It was a bathroom with green tiles that came to the height of your chest, and tan-painted walls. The floor, six feet by eight feet, was laid in dull gray tiles. A rack for paper towels on the wall had Towl Saver printed on it. The toilet had a split seat. An overhead light was in the wail.
Gilmore brought the Automatic to Jensen's head. "This one is for me," he said, and fired.
"This one is for Nicole," he said, and fired again. The body reacted each time.
He stood up. Them was a lot of blood. It spread across the at a surprising rate. Some of it got onto the bottom of his pants.
He walked out of the rest room with the bills in his pocket, and the coin changer in his hand, walked by the big Coke machine and the phone on the wall, walked out of this real clean gas station.
5.
Just working along, Colleen had accomplished a lot that day. She did the ironing and the cleaning, worked in the garden, picked the beans. She'd been planning to wait up for Max but before it eleven, she climbed into bed.
On the edge of falling asleep, she felt like somebody was knocking at the door, but when she opened, nobody was there. She thought it was a cat. Still too early for Max to be home. So she went back to bed, fell right into sleep.
Sitting in the truck, on this quiet side street, April thought it was probably quiet. She couldn't tell because the radio was so loud. Except the trees looked quiet. There was a long night just sitting there.
After a while Gary came back. She had been smoking a smoke and waiting. "Come on," he said, "let's go."
As they pulled up to the drive-in theatre, April saw "Cuckoo" in the title so she thought they were going to see The Sterile Cuckoo with Liza Minnelli. April had always thought her own looks outside had to be just like the way Liza Minnelli felt inside, so she was looking forward a lot to seeing the movie. But right as they stopped under the light of the ticket booth, she could see that Gary's pants had blood on the cuffs. But right as they stopped under the light of the ticket booth, she could see that Gary's pants had blood on the cuffs.
They parked. He got shifty in his seat and said he would take a leak. Then she could see him rummaging in the back of the truck.
Looked like another pair of pants to her. He went off to the men's room. To herself, April was saying, "The FBI look in on houses to see if people are committing crimes. Through the TV, you know."
She tried to watch the movie while Gary was gone, but it made her think of the night she was raped. That was after walking through the street in Hawaii with the black dudes and the first one of the three black dudes said there was a party going on. Cocaine, and they would all get high. She'd had LSD already, and so was fascinated with the high-class looks of their pad, although the red couches aggravated the problem of her odor. She sweated when she sniffed Lady Snow, and the odor was very bad. The black boy named Warren told her she stunk, and she turned purple inside from those red couches and all these black people. Started to dance around. They asked her if she wanted a shower. She said yes. Then she was in the tub and wet and streaking through the place. She was naked, and she was dancing. "I think I'm a nymphomaniac," she said. "You're a maniac?" they asked. She said it again slowly, and they asked, "Info with a maniac?" She replied haughtily, "You are trying to make myself and my face black."
She danced with them right on the floor and they danced her down to the floor and hurt her pretty bad. She was bleeding all over the place. Like a whore. Warren was forceful on cocaine, awful mean. Even when he relaxed he was hard on her. She was hallucinating so bad that the one called Bob made his face come together at the top and the bottom while his nose wib-wobbled from side to side. One time, two times, three times, intercourse. Then they turned a light on and Bobby was sitting on the floor, and said, "Why don't you sit on the couch? Get high. Don't think of yourself so low, you know?" Then he was on top of her and she was screaming to the song. The twist they gave was vertigo and she was a turntable with the motor started and Satan could dance in the whirlpool the table made.
Suddenly, she could see the movie she had been looking at. It wasn't The Sterile Cuckoo. It was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
All the kooks she had ever lived with in the hospital were on the screen. Jack Nicholson bothered her enormously. He had a numb spot under his nose like the numb spot under her own nose. That reminded her of the blood on Gary's pants-it was in the stiff way Jack Nicholson walked.
Now, Gary came back. She said, "Let's blow this place. I hate the movie. Fucker's freaking me out." Fucker's freaking me out."
Gary looked disappointed. "This is one movie," he told her, "I want to see again."
"You insane fool," she said, "don't you have any taste?"
At eleven o'clock in the evening, a man drove into the Sinclair service station at 800 North, 175 East in Orem, and served himself twelve gallons of gas and one quart of oil. He couldn't find an attendant so he left his business card with a description of what he had purchased. A little later, Robbie Hamilton, who lived in Toelle, Utah stopped off. After filling his tank with gas, he went to the open door of the grease room and hollered, "Anybody home?" No answer, so he went back to the car. His wife told him to knock on the bathroom door. When he received no answer there, he pushed the door open a crack and saw a lot of blood. He did not enter. He just called the Orem City Police Department. It took them fifteen minutes to find it. Being from Toelle, Utah, Mr. Hamilton did not know what street he was on, and had to describe the location in general terms to the dispatcher.
