She smiled and emptied her bottle. "Bit warmer down here," she said.

I said, "Right," and laughed and took her hand when she offered it to me.

"I'm Ellen," she said.

"Chris ..."

"So why are you in Huntsville, Chris?"

"I'm supervising some construction out at the mall," I said.

"You like it?"

"It's all right."

She ordered more drinks. Another beer for her and an "invisible rum" and c.o.ke for me. When she'd served us, the owner wandered down to the end of the bar and began cleaning gla.s.ses. She was a lousy eavesdropper.

"I don't normally drink very much," she said. She put a third of her bottle away in one, and wiped her mouth. "And I know you're thinking that lots of people who drink like fish say that, right?"

"It's not my business," I said.

She laughed, dry and empty. "It's kind of a special occasion."

"That why you're here with your family?"

She nodded, took another drink. "You might not think 'special' is the right word," she said. "Not ... appropriate or whatever. If I tell you why it is we're here."

"You don't have to tell me anything."

"You want to go outside for a cigarette?" She reached down for the handbag at her feet. "G.o.d, I need a cigarette."

"I don't smoke," I said. "But I'll come with you if you like."

She waved the idea away, then turned on her chair and stared at me. She said that she might just as well talk to a complete stranger about what was happening because she and her family weren't talking about it a whole lot. She cleared her throat and finished her beer. Put down the bottle, then turned back to me.

"I'm here, because tomorrow at six o'clock they're executing the man who killed my sister."

I could not think of a single thing to say.

"Heavy, I know." She reached across me for the nachos. "I bet you're wishing you'd drunk your soda and walked away, right?"

"Maybe."

"You've still got time."

I shrugged. "Sounds like you could do with someone to talk to."

She nodded, pleased, and put a hand on my leg for just a second or two. "My head's buzzing with it, you know? My mom and her sister and my psycho brother have just gone to bed like it's no big deal, or that's what they're telling themselves at any rate, but Jesus, I can't just sit up there in that s.h.i.tty room and take my makeup off and say goodnight like we're all on some shopping trip or something." She shook her head. "I mean, we've known it's been coming for a while, but still, I can't just pretend this is ... normal, you know?"

"You're right," I said. "It's not normal."

She smiled and let out a long sigh, like she was relieved that I hadn't freaked out or something. She could see that I had barely touched my drink but she said she was going to have another one anyway and waved the woman across from the end of the bar. She ordered another beer and a rum and c.o.ke, and watched me while the drinks were being prepared. After a minute or so she said, "Aren't you going to ask me what he did?"

"Sure."

"What that animal did to her?"

"Look, it's up to you-"

"He beat her so bad they needed dental records to identify her." She leaned close, but made no effort to lower her voice. "He beat her and raped her then he cut her throat like she was no better than a pig and when he'd finished, he sat down and made himself something to eat. He sat there with a sandwich while my nineteen-year-old sister bled out in her bedroom."

"Jesus ..."

"So, you know, tomorrow doesn't make it anywhere near even. Not for what he did, right? Not for that."

I grunted something and glanced up at the woman who was laying the drinks down in front of us. She caught my eye and raised a painted eyebrow before walking back to the other end of the bar.

"So, what do you think?"

It was not the easiest question I'd ever been asked. "I think I can understand why you're angry."

"I doubt it," she said.

"Fair point," I said. "She wasn't my sister."

"No, she wasn't."

"It can't be easy holding on to that though. Not for so long." I reached for my drink, moved the ice around in the gla.s.s. "I mean, these guys are on death row for years, right?"

"Anthony Solomon Johnson has been on death row for a little over four years and seven months," she said. There was no emotion in her voice. "That's how long we've been waiting for this."

I nodded slow, like I was impressed or something. "For revenge."

"I don't care what you call it," she said. "I've met folks who say that a killer should be put to death the same way he did his killing, but I don't hold with that eye for an eye stuff." She stared down, straightened her skirt. "I don't really give a d.a.m.n if it hurts, mind you. It should hurt." She took a drink. "You agree with me, right, Chris?"

I thought about it. She asked me again.

"They don't know if the needle hurts or not, though, do they?" I pulled the nachos across the bar but the bowl was empty. "I mean, it's not like anyone's around long enough to tell anybody."

She shrugged. Said, "I hope I can see it in his eyes ..."

The rum was going down every bit as easy as the beer and she was starting to slur her words a little. She said something after that, but I didn't catch it and when I leaned closer all I could smell was the booze.

"We're going to have to call it a night, folks."

I looked up and the woman behind the bar was pulling the empties towards her. I opened my mouth to speak, but she shook her head and even now I'm not quite sure what she meant by it. I glanced at the bill and put thirty dollars on the bar and when the woman had taken the cash away, Ellen began talking again. It was not much above a whisper, but this time I caught it easily enough.

"I can't be alone," she said.

"You've got your family," I said. "Your mother's upstairs."

