The Executioner's Song (114 page)

                They began to relax. Moyers mentioned, that in November, when he had first proposed Gary Gilmore to CBS, the word had been, "Do Fidel Castro. We want credibility for your new show." Then, as Moyers got it from in-house gossip, somebody very big at CBS said to Frank Stanton, "Why not Gilmore? Everybody is talking about him."

                Stanton kept saying no until he went to a meeting with Paley who declared, "That's phenomenal. That's what we want for Moyers, ratings."

So Bill had moved his entire team to Provo, film editors and all, and planned to air "CBS Reports" the night of the execution. He figured they would get the top rating that night. Schiller was thinking: I have to sell myself as not being exploitative, but CBS, holier than thou, is going for the good old ratings.

Tamera found the dinner really special. When Larry told her they were having dinner with Bill Moyers she didn't even know who the man was. When she found out, therefore, it was exciting. Not every day did you get to go to dinner with the man who managed press relations for President Johnson.

                Up till then, she had been very relaxed. Actually, kind of bored.

                The men were talking business and she hadn't felt included. She had had to fascinate herself by trying things on the menu of a sort she'd never eaten before. They all shared a  Caesar Salad for instance.

                Then, she had a soup something like cold borscht but awful, Gazpacho, she hated that, and, for entree, frogs' legs. Dessert, she tried the Crepes Suzettes. She really did try.

                The frogs' legs were pretty good, although actually the whole meal didn't hit that well. Later, about four in the morning, she went out to Sambo's and had a good old hamburger.

Next morning, Moyers came by to have breakfast, and said, "This is phenomenal. I want to do the entire show with your tapes.

                "No way," said Schiller, but decided he had to throw Moyers a bone. "I have photographs of Gilmore in Maximum," he said. "You can't mention who took the pictures, but if you want to run a montage of stills, well, I won't give you the prints, but I will shoot a movie film of the stills, provided you pay the lab costs. However, I must design it."

                Moyers's producer hit the fucking ceiling. "This is news," he declared, "not entertainment." Moyers, however, went along with Schiller. After all, the man was giving up his own pictures.

                Schiller figured he could design the montage to make Gilmore human, rather than a cold-blooded killer. There was a vulnerability he might be able to communicate. He wanted to get Gilmore before the public looking half-ass acceptable, anyway.

                The problem was not that Gilmore was a killer. The problem was not even that he was challenging all the straight people out there.

                The real difficulty was that he was making fools of them. They could live with a killer who was crazy, mixed-up, insane. But for a murderer to start controlling the issue—that was developing a lot of active hatred for Gilmore. People felt as if the world was being tipped on edge.

If Schiller was going to have a successful book and a successful film, he had to defuse the public animosity, and get across that there was a whole human quality about his man Gilmore. Every time he saw the reporters at the Hilton going monkey see, monkey do, and thought of the interviews he would have gone out to get if he had been on the job, he couldn't believe it. They just didn't do their work.

                Didn't try to get an insight into Gary by interviewing the people who might be accessible. Instead, they sat around, drank, swapped stories, worked up a consensus, and thereby put a common evaluation on the story the way an open market arrived at a price. They all used the same few stories in common. Yet if he, Larry Schiller, were to offer examples of interesting human qualities in Gilmore, no one would accept them. They would say he was painting that nice picture for his own financial benefit. Therefore, he had to have the portrait painted by somebody else. Right now, that was going to be Bill Moyers.

Jan. 8 Sat.

Hello my Love

                My Mother in Law Marie Barrett brought Sunny up to see me yesterday.

                She's gettin so damn pretty an sassy. An happy as a lark. Peabody too. Got himself some little levis an boots. Looks like a tuff little shit kicker, but hes sweet as pie . . .

                Guess i Kinda lost touch with my Love for them a little while before all this came about . . .

                Would you believe—i get strip shook after visiting with them.

                i got a bit of infection, an the doc ordered me a supository. But they insist on watchin me insert it so i said to hell with it—ill rot first, forgive my vulgarity Love . . .

                its a crazy life these days. i wonder what destiny we are waiting for. Entering.

                if you are shot Jan 17. . .

                What will be in me? will i be nothing if you go away . . .

                Will i be more? Will i be lost or be found? i don't want to be without you. i dont think i would continue to exist if i should be ever a day without Your Love in my soul.

                Jesus, Gary. Be with me.

Larry asked Tamera if they could use a desk at the Deseret News for the interview, and what with the shooting being done on a Saturday night, she didn't have too hard a time getting permission. Hardly any of the staff was there.

                This setup was just what Schiller wanted. He had a big city newsroom behind him all the while he spoke. There he was sitting at a desk, then a shot of him listening to a tape of Gary, then going to work on the typewriter. Moyers's crew filmed away full blast.

                Schiller was sitting in front of the news desk when Tamera came up during a break, and said, "You got to look at something." Took him to a corner of the room and handed a tear of paper just come off the wire. ABC had pulled out. Fucking pulled out!

                There it was, right on a wire service teletype. The President of ABC, Frank Pierce, was not producing any entertainment stories on Gary Gilmore. Incredible It meant that ABC was writing off seventy grand already spent, and they were leaving Schiller up in the tree.

                Now, the game was to finish the interview before Moyers saw that news story. The moment he did, the questions would come.

Schiller remembered a press conference in the Americana Hotel on the day he released the interview he had done with Jack Ruby.

                Right in the middle, a reporter had stood up and said, "Mr. Schiller, Jack Ruby just died. What do you have to say now?" He had had to give an extemporaneous answer in a hideously delicate situation.

                Awful. Now, he could practically hear Moyers: "Mr. Schiller, even though we both agree you are not an exploiter, ABC obviously thinks you are." This was being done on CBS. They could slap ABC right along with him.

