"Don't start in on me," he said in a tone of voice that was almost pleasant. "I mean, hey, it was just a mouse. It never belonged here in the first place, as you boys well know."
"The mouse is fine," I said. My heart was thumping hard in my chest but I made my voice come out mild, almost disinterested. "Just fine. Running and squeaking and chasing its spool again. You're no better at mouse-killing than you are at most of the other things you do around here."
He was looking at me, amazed and disbelieving. "You expect me to believe that? The goddam thing crunched! I heard it! So you can just--"
"Shut up."
He stared at me, his eyes wide. "What? What did you say to me?"
I took a step closer to him. I could feel a vein throbbing in the middle of my forehead. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so angry. "Aren't you glad Mr. Jingles is okay? After all the talks we've had about how our job is to keep the prisoners calm, especially when it gets near the end for them, I thought you'd be glad. Relieved. With Del having to take the walk tomorrow, and all."
Percy looked from me to Brutal, his studied calmness dissolving into uncertainty. "What the hell game do you boys think you're playing?" he asked.
"None of this is a game, my friend," Brutal said. "You thinking it is . . . well, that's just one of the reasons you can't be trusted. You want to know the absolute truth? I think you're a pretty sad case."
"You want to watch it," Percy said. Now there was a rawness in his voice. Fear creeping back in, after all--fear of what we might want with him, fear of what we might be up to. I was glad to hear it. It would make him easier to deal with. "I know people. Important people."
"So you say, but you're such a dreamer," Brutal said. He sounded as if he was on the verge of laughter.
Percy dropped the polishing rag onto the seat of the chair with the clamps attached to the arms and legs. "I killed that mouse," he said in a voice that was not quite steady.
"Go on and check for yourself," I said. "It's a free country."
"I will," he said. "I will."
He stalked past us, mouth set, small hands (Wharton was right, they were pretty) fiddling with his comb. He went up the steps and ducked through into my office. Brutal and I stood by Old Sparky, waiting for him to come back and not talking. I don't know about Brutal, but I couldn't think of a thing to say. I didn't even know how to think about what we had just seen.
Three minutes passed. Brutal picked up Percy's rag and began to polish the thick back-slats of the electric chair. He had time to finish one and start another before Percy came back. He stumbled and almost fell coming down the steps from the office to the storage-room floor, and when he crossed to us he came at an uneven strut. His face was shocked and unbelieving.
"You switched them," he said in a shrill, accusatory voice. "You switched mice somehow, you bastards. You're playing with me, and you're going to be goddam sorry if you don't stop! I'll see you on the goddam breadlines if you don't stop! Who do you think you are?"
He quit, panting for breath, his hands clenched.
"I'll tell you who we are," I said. "We're the people you work with, Percy . . . but not for very much longer." I reached out and clamped my hands on his shoulders. Not real hard; but it was a clamp, all right. Yes it was.
Percy reached up to break it. "Take your--"
Brutal grabbed his right hand--the whole thing, small and soft and white, disappeared into Brutal's tanned fist. "Shut up your cakehole, sonny. If you know what's good for you, you'll take this one last opportunity to dig the wax out of your ears."
I turned him around, lifted him onto the platform, then backed him up until the backs of his knees struck the seat of the electric chair and he had to sit down. His calm was gone; the meanness and the arrogance, too. Those things were real enough, but you have to remember that Percy was very young. At his age they were still only a thin veneer, like an ugly shade of enamel paint. You could still chip through. And I judged that Percy was now ready to listen.
"I want your word," I said.
"My word about what?" His mouth was still trying to sneer, but his eyes were terrified. The power in the switch room was locked off, but Old Sparky's wooden seat had its own power, and right then I judged that Percy was feeling it.
"Your word that if we put you out front for it tomorrow night, you'll really go on to Briar Ridge and leave us alone," Brutal said, speaking with a vehemence I had never heard from him before. "That you'll put in for a transfer the very next day."
"And if I won't? If I should just call up certain people and tell them you're harassing me and threatening me? Bullying me?"
"We might get the bum's rush if your connections are as good as you seem to think they are," I said, "but we'd make sure you left your fair share of blood on the floor, too, Percy."
