Executioners

EXECUTIONERS

"Why couldn't that old fool just hand over the money nice and easy?"
said Dominick, peering through the blinds at the dark street
below.

"You never know what they'll do, said Ricky. "Some are as cool as a
cucumber; some squawk like frightened hens."

"Well, he ain't gonna open his mouth no more."

Ricky had stripped down to a sleeveless tee shirt and set the electric
fan on high. He popped the top off his beer and drank like a thirsty
camel. He slammed the empty bottle down on the coffee table, making
Dominick jump.

"What's the matter with you? Do you have to make so much
racket?"

"Relax kid," said Ricky, wiping his mouth with his forearm. "You
know?a few beers might do ya some good. You sure are jumpy."

"Yeah? Well you should be jumpy too with that cop right under our
noses."

"I wouldn't worry about him. The most anybody saw was the dust from
our wheels. We're in the clear and two hundred bucks richer. Come on,
let's celebrate and call Rosie and that friend of hers?the busty gal.
Boy, is she a looker."

"Bernice," Dominick said over his shoulder.

"Yeah, that's the one. Boy, she turns my blood hot. What do ya say?
Shall I give 'em a buzz?"

Dominick shrugged, showing no interest.

"Now come on," said Ricky, "will ya get away from that window? You're
gonna give me the creeps with all your worryin."

"That beat cop must be cemented to the sidewalk," said Dominick,
backing his head a safe distance from the window. "He still hasn't
moved from that shoe store."

"He's probably doin' some window-shopping for his old lady," said
Ricky, sarcastically. "Now, let's do some serious thinkin' 'bout them
dames. We can all go down to the Tipsy Tavern and blow off some steam.
Then later, we'll bring the dames back here for some real fun."

"Naw," said Dominick. "We don't need the attention. We've got to lie
low for a little while longer."

"I think your makin' too much out of it. Nobody even got a look at
us."

"I swear he's up to somethin," said Dominick, ignoring Ricky. "Too bad
I had to shoot that old man. If only he hadn't got all worked up the
way he did. I got a weird feelin' about this one."

"Why's he such a big deal all of a sudden? He ain't the first one you
plugged."

"This one was different. I got a weird feelin' about it is all I'm
sayin."

"What's to feel? We got away scot-clean. That was the easiest heist we
ever pulled. It was our good luck that old codger was workin' the night
shift."

Dominick lit a cigarette and went back to the blinds. A slice of green
neon from a pub flickered on the ceiling. "I don't like it. He's got to
be up to something."

"Ah, now you're startin' to act crazy."

Dominick whirled around suddenly; pulled out the pistol he had tucked
in his waistband, and pointed it at Ricky.

Ricky leaned back further against the cushion, stretching both arms
out with his palms wide open in defense. "Take it easy kid?take it
easy. I was only jokin' with ya. I swear I didn't mean nothin' by
it."

Dominick's gun hand was shaking dangerously while his face lit pale
yellow against the dingy lampshade. Ricky thought he was a goner, but
after a long moment Dominick lowered his arm and shoved the revolver
back into his waistband. He turned back toward the blinds and said
unsteadily, "I ain't crazy. Don't you ever forget that."

Relieved, Ricky exhaled slowly through his teeth, then said, "Tell ya
what; why don't you get some rest. Drink a beer and check out for a
couple of hours."

"I'm too tired to sleep," Dominick growled, his eyes burning against
the glare of headlights and flashing neon tubes.

"Well, I can tell ya he ain't on no stakeout," said Rickey, trying to
calm Dominick's nerves. "Cause if he was, he wouldn't be standin' out
there in plain view. That ain't the way those cops do it. They sit in
cars and drink coffee and eat pastrami sandwiches while they wait for
you to make a move. You see it on the television all the time."

From the same window, Dominick searched the length of the street and
spotted the car they used in the getaway. It was a black Oldsmobile,
parked between a Cadillac Fleetwood and a meat delivery truck. "We
should have dumped the car in a field somewhere, instead of right under
our noses. The cops will be all over it real soon."