The moment there was a real break and they started moving the setup for a new angle, Schiller called a couple of ABC people in L.A.

                Nobody knew anything. "It's right from the top," said Schiller. "You guys better get prepared. Tomorrow morning they may be interviewing you." He laid it in how they hadn't been protecting his flanks.

                Moyers never brought it up. He interviewed Schiller twice after that, but didn't say a word. Schiller really respected him for that.

By morning, Schiller decided he might be in a good position. At least he wouldn't have to deal with a TV show that would milk the real merits of the story. He still had the rights, and could do the book and the movie. All the same, he had to learn how it happened. It was too incredible. During the day, he found out that a top ABC executive's wife was attending Columbia School of Journalism and came back one night indignant that the network was doing the Gary Gilmore story. She said to her husband, "How can you get into this? Exploiting history." The top executive—they wouldn't tell Schiller his name—never spoke to anybody on the West Coast, just told the New York office, "We're not doing Gilmore as entertainment." Of course, he was probably worried the FCC would go all over ABC's ass. "Circus" was no word to face the government with.

Holed up in the motel room, ready to go crazy with the pain, Gibbs was still trying to get his story connected with a paper. Trouble was everyone he called spoke to Schiller.

Finally, he came to an agreement with the New York Post. For $7,500. Gibbs told them that he had a handwritten invitation from Gilmore to go to the execution, and lots of letters. The Post had a reporter out in Aspen covering the Claudine Longet trial, and wanted Gibbs to go there, but he was afraid of being recognized by Salt Lake reporters, so talked them into letting him stay at the Royal Inn in Boulder, Colorado. Said he would check in under the name Luciano.

Chapter 24

WAITING FOR THE DAY

Brenda had had some worrisome hemorrhages. Going in for a checkup, she said to her doctor, "God, give me something for this pain. I don't know if I can keep going." Waitressing at La Cosa there were nights when she was ready to cry out. The doctor had been giving her pills, but on this day he said, "Brenda, it's not getting any better. You've got to come into the hospital and get it taken care of."

                "Not now," said Brenda.

                He shook his head "I have one opening. Then I'll be jammed for three months. You can't wait that long, We'll have to bring you out on an emergency basis, and it's no good that way. Too high a risk."

                "Oh," said Brenda, "shit on you. I'll call you back."

In the meantime, Johnny talked to the doctor and made arrangements. Brenda couldn't fight it. She was so tense from withstanding her twinges that she seemed to be tearing more. She said to herself, "Am I trying to get out of going to the execution?" Then thought, "No, I want to be there." She had been talking to Gary on the phone and feelings had improved. Their last conversation she had said, "Gary, I'm just hoping you're as intelligent as you keep telling me you are, and so you will, at least, try to look at my point of view." God, he was single-minded, but she had the feeling he was softening.

                In fact, when Gary got word that Brenda was going to the hospital, he asked Cline Campbell to see the Warden about letting her in for a last visit, but Sam Smith said, "He's had a disciplinary write-up for throwing a tray at a guard, and I will not bend the rules."

                "Hell, Warden," said Campbell, "the man's going to die."

                Sam Smith shook his head. "I can't do it without permission from Ernie Wright," he said.

Gary was drinking a cup of coffee when he heard the news. In one motion the cup and coffee went flying past Campbell's head and smashed on the wall. It was not right next to his head, but not that far away either. Campbell didn't jump. It had shocked and surprised him, but he didn't want to show fear. Gilmore now cursed, turned around, said, "I'm sorry," and walked away. In thirty seconds, he came back and said to the guard, "Where ya been? I want to clean this mess up." It was gone, like that.

 After Brenda checked in, they put a white mini around her that stayed open in the back, and she felt safe in bed. She began to think about Gary a lot. He had been born in December and would be killed in January and she thought back to the night he came over with April and made a joke of calling her January, and then, Brenda began to count how long it was since Gary was out, nine months to the day from April 9th until this day on January 9th that she was entering the hospital. If they did execute him on the 17th, his death would come nine months and nine days from the time he first came out of prison.

                By God, she thought, that is just about the term of pregnancy. Hardly knew what caused it, but she began to cry.

GILMORE            Have you ever heard of a guy named Zeke, Jinks or Pinkney, or some goddamn Dabney?

STANGER            Yea, he's the ACLU lawyer.

GILMORE            Listen to this shit. Mr. Dabney said that there's still a chance that Gilmore may flip-flop and change his mind about wanting to be executed. You know that term "flip-flop," man, has a certain jailhouse connotation. You guys don't know what it means, but I do.

                I'm pretty sure Dabney does. It means a guy who will fuck somebody in the ass and get fucked in the ass. Flip-flop. You can see what the term means. I'll read it to you, and I'd like you to release it Monday.

V. Jinks Dabney of ACLU, what a phony-sounding name. You said in the Salt Lake Tribune there is still a chance that Gilmore may flip-flop and change his mind about wanting to be executed. No chance, V. Jinks Dabney, no way, never. You and ACLU are the flip-flops. You take one stand on abortion, which is actually execution. You are all for that. And then you take another stand on capital punishment. You're against that. Where are your convictions, V. Jinks Dabney? Do you and ACLU know where you really stand on anything? You have simply let this thing about me develop into a personal matter. You can't take losing. Well you've lost this one, V. Jinks Dabney. NAACP, look boy, I am a white man. Get that through your Brillo Pad heads, boy. I know a lot of black dudes, and I don't know any who respect the dumb niggers of NAACP. Giauque, Amsterdam, all you other nosy publicity-hunting lawyers, butt out, you punks.