"About that mouse? Huh! You think anyone is going to care that I stepped on a condemned murderer's pet mouse? Outside of this looney-bin, that is?"
"No. But three men saw you just standing there with your thumb up your ass while Wild Bill Wharton was trying to strangle Dean Stanton with his wrist-chains. About that people will care, Percy, I promise you. About that even your offsides uncle the governor is going to care."
Percy's cheeks and brow flushed a patchy red. "You think they'd believe you?" he asked, but his voice had lost a lot of its angry force. Clearly he thought someone might believe us. And Percy didn't like being in trouble. Breaking the rules was okay. Getting caught breaking them was not.
"Well, I've got some photos of Dean's neck before the bruising went down," Brutal said--I had no idea if this was true or not, but it certainly sounded good. "You know what those pix say? That Wharton got a pretty good shot at it before anyone pulled him off, although you were right there, and on Wharton's blind side. You'd have some hard questions to answer, wouldn't you? And a thing like that could follow a man for quite a spell. Chances are it'd still be there long after his relatives were out of the state capital and back home drinking mint juleps on the front porch. A man's work-record can be a mighty interesting thing, and a lot of people get a chance to look at it over the course of a lifetime."
Percy's eyes flicked back and forth mistrustfully between us. His left hand went to his hair and smoothed it. He said nothing, but I thought we almost had him.
"Come on, let's quit this," I said. "You don't want to be here any more than we want you here, isn't that so?"
"I hate it here!" he burst out. "I hate the way you treat me, the way you never gave me a chance!"
That last was far from true, but I judged this wasn't the time to argue the matter.
"But I don't like to be pushed around, either. My Daddy taught me that once you start down that road you most likely end up letting people push you around your whole life." His eyes, not as pretty as his hands but almost, flashed. "I especially don't like being pushed around by big apes like this guy." He glanced at my old friend and grunted. "Brutal--you got the right nickname, at least."
"You have to understand something, Percy," I said. "The way we look at it, you've been pushing us around. We keep telling you the way we do things around here and you keep doing things your own way, then hiding behind your political connections when things turn out wrong. Stepping on Delacroix's mouse--" Brutal caught my eye and I backtracked in a hurry. "Trying to step on Delacroix's mouse is just a case in point. You push and push and push; we're finally pushing back, that's all. But listen, if you do right, you'll come out of this looking good--like a young man on his way up--and smelling like a rose. Nobody'll ever know about this little talk we're having. So what do you say? Act like a grownup. Promise you'll leave after Del."
He thought it over. And after a moment or two, a look came into his eyes, the sort of look a fellow gets when he's just had a good idea. I didn't like it much, because any idea which seemed good to Percy wouldn't seem good to us.
"If nothing else," Brutal said, "just think how nice it'd be to get away from that sack of pus Wharton."
&nb
sp; Percy nodded, and I let him get out of the chair. He straightened his uniform shirt, tucked it in at the back, gave his hair a pass-through with his comb. Then he looked at us. "Okay, I agree. I'm out front for Del tomorrow night; I'll put in for Briar Ridge the very next day. We call it quits right there. Good enough?"
"Good enough," I said. That look was still in his eyes, but right then I was too relieved to care.
He stuck out his hand. "Shake on it?"
I did. So did Brutal.
More fools us.
4
THE NEXT DAY was the thickest yet, and the last of our strange October heat. Thunder was rumbling in the west when I came to work, and the dark clouds were beginning to stack up there. They moved closer as the night came down, and we could see blue-white forks of lightning jabbing out of them. There was a tornado in Trapingus County around ten that night--it killed four people and tore the roof off the livery stable in Tefton--and vicious thunderstorms and gale-force winds at Cold Mountain. Later it seemed to me as if the very heavens had protested the bad death of Eduard Delacroix.
Everything went just fine to begin with. Del had spent a quiet day in his cell, sometimes playing with Mr. Jingles but mostly just lying on his bunk and petting him. Wharton tried to get trouble started a couple of times--once he hollered down to Del about the mousieburgers they were going to have after old Lucky Pierre was dancing the two-step in hell--but the little Cajun didn't respond and Wharton, apparently deciding that was his best shot, gave it up.
