Mercy

her in, closed it behind her and went to the driver’s seat. He continued watching while the limo drove off past him, heading east toward Larkin Street.

As Alex turned away from the limo, Nathaniel strained to see the look on his face in the rearview mirror. As Alex approached, Nathaniel pulled out the earpiece and put it away in the glove compartment. He reached forward for the ignition key as Alex opened the front passenger door and got in.

“I assume you got all that, Nat?” said Alex, pointing to Nat’s cell phone.

“Every word. So what’s it to be? The office?”

“No, I think we’ll go direct to San Quentin.”

10:05 PDT

A shrine.

That was the only way you could describe it: a shrine that radiated outward from the mantelpiece above the mock fireplace.

The picture sat there in the center of the mantelpiece — a teenage girl smiling at the camera, or at least trying to smile. With Dorothy you could never tell if the smile was real, because she had learned from an early age to wear her face like a mask. Was it a smile of joy? Or the painted greasepaint smile of the clown who had to go on and perform even when she was grieving on the inside?

The picture was flanked by a pair of candles and the surrounding area of the wall was adorned by her tennis certificates and poems. Round the room trophies were liberally distributed across several coffee tables and glass- fronted cabinets. Apart from the memorabilia, the only furniture in the room was an armchair and a small TV set.

The young man stood before the picture, staring into Dorothy’s eyes, trying to decipher the enigma. Were they happy? Had she ever been happy? Had she ever had the chance to be?

She had always treated him with love and kindness, however badly she was treated herself. He felt the tears in his eyes. Why couldn’t they have loved her as she loved him?

He felt himself choking and he switched on the TV to distract himself. There was bound to be rolling news about the impending execution of Clayton Burrow. He looked at his watch. It would all be over in less than fourteen hours.

10:08 PDT

“Do you think he’ll bite?” asked Nat, keeping his eyes on the road. He had just taken the first left at Larkin Street and was about to take another at Turk.

“I don’t see why not. He wants to live … I think.”

“Even if it’s behind bars? For the rest of his life?”

“He’s a narcissist,” Alex explained. “He likes to be the center of attention and to be told what a great guy he is. He wants to be The Fonz.”

“The Fonz?”

“Fonzie … from Happy Days.”

“Happy Days?” echoed Nat, as if betraying his youth, as they hung a right at Van Ness.

Nat was half-pretending. In truth, he enjoyed watching the re-runs of it and he knew perfectly well who ‘The Fonz’ was. But he still didn’t see what the Fonz had to do with his question about Burrow taking the deal.

“The Fonz was the local school drop-out who didn’t care about anything except being cool. That was his trademark phrase. The thing was, everybody liked him, the guys and the dolls.”

“And this is relevant because…?”

“Because that’s what Clayton Burrow always wanted to be. Cool. A hit with the clique. Numero Uno. Mister Popularity. In with the in-crowd. Like I said — a classic narcissist.”

“I know that type. But I still don’t see what that’s got to do with taking the deal.”

Alex smiled. Nat may have got top grades in law school, but he had a lot to learn about the real world.

“The thing is, Nat, that what a narcissist wants most is attention. But the next best thing is to live. He wants to live — even if it is behind bars. He’ll still be the center of attention for a while, with the press … and the public … until the novelty wears off.”

Nat thought about this for a moment.

“He’s never admitted it … killing the Olsen girl, I mean.”

“I know. But until now he’s never had a reason to. In fact he had every reason not to.”

They were taking a left into Lombard Street now and a tense silence settled over them. Strangely, Alex found himself thinking not about Burrow, but about Nat. The truth was that he hadn’t originally planned on hiring a legal intern, his law practice was just too tiny to warrant one. But Nat had badgered his way into Alex’s professional life with an enviable dedication and tenacity. He had started off the campaign while still a student, with an impressive resume and a series of letters praising Alex’s work. At the time, Nat was doing a pre-graduation internship with the Public Defender’s office.

But the coup de grace was an impromptu visit to Alex’s office. When Alex had politely offered a referral to another firm, Nat replied that he didn’t want to work for the “whores and heathens” of the legal profession. He wanted to work only for a true believer in justice. Alex wasn’t sure if the student was a genuine meshigena or just a younger incarnation of himself, with the ideals still intact. But the clincher came when Nat silenced Alex’s attempted rebuff by saying that he wanted to play St Peter to Alex’s Jesus. It was the kind of killer line that a lawyer would give his Rolex — if not his Rolodex — to come up with. And it caught Alex from left of field.

Nat’s arrival at the firm had been most opportune in terms of the caseload. Alex had been getting a lot more business in the wake of a major success in the appeal of a drug baron’s girlfriend on accessory charges. And this heavy workload had culminated in Alex’s biggest case of all when the California v. Burrow file landed on his desk. There had been so much material to read through, so much ground to cover. Alex still wasn’t sure that he had truly come to grips with the facts of the case.

But the execution date had been set and the court had refused to give him any more time.

“You want me to copy the recording?”

Nat’s voice punctured Alex’s cogitation. They were on Doyle Drive, heading north toward the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Oh, er … yes. Upload a copy on the mail server and lodge a CD copy with the bank. Get Juanita to do a transcript. We’ll compare it to the official transcript when we get it.”

Throughout Alex’s meeting with the governor, they had maintained an open cell phone connection, with Alex’s brand new iPhone on silent and Nat listening in and recording the conversation.

Originally the plan had been for Alex and Nat to go into the governor’s office together. But Nat had suggested that Alex might be more effective alone. Two on one would seem like bullying and might serve only to harden the governor’s attitude. One on one and it would come over more like a genuine plea for mercy. Alex would be like a stand-in for Burrow, making a straightforward appeal from the heart.

Alex liked the way Nat thought. He had the knack for bringing a fresh perspective to the situation.

10:17 PDT (18:17 BST)

“Are you all right, Sue?”

Susan White had been daydreaming. She was barely into the first hour of her shift and her mind was a million miles away. She became aware of a young nurse looking at her.

“Oh yes. I’m fine. I was just thinking about something.”