"It's parked half a block away. That ain't exactly right under our
noses. Besides, the car's hot, remember? How are they gonna trace it to
us?"

"What if somebody got the plate number?" asked Dominick. "They'll know
it was used in the robbery."

"I'm tellin' ya nobody saw nothin," said Ricky. "The only one's at
that filling station besides that old man was that Negro with his head
under a hood, and some kid with his arm sunk in a cooler bobbin' for a
soda pop. It was a pretty smooth job all the way."

"Yeah?" said Dominick. "Well it wasn't that smooth. Not when I had to
plug that old fool for shoutin' his mouth off."

"I don't get you," said Ricky, opening another bottle of beer. "You
act like you ain't never done this before. What gives?"

"Just a little edgy is all. Why don't he go and write some tickets or
something?"

"That did it," whined Ricky, rising from the couch and grabbing his
shirt and hat.

"Where are you goin?" asked Dominick.

"I'm getting' a case of cabin fever, and you're not helpin' any with
all your rantin'. I'll think I'll step out for a while. Maybe hustle up
a couple of games of nine-ball. You wanna come or not?"

"Naw," said Dominick. "Maybe I will take your advice and try to sleep.
My head feels ready to pop."

"Sure," said Ricky, buttoning his shirt and preening before a cracked
mirror. "You'll feel like a new man later. In the morning we can talk
about that small bank just outside of Des Moines I cased a while back.
Should be a real sweet job. I hear the only tin-star in town has a bad
case of gout and still drives a Fliver. Can you believe it?"

"Yeah, sure. Tomorrow we'll talk." Dominick reluctantly left the
window and eased his body upon the thin mattress. He lit a cigarette
and warned Ricky before he left, "Go easy on the booze. I don't want
you shootin' your mouth off about that fillin' station."

"Gotcha." Ricky studied the dim, narrow hallway, turned towards
Dominick and said, "Sweet dreams, kid."

Dominick smoked a cigarette down to the butt and then succumbed to
exhaustion. He immediately found himself floating above white tiles
through a maze of hallways before rough hands guided his decent onto a
wooden chair bolted to the ground. Steel clamps bit into the flesh of
his arms and legs while a grotesque leather mask was strapped to his
face to conceal any distasteful expression of a man in the throes of
torture.

He could see a large wall clock through narrow eye slits in the mask as
it ticked a perverse tempo while a half dozen human faces, gray and
lifeless, watched the scene played out from their pews; in rows
directly in front of him. They were familiar faces-faces that were
caught in an instant of time and then discarded, only to be vaguely
recalled for some physical quirk or salient expression such as fear or
surprise or loathing. Then it occurred to Dominick that these were the
forgotten faces of those who's lives he had callously obliterated for
an easy profit.

Dominick tried to scream out but the mask pressed like iron against
his lips and he could only groan like a wounded animal. He heard curses
echoing from the catacomb where he came, along with disembodied jeers
and howls and some mad laughter from invisible doomed men who
languished in their cells, waiting for their own punishment to be meted
out.

A priest with bloodless hands sprinkled holy water into the air and
muttered words like hell and death and fire. Dominick watched as the
hooded executioner closed the steel door and silenced the clamor within
the prison corridors.

The ceiling lamps warmed his body and marked him like some monstrous
thing on display and only then did he realize he was naked except for
the thick straps that pinned him to his chair.

In his dream-like state, Dominick observed with detachment as the
electrodes from the chair were fitted to his head and ankles. The
executioner then counted down from ten to zero like a carnival barker
rattling off winning numbers and then saw him stretch his fingers
before closing the switch and shooting blue arcs of flame out from the
machinery as a current of 20,000 volts pushed through the electrodes
and into his body.

Dominick saw smoke rising from the top of his skull as his hair and
skin burned; yet he was without physical suffering. There was no wet
sponge between the electrode and his head to facilitate the current;
causing his brain to cook from inside. The foaming from his mouth mixed
with blood and seeped through his mask and down his neck, settling in a
red pool between his thighs.