At quarter past ten, Brother Schuster showed up and delighted us all by saying he would recite the Lord's Prayer with Del in Cajun French. It seemed like a good omen. In that we were wrong, of course.
The witnesses began to arrive around eleven, most talking in low tones about the impending weather, and speculating about the possibility of a power outage postponing the electrocution. None of them seemed to know that Old Sparky ran off a generator, and unless that took a direct lightning-hit, the show would go on. Harry was in the switch room that night, so he and Bill Dodge and Percy Wetmore acted as ushers, seeing folks into their seats and asking each one if he'd like a cold drink of water. There were two women present: the sister of the girl Del had raped and murdered, and the mother of one of the fire victims. The latter lady was large and pale and determined. She told Harry Terwilliger that she hoped the man she'd come to see was good and scared, that he knew the fires in the furnace were stoked for him, and that Satan's imps were waiting for him. Then she burst into tears and buried her face in a lace hanky that was almost the size of a pillowslip.
Thunder, hardly muffled at all by the tin roof, banged harsh and loud. People glanced up uneasily. Men who looked uncomfortable wearing ties this late at night wiped at their florid cheeks. It was hotter than blue blazes in the storage shed. And, of course, they kept turning their eyes to Old Sparky. They might have made jokes about this chore earlier in the week, but the jokes were gone by eleven-thirty or so that night. I started all this by telling you that the humor went out of the situation in a hurry for the people who had to sit down in that oak chair, but the condemned prisoners weren't the only ones who lost the smiles off their faces when the time actually came. It just seemed so bald, somehow, squatting up there on its platform, with the clamps on the legs sticking off to either side, looking like the things a person with polio would have to wear. There wasn't much talk, and when the thunder boomed again, as sharp and personal as a splintering tree, the sister of Delacroix's victim gave a little scream. The last person to take his seat in the witnesses' section was Curtis Anderson, Warden Moores's standin.
At eleven-thirty, I approached Delacroix's cell with Brutal and Dean walking slightly behind me. Del was sitting on his bunk, with Mr. Jingles in his lap. The mouse's head was stretched forward toward the condemned man, his little oilspot eyes rapt on Del's face. Del was stroking the top of Mr. Jingles's head between his ears. Large silent tears were rolling down Del's face, and it was these the mouse seemed to be peering at. Del looked up at the sound of our footsteps. He was very pale. From behind me, I sensed rather than saw John Coffey standing at his cell door, watching.
Del winced at the sound of my keys clashing against metal, but held steady, continuing to stroke Mr. Jingles's head, as I turned the locks and ran the door open.
"Hi dere, Boss Edgecombe," he said. "Hi dere, boys. Say hi, Mr. Jingles." But Mr. Jingles only continued to look raptly up at the balding little man's face, as if wondering at the source of his tears. The colored spool had been neatly laid aside in the Corona box--laid aside for the last time, I thought, and felt a pang.
"Eduard Delacroix, as an officer of the court . . ."
"Boss Edgecombe?"
I thought about just running on with the set speech, then thought again. "What is it, Del?"
He held the mouse out to me. "Here. Don't let nothing happen to Mr. Jingles."
"Del, I don't think he'll come to me. He's not--"
"Mais oui, he say he will. He say he know all about you, Boss Edgecombe, and you gonna take him down to dat place in Florida where the mousies do their tricks. He say he trust you." He held his hand out farther, and I'll be damned if the mouse didn't step off his palm and onto my shoulder. It was so light I couldn't even feel it through my uniform coat, but I sensed it, like a small heat. "And boss? Don't let that bad 'un near him again. Don't let that bad 'un hurt my mouse."
"No, Del. I won't." The question was, what was I supposed to do with him right then? I couldn't very well march Delacroix past the witnesses with a mouse perched on my shoulder.
"I'll take him, boss," a voice rumbled from behind me. It was John Coffey's voice, and it was eerie the way it came right then, as though he had read my mind. "Just for now. If Del don't mind."