6.
John was back from the hospital and sleeping on the couch again. Brenda was ready to go to bed. There was a knock on the door. It was Gary with this strange little girl.
"Well, coz," she said, "where you been?"
"Oh," he smiled, "we went to see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." "You didn't see that again?" asked Brenda. "Well," Gary said, "she hadn't seen it yet."
Brenda took a good look at the girl. "It looks to me," she said, "as if she wouldn't know what she's seen."
Gary said, "This is Nicole's sister, January."
The girl got mad. She came alive for the first time.
"It's April." Gary chuckled. Brenda said, "Well, April, May, June, or July, whatever your name is, I suppose I'm glad to meet you."
Then she said to Gary, "What's wrong with her?" This girl looked awful.
"Oh," Gary said, "April's having flashbacks from LSD. She took it a long time ago, but it keeps catching up."
"She's sick, Gary," Brenda said. "She's awfully pale." At that point the girl said she wanted to go to the bathroom. Following her, Brenda asked, "Honey, are you all right?" The girl said, "I just feel sick to my stomach."
Brenda came out to Gary and said, "What's going on?"
He said nothing in reply. Brenda had the impression he was nervous but careful. Very nervous, and very careful. He was sitting on the edge of his seat, as if to concentrate on every sound in the silence.
April came back and said, "Man, you really scare me when you act like that. I can't take it."
"What scared you, honey?" Brenda asked.
April said, "Gary really scares me."
He drew himself up then. "April, tell Brenda I didn't try to rape you, or molest you."
"Oh, man, you know I didn't mean that," April said. "You've been nice to me tonight. But man, I really get afraid of you."
"Afraid of what?" asked Brenda.
"I can't tell you," April said. There was something so broken-assed about it, that Brenda was getting ill herself. "Gary, what have you done?" she asked. To her surprise, he winced.
"Hey," he said, "let's drop it? Okay?"
Gary said, "Can I talk to you in the other room?" When he got her in the kitchen, he said, "Look, I know John is just back, and you guys won't be getting your check right away from the hospital insurance, so, listen, Brenda, could you use fifty?"
"Gary, no," she said, "we've got groceries. We'll make it."
Gary said, "I really want to help."
Brenda said, "Honey, you are generous." She knew what he was up to, but she was moved in spite of herself. Ridiculously moved. She felt like crying at the fact that even in this phony way he could think of her a little. Instead, she said, "Keep your money. I want you to learn to handle it." Saying that, she was suddenly suspicious, and had to ask, "Gary, where in the hell did you get a lot of cash?"
"A friend of mine," said Gary, "loaned me four hundred for my truck."
"You mean you stole the money."
"That's not very nice," he said.
"If I'm wrong," said Brenda, "then it's not very nice."
He took ahold of her face and kissed her on the brow and said, "I can't tell you what's going on. You don't want to be involved."
"All right, Gary," she said. "If it's that bad, then maybe "you shouldn't involve us."
"Okay," he said, "fair enough." He wasn't angry. He took and went to the truck. Picked April up by the elbows, so he ushered her out.
Brenda found herself following. He had a half gallon of milk in the back of the truck and a bunch of clothes with a rag around them. She said, "Gary, you'll tip your milk over. Let me fix it. He said, "Don't touch it. Leave it alone!" "All right," Brenda said, "spill your milk. See if I care." After he drove off, she kept wondering what there was about the bunch of clothes that he hadn't wanted her to see.
Gary asked April if she'd like to go to a motel, but she just said she didn't want to go home. So they began driving around and soon got lost.
Just as he discovered he had come all the way from Orem to Provo by back roads, the truck ran out of gas.
It came to a stop on the lonely part of Center Street between the exit from the Interstate and the beginning of town. He got out and plunged into a little ravine off the road and hid the gun, the clip and the coin changer in a bush. Then he headed for the nearest store.
7.
Wade Anderson and Chad Richardson were at the 7-11 grocery down on West Center Street when this fellow came up to them. He said if they would take him to a gas station, he would give them five bucks.
He looked all right, except he was kind of tired and certainly in a hurry. He gave up the five dollars as soon as they got in the truck and sat by the window looking out. Kept saying that his girl was sitting alone in the truck and he didn't want no one to hassle her, especially cops, she'd mouth off.
They said, Well, okay, you know, we'll hurry as quick as we can.
The trouble was, when they got to a gas station that was open, there was no gas can. Wade then said they could go to his house for one.
The guy said, Well, we gotta hurry.