"You know I don't mean that." Her eyes were wide suddenly, and wet. "You want me to beg?"

"No, I don't want that," I said.

She and her mother were sharing a room, so we went to mine. There was not a great deal of choice in the mini-bar, but she didn't seem too picky, so I told her to help herself. She took a beer and a bag of chips and we sat together on the bed with our feet on the quilt and our backs against the headboard.

The window was open a few inches and the traffic from I-45 was just a hum, like an insect coming close to the gla.s.s every so often and retreating again.

"I don't know how I'm going to feel," she said.

"Afterwards?"

She nodded.

I remembered her face when she'd been talking in the bar. The way she'd talked about wanting it to hurt. "Pretty good, by the sound of it," I said.

"Yeah, I'll feel good ... and relieved. I mean how I'm going to feel when I'm watching it happen, though. It's not something everyone gets to see, is it?"

"No, it isn't."

"Probably something you never forget, right?"

She made it sound like she was going whale-watching. She slid down the bed a little and she kept on closing her eyes for a few seconds at a time.

"You think you might feel guilty after?" I asked.

Her eyes stayed closed as she shook her head. "Not a chance."

"I hope you're right."

"Why the h.e.l.l should I feel guilty when he never did?"

"You know that for sure?"

She opened her eyes. "Well, it wasn't like I was visiting him every week or nothing, but I don't think a man like that has any normal human feelings." She took a swig of beer, ignored the dribble that ran down her neck. "He wrote us a letter a month or so back and he said he was sorry, all that s.h.i.t, but it's easy to come out with that stuff when you know the needle's just around the corner, right? Probably told to do it by his lawyer. So they've got something to show when they're pushing for a stay, you know?" She tried to brush away the remains of the chips from her shirt. "Said he'd found G.o.d as well."

"I think that happens a lot."

"Yeah, well, tomorrow he'll get a lot closer to Him, right?"

"You religious?"

"Sure," she said.

"So this isn't a problem for you?"

"Why should it be?"

"What happened to 'thou shalt not kill'?"

"Shame he never thought about that."

"He obviously didn't believe in anything back then," I said.

She shook her head again and screwed her face up like she was getting irritated. "Look, it isn't me that's going to be doing the killing, is it?" She raised the bottle, then thought of something. "OK, smart-a.s.s, what about 'as you reap, you shall sow'? It's something like that, right?"

I nodded. "Something like that, yeah."

"Right." She turned on to her side suddenly and leaned up on one elbow. She slid a leg across the bed and lifted it over mine. "Anyway, what the h.e.l.l are we talking about this stuff for?"

"You were the one started talking about G.o.d," I said.

"Yeah, well, there's other things I'd rather be talking about." She blinked slowly, which she probably thought was s.e.xy, but which made her seem even drunker, you know? "Other things I'd rather be doing."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Come on," she said. "I know that's what you want. I saw you looking in the restaurant."

"Yeah, I was looking."

"So?"

"You've had too much to drink."

"I've had just enough."

I smiled. "You won't feel good about yourself tomorrow."

"I've got more important things to worry about tomorrow," she said. She put a hand between my legs. "Now are you going to get about your business, or what?"

I did what she was asking. It didn't take long and it was pretty clear that she needed it a d.a.m.n sight more than I did. She cried a little afterwards, but I just let her and I'm not sure which of us got to sleep first.

I left early without making any noise, and when I turned at the door to look at her wrapped up in the thin hotel sheet, I was thinking that, aside from the fact that I am crazy about nachos and salsa, almost everything I'd told her about myself had been a lie.

G.o.d only knows why they call it "The Walls". They're thick enough and tall enough for sure, but the men behind them have got a d.a.m.n sight more to worry about than what's keeping them inside.

The Huntsville Unit in particular.

One of the deputy wardens led me across the compound from the Visitors' Waiting Area and in through a grey metal door. They try to keep the families separate until the last possible moment, which is understandable, I suppose, and even though there was only me and some crazy woman who'd been writing to Anthony for the last few years, we had our own escort. The prison chaplain would be a "witness" too, of course, but I guessed he had no choice but to be kind of neutral about what was happening, so he didn't really count.

The deputy warden's highly polished shoes squeaked on the linoleum floor as we walked towards the room next to the execution chamber. Then he opened the door and politely stood aside as I walked in.

The place was pretty crowded.

I knew there would be a few State officials as well as representatives from the media, but I hadn't figured on there being that many people and it took me a few seconds before I spotted her. She was sitting on the front row of plastic chairs, her mother on one side of her, the other older woman and her psycho brother on the other side. Like everyone else, she'd turned to look when the door opened and I saw the colour drain from her face when I nodded to her. Her mother leaned close to whisper something, but she just shook her head and turned round again.

I walked towards the front of the room and took a seat on the end of the second row. We sat in silence for a couple of minutes, save for some coughing and the sc.r.a.pe of metal as chairs got shifted, then one of the officers ran through the procedure and raised the blind at the window.