True Crime by Andrew Klavan Read Free Book Online Page B

that?”
    Beachum let out his breath as if he’d been holding it. “No.”
    The superintendent shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Now, there’s just one more thing, and then I’ll leave you in peace here. It’s about the sedative.”
    Beachum stiffened. His lips went thin and the line of smoke coming up from his cigarette smeared as his hand shook. “I don’t want any sedative.”
    “The sedative is completely optional,” Luther told him quickly. “I would just like to strongly advise you that it can make things a lot easier.” Here, he slipped into an open, man-to-man tone. He had given these speeches enough times now so that his changes of inflection came more or less automatically. “Hell, Frank, it’s as much for me as for you,” he said. “Having this thing go smoothly is gonna be in the best interest of everybody concerned in the long run. This sedative they give you, it’ll make …”
    “I don’t want it,” said Beachum tightly. Then, becauseyou don’t have much leverage when you’re in a cage, he seemed to force himself to go on more reasonably: “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Plunkitt, but I wanna be clear in my mind.” He averted his eyes and added: “I want to be able to see my wife, all right? I’m not gonna make any trouble, I just wanna be clear for that.”
    “Fair enough.” Luther knew when to let it alone. “It’s your choice. If you change your mind, just let the duty officer know or let me know. I just wanted to give my little sales talk, that’s all.”
    The prisoner kept his eyes lowered, looking at his hands. His cigarette had burned down nearly to the filter now. It was making Luther antsy as hell. Finally, Beachum reached out and crushed it in the tinfoil ashtray beside him. Luther sighed with relief.
    The warden stood another moment, watching the condemned man through the bars. His business was done. He had nothing more to say. He lingered, as Beachum’s hand returned to the coffee cup. Beachum swallowed as if there were a bad taste in his mouth. Then he lifted his face to the warden again.
    Plunkitt nodded once, quickly, and turned away. He walked to the door, feeling the prisoner’s eyes on his back. Those dead man’s eyes, that face.
    Walking down the hall to his office, Luther was still angry at himself. He could still see the prisoner’s face. He imagined it, as it would look tonight, staring up at him from the gurney. It was a hell of a way to be thinking, he thought. Pretty soon, he was going to start talking like one of those sisters of mercy who turned up in the death cells from time to time. Or like one of those solemn lunkheads from the TV news who thought they were the first to discover that condemned men were human beings too. Gosh agony, they would announce into their minicams, these people have intelligence,some of them, and personalities and problems and senses of humor—and they’re going to
kill
one of them. Gosh agorry. Film at eleven.
    Luther nodded and winked at a passing secretary. His gait was relaxed and steady. His smile was bland. No one could have known what he was feeling. But he knew. That weight in his stomach. It was as if a number seven sinker were tied to his innards by a twelve-pound test line. It had been there ever since Beachum’s death warrant had arrived. And it made him angry at himself.
    He had been working with criminals a long time now. Dangerous, dangerous men. He knew they could be appealing characters. Smart, funny, thoughtful, some of them. They could run a million games on you, play you like an instrument, a million scammy riffs. And, sure, they were men just as he was and some of them had had rough lives. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it. They were men. And men made choices. That’s what a man is. A man is the creature who can say
no
. And if you chose to do murder, to end the life of some mother’s child in agony and fear, to blackwash a dozen other lives with grief and anger, then it was