"You'll still be dead," Remo pointed out.
Popcorn snorted explosively. "A day early and a dollar short," he admitted. "But at least my death will count for something. It don't mean shit if I die sitting with state ghouls gettin' off the smoke pourin' out my shoes, mouth, and armpits."
"Thanks," Remo said tonelessly, wondering if he meant it.
"Don't thank me. Thank my grinnin' corpse," Popcorn shot back. "Maybe I'll take ol' Crusher with me and do everyone a favor. A man with nothing to lose can do most everything. 'Cept live."
"I heard that," Remo said tightly.
Breakfast was runny eggs and fat strips with the shadow of bacon meat on them. The bacon was cold by the time it reached Remo, and the smell of it nearly turned his stomach-as if it were cooked human flesh. There was a pint carton of orange juice and Remo tried that. It seared his tongue to taste and burned his throat going down. But it stayed down. He ignored everything else.
Today was shower day and Remo lay on his bunk waiting for the guards. He was getting tired of staring at the flat ceiling so he sat up and transferred his attention to the pink cinder-block walls.
"Hey, Popcorn," he called.
"Yo."
"What color are your walls?"
"Same as yours. Pink as quiff. "
"I hate pink."
"A hack once told me they painted every cell on the row pink to keep us poor Dead Men down. Scientist dudes think pink keeps our aggressions pacified. Makes pussies of us."
"You've been here awhile. Does it work?"
"Well," Popcorn said sadly after a lengthy pause, "I can't tell you the last time I got it up and kept it there."
Remo laughed out loud. When Popcorn didn't join in, Remo realized the little con had taken offense and was sulking. Remo decided to let him get over the mood on his own.
When the guards came, Remo knew at once that they had not come to escort him to the shower room.
Although he had no watch, and no window in his cell, he sensed it was too early for his shower. Only after they let him from his cell and walked him down the longest death row in the country did it dawn on him that no one else was going to a shower either.
"What's this, Adopt-a-Con week?" Remo asked, looking neither right nor left at the flanking C.O. s. "Your lawyer's here," one growled.
Remo's eyebrows lifted in surprise, but he said nothing.
As they approached the inmate-choked prison crossroads, the other guard called out, "Clear the hall! Dead Man walking! Clear the hall!"
Instantly, denim-clad population inmates returned to their cells or gave way like human traffic before a fire engine. Remo felt like a leper. It had not been like this up in Jersey, but then, no one on the Trenton State death row expected to be executed.
After they had passed, the human sea surged back into place. Remo felt countless eyes on him. He saw no sign of Crusher McGurk.
Near the warden's office, protected by bars of specialty steel, was a suite of conference rooms and outside of it a bright yellow cage. Not a cell. It was like an animal's cage.
Remo was placed in this. He took a seat on a hardwood bench and waited. The hours passed before a guard came and opened the cage. It was the squat one who had tried to strip-search Remo the day before. Pepone. He gave Remo a wolfish grin.
"Looks like I get to finish what was interrupted yesterday," he said. "Now, strip."
This time Remo didn't hesitate. If he resisted normal previsitation procedure, he would be denied all visitation rights and not see his lawyer. And if Pepone wrote up a report on him, he'd end up in solitary and probably never see his lawyer.
Remo wanted to see his lawyer. And so quietly he removed his apricot T-shirt and dungarees.
"Now drop your drawers, spread your cheeks, and crack a smile," Pepone said.
Remo hesitated. Some spark flickered in his stillgroggy mind. He looked Pepone straight in the eye and said, "I'm not carrying any contraband. Take my word for it."
Pepone's broad face darkened. "Think about it, Williams. It's just you and me in this cage. No way out. "
"For either of us," Remo said, putting cold meaning into the pronoun.
"You know the rules of this facility."
"And you know my reputation," Remo countered. Pepone stiffened. He looked around. There were no other guards nearby.
"Okay," he said dully. "Dress."
Remo dressed quickly, and only then was he led into one of the conference rooms.
There was only one other person in the room, a curly-haired young man who sat nervously on one side of the glass-partitioned conference cubicle. Remo strode up to the cubicle and took the seat. He fixed the man with his deep eyes. "You're not my lawyer," he said suspiciously.
"I'm local. Mr. Brooks asked me to manage your appeal through the Florida court system, now that you're under their jurisdiction. My name is George Proctor. "
"I didn't hire you. I hired Brooks," Remo said flatly.
"In all fairness to Mr. Brooks, he doesn't know his way around the Florida courts. I do. And you can't expect him to fly down here every time your appeal goes before a judge, can you?"
Remo said nothing. He didn't know this man. He looked fresh out of Tulane. Worse, he looked nervous. And nervous men usually don't have the presence of mind to do the right thing in a crunch.
"Are we clear on this, Mr. Williams?" Attorney Barry Proctor was saying.
"Where do I stand?" Remo asked at last.
Proctor took a sheaf of legal briefs out of his flat leather valise and looked them over. It seemed to Remo as if he were looking at them for the first time. Another bad sign.
"Florida isn't New Jersey, Mr. Williams," Proctor said at last. "We have the largest death row in the country, and space is at a premium. They process people through the system as fast as they can."
"They execute them, you mean."
"Er, yes. That's what I mean. Because we're in a new state and a fresh legal system, I thought we'd start from scratch."
"The last I heard, my case would be appealed to the Supreme Court," Remo offered.
"Frankly, Mr. Williams, according to Brooks, he's been carrying you these last few years. Your life savings have been exhausted. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm willing to go through the appeals court in Miami on the grounds that having been transferred against your will to another state, you're entitled to at second bite of the judicial apple.