It took a few minutes to get over to the east side of town, pick up the can from his dad's garage, come back to the gas station. Once they returned to the man's truck, Wade started pouring. Since he would soon be a junior in high school and was therefore trying to get a little better at talking to girls, he sprung up a conversation every chance he got and was looking to chat with the one in the truck. Of course he kept his eye on the tall man who was walking around in the little ravine below. The fellow had borrowed a flashlight from Chad's truck, and was beaming around down there looking for something.
Wade said to the girl, "How you doing?" and she looked at him very seriously and said in this big voice, "Are you Gary Gilmore's son?" He said, "Oh, no, ma'am, I'm . . . I never met him before tonight," and about that time the fellow in the field found what he was looking for. Wade saw him pull a pistol out of the bushes, and a clip with it, and a coin changer, then he came walking back to them.
Even slammed the clip into the handle of the gun as he did. Put it under the seat with the coin changer. Chad had been standing back a little as Wade poured the gas, and now they just looked at each other. Wow.
After they finally emptied the can, this fellow said, "Thanks a lot" and was ready to take off. Went to start his truck. It wouldn't go.
He had wore the battery down. So they gave him a push with their truck. That was it.
Back on the road, Gary said to April, "No more riding around. I want a fancy place to sleep like the Holiday Inn." He turned onto the Interstate and bore down the two miles to the next exit.
"I'm not going to fuck you," April said. "I'm feeling too paranoid."
"I've got to work in the morning," Gary informed her. "We'll get two beds."
8.
Frank Taylor, the night auditor at the Holiday Inn, was at the front desk when a tall man carrying a half gallon of milk came in with a short girl who was holding aloft a long Olympia beer can like she was the Statue of Liberty. Frank Taylor thought, Here comes a real case.
Since he was not only the night auditor but doubled as a desk clerk his next thought was that he wasn't going to get his auditing done first thing tonight. The girl didn't look like she'd quiet down too soon. Still, the tall man seemed sober when he came over to register.
The girl kept asking snippy questions of Frank Taylor. Did he like working in a motel for a living? Were there bedbugs? Then she inquired for the ladies' room. The moment Frank Taylor told her it was across the lobby on the left, she started down the hall to her right. Taylor was yelling directions by the time she disappeared. The tall man only smiled. A couple of minutes later she passed across the lobby the other way. The tall man asked for a place to eat, and listened carefully to the answer that the Rodeway Inn, two doors down, was open 24 hours a day. Then he signed his name in large block letters, GARY GILMORE, gave Spanish Fork as an address, and reached into his pocket where he pulled out an awful lot of small bills to pay for the room.
Taylor assumed Gilmore and the girl were shacking up but that was not really any of his business. You could get in a lot of legal trouble if you were too inquisitive. Just once, suggest to a real married couple that they were not really married. It was established practice to accept anybody who was orderly and paid in advance. Taylor watched them go off together hand in hand with the key.
A while later, they were buzzing the switchboard. Gilmore was calling down from 212 to say he'd gone out in the hall and put some money in the machine to buy toothpaste and razor blades and Alka Seltzer, but the machine had not worked.
It never worked, thought Frank Taylor. He got the items out of the supply case and walked down long corridors with green carpeting and yellow-brown walls, past dark brown plywood doors, past an ice chest and a candy vending machine. He went by an iced-drink machine and reached 212. When Gilmore opened the door, he had on red slacks and no shirt. He reached into his pocket and took out a big handful of change, kind of held it down as if to scrutinize it, then picked out what was needed. Taylor couldn't see the girl, but heard her giggle as the door closed.
Chapter 14.
THE MOTEL ROOM.
At the far end of the bedroom, to one side of the far wall, was the only window and it looked out over the swimming pool. Since the window was sealed, there was an air conditioner installed beneath. On either side hung drapes made of a green-blue synthetic fabric, and they were drawn apart by white vertical cords that passed around milk-colored plastic pulleys. Two black leatherette barrel chairs and an octagon-shaped synthetic-walnut table sat in front of the window, and next to the table was a TV set on a swivel stand. Its chromium ball feet were set in rubber casters which buried themselves in a blue shaggy synthetic-fabric rug.
A long synthetic-walnut combination desk and bureau was attached to one wall. In the interior of the flat drawer of the desk was stationery in a flat wax-paper envelope that bore the Holiday Inn logo: "Your Host from Coast to Coast." A copy of the regulations and a room-service menu lay next to a long thin strip of paper that read: PLEASE BE A WATT WATCHER.
The beds on the opposite wall had headboards of synthetic walnut and their coverlets were of green-blue synthetic fabric. They gave off the same smell as the room. It was the odor of old air conditioners and old cigars.
Between the beds was an end table with a lamp and an octagonal glass ashtray that carried the green logo of Holiday Inn. A red light for messages kept flashing on the phone. Since it was on by error, it did not go off. Neither did the air conditioner. After a while, its hum vibrated in the bowels.