, and Gary really cussed the guy out. "You've been keeping me waiting an hour and fifteen minutes," he said. "Don't you know that when I ask for medicine, I am supposed to have it? It's a rule. You people make the rules, then you don't fulfill them." He was so rude, in fact, that Schiller was surprised they did not manhandle him back to his cell. It was amazing how far Gilmore was willing to push it.

                His coffee soon followed in a cardboard cup, and he began to rave that he was not supposed to eat out of paper utensils. The regulations called for real crockery. Then, he said to Schiller, "These guys expect me to live by the rules, serve my time by the rules, go to bed by the rules, get executed by the rules, but they bend them all over the place. They break them whenever they want." He went on for a ten-minute tirade, and suddenly, Schiller knew who Gilmore reminded him of: it was Muhammad Ali off on a rant, that same hard, implacable, inhuman voice that Muhammad could turn on and off.

                Once Schiller had been in Ali's room in the Hilton Hotel in Manila and had had to sit there for an hour and listen to Muhammad All in a temper, and Gilmore had the same tone. Didn't care what you thought of him. So Schiller said: "You really did kill those two guys, didn't you?" "Of course I did," said Gilmore, almost looking hurt, "you know that." And then Schiller said, "You killed them," as if to say there was a difference between killing somebody in a rage, and being a cold-blooded killer who only had to throw a little switch in himself. Gilmore was in the second category. He could kill you because you gave him coffee in a paper cup.

                That took a lot of warmth out of the conversation. Schiller knew it was time to back off, so he said, "Vern, anything you want to say?" and Vern got on the phone for a couple of minutes. When Schiller figured it was cool again, he said, "Look, Gary, it's dinnertime. Want me to come back afterwards?" And Gilmore said, "Yeah, oh yeah. We'll sit here all night and talk." He had gotten over his chill. Schiller went out thinking, Boy, what I'll be able to do with this guy. He's a great subject for an interview.

                As the interview went on and on, Moody and Stanger began to worry over being discovered and professionally embarrassed. They weren't above a little prodding to get Schiller out, but Gary wanted to keep talking. Obviously was enjoying himself. Since the lawyers could only hear Schiller's end of it, they had no real idea what Gary was saying.

Then they began to worry that he might be spilling his guts and giving Schiller the story without a contract or anything. Gary had certainly lit up. It was the first time Moody had ever seen him enthused about anything. It confirmed his feeling that Schiller was a good choice, but they were also wide open for an end run. If Schiller was getting tons of material, he might want to double-cross them.

In the restaurant, Schiller kept asking if this is the way Gary acted all the time. Everybody started saying, "Man, he's never talked to anybody the way he talked to you." Schiller didn't know if they were saying that to stroke him, but Vern said quietly, "I think he really likes you." So, Schiller's confidence was building. When they went back he started talking to Gary about a number of subjects, only the conversation hadn't gone fifteen minutes when there was an interruption on the phone, and a long conversation between Moody and somebody at the other end. The Warden or the Assistant Warden.

                Schiller was terminated.

                Gary was very upset. Kept asking, "Who said that? Who gave the order? He's on my lawyer's team. He's allowed to be here." Schiller said, "Don't worry about it, Gary, we'll have plenty of time." Then Moody got up and said, "Here, Gary, is the contract we've discussed."

                They held up this long piece of paper and started reading the money figures over the telephone, and Gary said, "Yes, have the thing typed up. I'll look it over again and sign it."

After the lawyers and Schiller had left, Gary asked Vern, "In your opinion, is he the right fellow?" Vern said, "I don't know just exactly yet, but I think he is."

                "What about Susskind?" asked Gary, and answered himself. "I feel like Mr. Schiller is the one. I like his way of doing business."

That Saturday night and Sunday morning, Schiller worked with Moody and Stanger doing the contracts, making the changes, bringing in secretaries, working the goddamn computer typewriters. The lawyers didn't go to church, and there was a lot of kidding about that.

                But by Sunday afternoon, the contracts were drawn, and Schiller went back in his motel to wait for the signing.

About then, Boaz called Susskind collect. He always called collect.

                Susskind said, "Don't you even have a phone?" Dennis giggled.

                "No, look," said Susskind, "you've gone too far. I don't know what you've done, but you're out and other men are in. You have no more rights in this matter." "Oh, yes," said Boaz, "it can't be done without me."

                "Oh," said Susskind, "it can, and it will. But it isn't going to be done by me." "Listen," said Dennis, "maybe I'm no longer the lawyer in the case, but I have a few documents and I got . . ." Susskind decided he was raving. "You are a poseur," he said, "and a liar and a flaky man. I think you're a very nasty person. Don't ever call me again, collect or otherwise." Things had certainly ended up on an extremely sour note, rancid.

Moody and Stanger got a little rest, and then went up to the prison late Sunday afternoon. Talking on the telephone across the hall, they went through the terms of the contract. Gary didn't want many changes and it was only when they discussed access to his letters that he became angry. He scratched out the clause with his pen and wrote on the contract that no such access was granted until he had spoken to Nicole. The attorneys tried to argue. "You don't have anything to say about it," Moody told him, "they're Nicole's letters now."

                "Well, goddammit," said Gary, "they are not going to be read until I give my consent."

All the while, Schiller was waiting in his room. He sat in that motel until 3 A.M. Monday morning, waiting for them to call. Even phoned the prison to discover they were not there. So, he called Moody's home and woke him up. They'd been back for hours. Back, in fact, since eight-thirty in the evening. It just never occurred to them that he was waiting. All the while he'd been going through desperate scenarios in his head.

Big Jake came back to the tank with a large jar of instant coffee, a large jar of Tang, and a carton of Gibbs's brand of cigarettes, Viceroy Super Longs. He told Gibbs that Gary had asked Vern Damico to drop them off at the jail. Also a message: Geebs, all of a sudden, i've become rather rich if you need anything, you just have to ask. Gibbs figured Gary had sold his life story to somebody. He sat down and made a cup of Tang.