Warren Murphy - The End of the Beginning

"I really don't know."

"We can start with violation of the Lord's commandment not to kill. How many men have you killed?"

"Including Vietnam?"

"No, Vietnam doesn't count."

"That wasn't killing, huh?"

"In war, killing is not a mortal sin."

"How about peace, when the state says you did, but you didn't? How about that?"

"Are you talking about this conviction?"

"Yes." Remo's voice was small. He stared at his knees.

"Well, in that case..."

"All right, Father," Remo interrupted suddenly. "I confess it. I killed the man." The lie came easily. His trousers, fresh gray twill, hadn't even had a chance to get worn at the knees. Remo noticed that the monk's cowl was perfectly clean. Spotlessly new. He looked up at that hard face beneath the cowl. Was that a smile?

"Coveted anyone's property?" the monk pressed.

"No."

"Stolen?"

"No.,"Impure actions?"

"Sure. In thought and deed."

"Blasphemy, anger, pride, jealousy, gluttony?"

"No," Remo said, rather loudly.

The monk leaned forward. Remo could see the tobacco stains on his teeth. The light, subtle smell of expensive aftershave lotion wafted into his nostrils. The monk's voice was a whispering rasp. "You're a goddamned liar."

Remo jumped back. His hands moved almost as if to ward off a blow. The priest remained leaning forward, motionless. And he was grinning. The priest was grinning. The guards couldn't see it because of the cowl, but Remo could. The state was playing its final joke on him: a tobacco-stained, grinning, swearing monk.

"You're no priest," Remo said.

"Shh," cautioned the brown-robed man. "Keep your voice down. You want to save your soul or your ass?"

Remo stared at the crucifix, the silver Christ on the black cross and the black button at the feet.

A black button?

"Listen. We don't have much time," the man in the robe said. "You want to live?"

The word seemed to float from Remo's soul. "Sure."

"Get on your knees."

Remo went to the floor in one smooth motion. The crucifix came toward his head. He looked up at the silvery feet pierced by a silver nail.

"Pretend to kiss the feet. Yes. Closer. There's a black pill. Ease it off with your teeth. Go ahead, but don't bite into it."

Remo opened his mouth and closed his teeth around the black button. He saw the robes swirl as the man got up to block the guard's view. The pill came off. It was hard, probably plastic.

"Don't break the shell," the man hissed. "Stick it in the corner of your mouth. When they strap the helmet around your head so you can't move, bite into the pill and swallow the whole thing. Not before. Do you hear?"

Remo held the pill on his tongue. The man in the robes of a monk was no longer smiling. Remo glared at him.

Why were all the big decisions in his life forced on him when he didn't have time to think? He tongued the pill.

Poison? No point in that. Spit it out? Then what?

Nothing to lose. Remo tried to taste the pill without letting it touch his teeth. No taste. The monk hovered over him. Remo nestled the pill under his tongue and said a very fast and very sincere prayer.

"Okay," he said.

"Time's up," the guard's voice commanded.

"God bless you, my son," the monk said loudly, making the sign of the cross with the crucifix. Then, in a whisper, "See you later." He padded from the cell, his head bowed, the crucifix before him and his left hand flinting steel.

Steel?

Remo caught just a glimpse of a curving hook before the monk vanished in the hallway outside his open cell door.

Someone was telling Remo it was time to go. The prison guard. Remo swallowed very carefully. Tongue clamped down over the pill, he walked out to meet his fate.

HAROLD HAINES DIDN'T like it. Four executions in seven years, and all of a sudden the state had to send in electricians to monkey with the power box.

"A routine check," he was told. "You haven't used it for three years. They just want to make sure it'll work."

Whoever they were, Haines never saw them. They'd come to do their tinkering the previous night. That was hours ago. Now, on the morning he was scheduled to execute that maniac killer cop, Williams, Harold Haines was having to give his own equipment a less than thorough once-over.

The executioner's pale face tilted toward the head-high regulator panel as he turned a rheostat. Out of the corner of his eye he glanced momentarily at the glass partition separating the control room from the chair room.

Haines shook his head and turned the juice back down. The generators resumed their low, malevolent hum.

"Is something the matter?" asked a crisp voice. Haines jumped in shock, spinning.

A tall, middle-aged man in a three-piece gray suit and carrying a metallic attache case was standing very nearby beside the control panel. The executioner had thought he was alone. This man with the lemony voice had slipped into the small room like a silent ghost.

"Who are you?" Haines snapped.

"The warden's office told you I was coming," replied the stranger. He had the bland look of a career bureaucrat.

Haines remembered Warden Johnson mentioning something about some state observer wanting to be on hand to witness the execution from the control room.

"Oh," Haines sighed, nodding. "Oh, yeah. They did." With a grunt he turned back to the control board. "He'll be here in a minute. It's not much of a view from here, but if you go to the glass partition you can see fine."

"Thank you," said the man with the attache case. The man in the gray suit didn't move toward the window. He waited until Haines involved himself with his toys of death. Once he was certain he was not being observed, he cast an eye over the steel rivets at the base of the generator cover. Counting carefully to himself, he stopped at the fourth rivet. The rivet was brighter than the others.

The man glanced around the room. Certain once more that Haines wasn't paying attention, he pressed the attache case against the fifth rivet, which moved an eighth of an inch.

There was a faint click. The man moved quickly away from the panel toward the glass partition. Through the thick glass, the electric chair was reflected in the spotless lenses of his rimless glasses.

Less than a minute later the door to the chair room opened. Remo Williams stepped in behind the warden. Two guards came in behind.

Remo didn't struggle. Stepping into the center of the room, he sat in the chair by himself.

The guards placed his arms on the chair arms and fastened them in place with metallic straps. Kneeling, they clamped Remo's legs with more straps.

In the control room the lemon-faced man watched as the condemned man pursed his lips. Williams seemed to be rolling his tongue inside his closed mouth. The movement stopped and Williams just sat there, calmly awaiting death.

Harold Haines hustled from the control room for a few moments. He emerged in the chair room. After drawing a cap over the prisoner's head, the executioner did one last check around the chair. Satisfied that everything was in working order, he hustled back into the control room.

The next few moments were always anticlimactic.

The warden asked the condemned man if he had any last words.

Williams didn't say anything. His eyes were closed and his arms were limp. It looked as if he was out cold.

Passed out, Haines thought. Mr. Tough Guy Newark, New Jersey, beat cop had passed out in the chair. Well, Harold Haines would wake him up, all right.

Warden Johnson stepped back from the chair and nodded toward the control room. Sweating, Haines slowly turned up the twin rheostats. The generators hummed.

Williams's body jolted upright in the seat. Haines eased off the rheostats slowly.

The warden nodded again. Haines threw another jolt into Williams as the generators hummed.