Del nodded, relieved. "Yeah, you take im, John, 'til dis foolishment done--bien! And den after . . ." His gaze shifted back to Brutal and me. "You gonna take him down to Florida. To dat Mouseville Place."
"Yeah, most likely Paul and I will do it together," Brutal said, watching with a troubled and unquiet eye as Mr. Jingles stepped off my shoulder and into Coffey's huge outstretched palm. Mr. Jingles did this with no protest or attempt to run; indeed, he scampered as readily up John Coffey's arm as he had stepped onto my shoulder. "We'll take some of our vacation time. Won't we, Paul?"
I nodded. Del nodded, too, eyes bright, just a trace of a smile on his lips. "People pay a dime apiece to see him. Two cents for the kiddies. Ain't dat right, Boss Howell?"
"That's right, Del."
"You a good man, Boss Howell," Del said. "You, too, Boss Edgecombe. You yell at me sometimes, oui, but not 'less you have to. You all good men except for dat Percy. I wish I coulda met you someplace else. Mauvais temps, mauvaise chance."
"I got something to say to you, Del," I told him. "They're just the words I have to say to everyone before we walk. No big deal, but it's part of my job. Okay?"
"Oui, monsieur," he said, and looked at Mr. Jingles, perched on John Coffey's broad shoulder, for the last time. "Au revoir, mon ami," he said, beginning to cry harder. "Je t'aime, mon petit." He blew the mouse a kiss. It should have been funny, that blown kiss, or maybe just grotesque, but it wasn't. I met Dean's eye for a moment, then had to look away. Dean stared down the corridor toward the restraint room and smiled strangely. I believe he was on the verge of tears. As for me, I said what I had to say, beginning with the part about how I was an officer of the court, and when I was done, Delacroix stepped out of his cell for the last time.
"Hold on a second longer, hoss," Brutal said, and checked the crown of Del's head, where the cap would go. He nodded at me, then clapped Del on the shoulder. "Right with Eversharp. We're on our way."
So Eduard Delacroix took his last walk on the Green Mile with little streams of mingled sweat and tears running down his cheeks and big thunder rolling in the sky overhead. Brutal walked on the condemned man's left, I was on his right, Dean was to the rear.
Schuster was in my office, with guards Ring
gold and Battle standing in the corners and keeping watch. Schuster looked up at Del, smiled, and then addressed him in French. It sounded stilted to me, but it worked wonders. Del smiled back, then went to Schuster, put his arms around him, hugged him. Ringgold and Battle tensed, but I raised my hands to them and shook my head.
Schuster listened to Del's flood of tear-choked French, nodded as if he understood perfectly, and patted him on the back. He looked at me over the little man's shoulder and said, "I hardly understand a quarter of what he's saying."
"Don't think it matters," Brutal rumbled.
"Neither do I, son," Schuster said with a grin. He was the best of them, and now I realize I have no idea what became of him. I hope he kept his faith, whatever else befell.
He urged Delacroix onto his knees, then folded his hands. Delacroix did the same.
"Not' Pere, qui etes aux cieux," Schuster began, and Delacroix joined him. They spoke the Lord's Prayer together in that liquid-sounding Cajun French, all the way to "mais deliverez-nous du mal, ainsi soit-il." By then, Del's tears had mostly stopped and he looked calm. Some Bible verses (in English) followed, not neglecting the old standby about the still waters. When that was done, Schuster started to get up, but Del held onto the sleeve of his shirt and said something in French. Schuster listened carefully, frowning. He responded. Del said something else, then just looked at him hopefully.
Schuster turned to me and said: "He's got something else, Mr. Edgecombe. A prayer I can't help him with, because of my faith. Is it all right?"
I looked at the clock on the wall and saw it was seventeen minutes to midnight. "Yes," I said, "but it'll have to be quick. We've got a schedule to keep here, you know."
"Yes. I do." He turned to Delacroix and gave him a nod.
Del closed his eyes as if to pray, but for a moment said nothing. A frown creased his forehead and I had a sense of him reaching far back in his mind, as a man may search a small attic room for an object which hasn't been used (or needed) for a long, long time. I glanced at the clock again and almost said something--would have, if Brutal hadn't twitched my sleeve and shaken his head.