'Ugly,' he said solemnly. 'Bet your mama whipped you. Or your daddy.'
Lane glanced at Terri. 'Never did,' he answered easily. 'Never even made me eat it. It was way too ugly.'
This, at last, made Rennell smile. 'My brother woulda hid me.'
Terri felt an emptiness in the pit of her stomach, deeper than hunger. 'Bet he would have,' Carlo affirmed. 'Behind that bush you told us about.'
Rennell looked over at him, as though touched that Carlo remembered. 'That's right,' he said softly. 'Behind that bush.'
As before, the thought of Payton seemed to surface the reality which lay before him. Tentative, Rennell took Terri's hand. 'If they do me like Payton, you be there?'
'Of course,' she answered firmly. 'But maybe I won't need to.'
Rennell did not seem to hear the last. Softly, he asked, 'You be okay?'
Terri could not answer. 'I'll be there, too,' Carlo answered him. 'And my dad, if he can. Just don't lose hope, Rennell.'
Rennell turned to him again. 'Yeah,' he said slowly. 'Maybe someday we go to that baseball game.'
'Yeah,' Carlo affirmed. 'A Giants game, with plenty of peanuts and hot dogs.'
With obvious reluctance, the guard stepped forward. 'It's six o'clock,' he told Terri. 'You're going to have to leave now.'
After a moment, Terri stood. But Rennell did not stand, as though unwilling to let go. 'We can still talk on the telephone,' she assured him. 'I'll call you later, when you're with the minister.'
Mute, Rennell nodded, his eyes fearful now. Circling the table, Terri held him close, his head pressed against her cheek. 'I love you, Rennell.'
Lane embraced him next. 'We all love you.'
Rennell blinked. When Carlo hugged him, Rennell said huskily, 'You be my best friend now, Carlo. 'Cept for Terri.'
Another guard led them out. As they glanced over their shoulders, Rennell sat at the table, craning his neck to see them. 'I love you,' he called out.
The man guarding Rennell closed the door. Speechless, Carlo shook his head. Tears ran down his face.
* * *
Carlo drove back to San Francisco to help Chris. Tony Lane left—he had never witnessed an execution and could not stand to witness this one. 'Thank God he didn't ask me,' he said, and wished the Pagets good luck.
Terri stayed at the prison, in a small, bare room with a telephone and desk, waiting for a call from Chris.
At a little before seven o'clock, the telephone rang. 'No news from the Ninth Circuit,' Chris said tersely. 'Or from Johnny Moore. But I've tracked down Darrow. He's three blocks from our house—at Howard Shipler's, having dinner with his biggest donors to raise money against the recall. I've been promised a brief audience thereafter.'
Terri had once had dinner at the Shiplers'—then, too, the Governor had been present. They had sat in a candlelit dining room with a Matisse and two Manets on the wall as Darrow spoke with the faux intimacy he reserved for those whom he hoped would become his most generous contributors. Then it struck her that Rennell, too, was having a meal, this one chosen to be his last—mashed potatoes and chicken like his grandmother had made, but with this chicken cut away from the bone, to be eaten with another plastic spoon.
'Just keep me posted,' she said. 'We're not going anywhere.'
'How's Rennell bearing up?'
The question reminded Terri of another inmate about to be executed, this one so retarded that he had set aside the key lime pie from his last meal to be eaten after he came back. 'All right,' she answered. 'But he's absorbed more about what's happening to him than a retarded person might. Payton brought it home—'
'Hang on,' Chris interrupted.
In the background she heard Carlo's voice. 'The Ninth Circuit just turned us down again,' Chris told her. 'Two to one, Montgomery dissenting.'
Terri glanced at her watch. Less than five hours and Governor Darrow, or perhaps Chief Justice Masters, stood between Rennell Price and death.
'Carlo's already calling the death clerk,' Chris assured her and got off.
TWENTY-TWO
AT EIGHT-THIRTY, TERRI STILL WAITED FOR THE SUPREME COURT, or Governor Darrow, to seal or alter Rennell's fate.
Rennell, she knew, was now housed in an execution holding cell. In the separate cell beside him would be the Unitarian minister Terri had chosen, a woman willing to give solace to those about to die, experienced enough that she would not lose her composure and make Rennell's last hours more terrible. Through the bars between them, the minister could speak to him or read aloud from the Bible or, if Rennell preferred, simply hold his hand.
Full of dread, clinging to hope, Terri sat by the telephone.
* * *
At nearly midnight in Washington, the Chief Justice and Callista Hill, reviewing Rennell Price's last petition, peered at the computer screen in Caroline's office. 'Pretty thin,' Caroline said. 'Fleet's murder says nothing about the crime itself. The only other piece is hearsay from Price's lawyer, with no new witness she can name. Just someone on the phone.'
