'Yes. Of course.'
'Can I ask who told you?' So I can tie a can to his tail? I didn't add.
'You can ask, but since it's really none of your beeswax, I think I'll keep my mouth shut on that score. But when I called my office to see if there were any messages or urgent business, I was told an interesting thing.'
'Oh?'
'Yes. Seems a transferral application landed in my basket. Percy Wetmore wants to go to Briar Ridge as soon as possible. Must have filled out the application even before last night's shift was over, wouldn't you think?'
'It sounds that way,' I agreed.
'Ordinarily I'd let Curtis handle it, but considering the... atmosphere on E Block just lately, I asked Hannah to run it over to me personally on her lunch hour. She has graciously agreed to do so. I'll approve it and see it's forwarded on to the state capital this afternoon. I expect you'll get a look at Percy's backside going out the door in no more than a month. Maybe less.'
He expected me to be pleased with this news, and had a right to expect it. He had taken time out from tending his wife to expedite a matter that might otherwise have taken upwards of half a year, even with Percy's vaunted connections. Nevertheless, my heart sank. A month! But maybe it didn't matter much, one way or the other. It removed a perfectly natural desire to wait and put off a risky endeavor, and what I was now thinking about would be very risky indeed. Sometimes, when that's the case, it's better to jump before you can lose your nerve. If we were going to have to deal with Percy in any case (always assuming I could get the others to go along with my insanity - always assuming there was a we, in other words), it might as well be tonight.
'Paul? Are you there?' His voice lowered a little, as if he thought he was now talking to himself. 'Damn, I think I lost the connection.'
'No, I'm here, Hal. That's great news.'
'Yes,' he agreed, and I was again struck by how old he sounded. How papery, somehow. 'Oh, I know what you're thinking.'
No, you don't, Warden, I thought. Never in a million years could you know what I'm thinking.
'You're thinking that our young friend will still be around for the Coffey execution. That's probably true - Coffey will go well before Thanksgiving, I imagine - but you can put him back in the switch room. No one will object. Including him, I should think.'
'I'll do that,' I said. 'Hal, how's Melinda?'
There was a long pause so long I might have thought I'd lost him, except for the sound of his breathing. When he spoke this time, it was in a much lower tone of voice. 'She's sinking,' he said.
Sinking. That chilly word the old-timers used not to describe a person who was dying, exactly, but one who had begun to uncouple from living.
'The headaches seem a little better... for now, anyway... but she can't walk without help, she can't pick things up, she loses control of her water while she sleeps... ' There was another pause, and then, in an even lower voice, Hal said something that sounded like 'She wears.'
'Wears what, Hal?' I asked, frowning. My wife had come into the parlor doorway. She stood there wiping her hands on a dishtowel and looking at me.
'No,' he said in a voice that seemed to waver between anger and tears. 'She swears.'
'Oh.' I still didn't know what he meant, but had no intention of pursuing it. I didn't have to; he did it for me.
'She'll be all right, perfectly normal, talking about her flower-garden or a dress she saw in the catalogue, or maybe about how she heard Roosevelt on the radio and how wonderful he sounds, and then, all at once, she'll start to say the most awful things, the most awful... words. She doesn't raise her voice. It would almost be better if she did, I think, because then... you see, then... '
'She wouldn't sound so much like herself.'
'That's it,' he said gratefully. 'But to hear her saying those awful gutter-language things in her sweet voice... pardon me, Paul.' His voice trailed away and I heard him noisily clearing his throat. Then he came back, sounding a little stronger but just as distressed. 'She wants to have Pastor Donaldson over, and I know he's a comfort to her, but how can I ask him? Suppose that he's sitting there, reading Scripture with her, and she calls him a foul name? She could; she called me one last night. She said, 'Hand me that Liberty magazine, you cocksucker, would you?' Paul, where could she have ever heard such language? How could she know those words?'
'I don't know. Hal, are you going to be home this evening?'