Part 13 (1/2)

But I wanted her, and the touch of her cold hand was exciting. I licked her nipples, erect and salty.

A ketch was beating up on the windward side, heading toward Cow Point on Tidy Island. In a few minutes it would pa.s.s close enough for anyone with binoculars to see us. ”Let's go below,” I said, resting on my elbows, with my wife's strong ankles up around the back of my neck. She went to exercise-and-stretch cla.s.s three times a week.

”Let them look,” Toba panted. ”Maybe they'll throw money... .”

All the next day I kept thinking about what I had done. I had never lied to a client before. I could be disbarred. But images of blue fire were never far from my consciousness.

When I reached home at seven o'clock, sweaty and ready for a swim and a b.l.o.o.d.y Mary, Toba was waiting by the side of the pool.

”Alan talked to me,” she said. ”He thinks you don't respect him. You're disappointed in him.”

”He's right,” I said.

”He's depressed. His father's a high-powered lawyer. His mother, in his c.o.c.keyed view, is a successful real estate agent. His sister's a whiz kid off at an Ivy League college. And he's a failure. Drugs are the only solace in his life, he says. Marijuana is his best friend.”

I raised my eyes to heaven.

”And worst of all, I think,” Toba said, ”he's suicidal.”

”You think he's suicidal?” I felt my shoulders sag, my heart seize up with despair.

”You're hearing what you want to hear. He says he's suicidal. He says he climbs into his car, drives across the causeway, and he gets this urge to shut his eyes. He does shut them sometimes, for a few seconds. But then he turns chicken. He says to himself, 'Dad'll be furious, and it'll ruin Mom's life.' ”

”Did you tell him that was the understatement of the year?”

”No. I just cried.”

That's what I wanted to do. This was my son's life. I would have given anything for none of this to be true. I was supposed to do whatever fathers did to protect their young, so that the species didn't die out. If spotted hyenas and Bengal tigers and birdbrained robins could do it, why couldn't I?

”Ted, what are we going to do?”

But I had no answer. I was heartsick. Unless I could intervene, my son, like Darryl Morgan, was on the road to death.

Chapter 13.

I FLEW ON a little feeder flight to Jacksonville, rented a car at the airport, and drove straight out 1-10 and then down 121 through scrub woods and air heavy with pine resin. To Raiford again, and to death row.

Sneakers squeaked where black men played basketball on cracked concrete. Bodies glistened and iron clanged where others lifted weights. Angry voices drifted through sunlight.

At the main building of the prison, I was expected. My ID was checked, I pa.s.sed through the metal detector, and I was led into the cool office of the a.s.sistant superintendent. A placard on the desk read: RAYMOND G. WRIGHT.

There were two telephones on the desk: a red instrument to communicate with the outside world, a black one to communicate within the perimeter of the prison. Raymond G. Wright wore a white b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt and a striped tie. A creased brown suit jacket hung on a wooden clothes tree in the corner of the room. I remembered seeing Wright for a minute or two in the death chamber when they had electrocuted Sweeting. Fred Olsen had told me that the a.s.sistant superintendent engaged the circuit breakers before the switch was tripped by the executioner and the automatic cycle began. Everyone had a hand in the killing, literally.

”We don't get many prosecutors visiting here,” Wright said.

”You may have misunderstood. I'm not a prosecutor now.” From the breast pocket of my suit jacket I extracted a card from Royal, Kelly, Wellmet, Jaffe & Miller. I slid it across the desk.

I had come prepared to face the consequences of having struck my fist into Clive Crocker's face on the day of Sweeting's execution. Prepared to apologize, offer some compensation if necessary. But my name seemed to mean nothing to Raymond G. Wright. Or perhaps, I thought, FSP administrative a.s.sistants were struck so often that no one took much notice.

”The man I want to visit is Darryl Morgan.”

”You're Wizard's attorney?”

”Who is Wizard?”

”That's what the guards call Mr. Morgan.”

”No, I'm not his attorney yet. But I will be. I've just come from Tallaha.s.see, from CCR-they're handling his current appeal. The governor's already signed the death warrant. I believe Morgan's in what you call Phase One of Death Watch.”

Wright said, ”But you're not on Mr. Morgan's visiting list.”

”I called and your secretary said there wouldn't be a problem. I prosecuted Morgan,” I added.

The logic of this seemed to baffle the a.s.sistant superintendent. And that was understandable.

”If it will help,” I said, ”you can call Beldon Ruth, the state attorney up in Jacksonville. Or the public defender, Kenneth Buckram. Verify my credentials.”

Wright cleared his throat and began moving some papers back and forth on the neat surface of his desk. From the expression in his eyes I finally realized that he found it difficult to deal with a situation for which no specific written guidelines existed. A telephone call wouldn't help.

Wright frowned. ”How could you become his attorney if you prosecuted him? Wouldn't there be some sort of conflict of interest? You can't defend someone you once prosecuted.”

”Are you an attorney-at-law?” I asked.

”No.”

”Then I'd appreciate your not telling me what, as a lawyer, I can and can't do. I don't tell you how to run your prison, sir.”

Wright said, ”I wasn't telling you, sir, I was just asking.” But he reached for the black telephone.

The attorneys' interview rooms were in the main building, a quarter of a mile away from Q wing. An underground tunnel connected the two. There were two folding metal chairs and a metal table. Through a gla.s.s wall a correctional officer could observe anyone in the interview room but couldn't hear.

In another room Darryl Morgan was strip-searched. His waist chain and handcuffs were removed. I stood up when he entered. I avoided his eyes, conscious only of a physically large, dark presence in prison denim.

Darryl Morgan was thirty-three years old now. If I hadn't known that, I would have guessed him to be forty. There was gray in the kinky black hair above the temples. The eyes were deep-set and dark, but they no longer smoldered with anger, as they had in the courtroom where I'd last seen him. They were wintry with resignation. They were old.

I realized that he didn't recognize me.

”You know who I am?”

”They tell me you're a lawyer.”

”You don't know me?”

”You looks familiar.”