After two, one-minute jolts of 20 amps; his smoking body broke free
from its muscular contraction and his head slumped down to his chest.
But those in the pews cried out for more jolts. The executioner then
took off his hood and Dominick saw a clear hole in the executioner's
chest where he had shot him through and recognized the executioner as
the old man from the filling station.

More jolts were then forced through Dominick's body and his head was
thrown back from his chest in a paroxysmal motion and continued for
what seemed like an eternity until Dominick finally broke from his
trance, waking with his hands welded in terror to the bed
mattress.

Dominick was no stranger to the nightmares that tormented him. It was
always the same dream; the execution sequence was exact, concluding
with the memory of burning flesh assaulting his nostrils.

The only difference was in the executioners themselves-each had
performed the task, while the next nightmare found the previous
executioner occupying a pew as a witness, sitting without expression or
signs of life. They were the murdered, summoned from the grave to close
the switch on the condemned.

Dominick looked at his watch. He had slept only an hour. His mind was
fuzzy and his head beat like a clanging gong. He stealthily sidled up
to the window and saw that the cop still had not moved from his
position from the front of the shoe store.

Aided by the fluctuating motion of artificial light, Dominick could
discern the cop's head moving up and down and his arm raising toward
his apartment and then repeating the movement as if to taunt him. A
shiver went up Dominick's spine, increasing the pounding at the base of
his skull. "He knows," he said to himself. "He knows and he's trying to
draw me out!"

Dominick went for his gun, and then realized it fell out of his
waistband from the thrashing of his nightmare. He searched the bed
desperately in the dim lighting, sweeping his hands along the mattress.
He found it lying on the floor after accidentally kicking it with his
feet.

In the meantime, down the street, the tired shoe cobbler, Joe Spinelly,
began to close up his tiny shop for the evening. Business was fair,
thanks to the new mechanical
sign of a smiling Keystone cop he positioned just outside his door. It
had a slow, bobbing head, swaying arms, and a large reflective badge.
Spinelly hoped the advertising gimmick would attract customers and
increase sales.

He unplugged the electric cord from the caricature and locked the front
door. He then carried it across the street to his fifth-floor
apartment. There was no room in his packed, tiny store.

Dominick paced the room in a panic. He knew the cop was on to him.
"What's he waiting for?" he asked himself.

Dominick couldn't take it any longer. He decided he would make a run
for it. He quickly packed a few things along with the bag of stolen
cash. He took one last glance through the window, just in time to see a
gleaming silver badge enter under the awning leading into his
building.

Dominick could hear the elevator creak upward and readied his revolver.
He would wait for the cop and ambush him.

Joe Spinelly stepped carefully through the hallway to his room, not
wanting to injure his investment-in his estimation-a sizable sum.
Passing Dominick's room, he discovered a few bills lying just outside
his door. They were bills that Ricky had dropped on his way out. The
impeccably honest Spinelly propped his sign against the wall and
knocked hard on Dominick's door.

"Is anybody there?" he asked, his ear cocked toward the door. I have
something?"

Dominick let Spinelly have it. He put 6 bullets through the door and
into his chest. The small cobbler died in a pool of blood.

That night, Dominick was caught wandering aimlessly down a dark street,
babbling incoherently to the cops about hell, death, and fire-his
smoking gun in his hand. The police arrested him for the murder of Joe
Spinelly and connected him with six others during his crime spree. He
was later sentenced to die in the electric chair.

A few days after Spinelly's murder, Ricky was shot and killed during a
bank holdup in a little town outside of Des Moines. He didn't count on
the old sheriff with gout being a crack shot with a rifle.

On the eve of Dominick's execution, he woke from his latest nightmare
with a visceral scream. His face was pallid, and his lips quivered with
dread.

Once again, while suffering through a tortured night of frenzied sleep;
he could taste the smoldering odor of human flesh, and sense his skin
sizzle like butter on a hot griddle. Through the choking vapor, he also
saw the vindicated smile of Joe Spinelly with his hand around the
switch, and the tranquil repose of those familiar specter's that
watched from the pews.