Killer? Not killer? Twelve long years Larry had been asking himself that same question, along with a few other people that had got to know him along the way; and still now, in his final hours, the question was being asked.
Alaysha found that whenever she was back at her own apartment or Jac’s next door, every small sound on the corridor outside made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.
For that reason, she’d spent as much time as she could at her mother’s place, and when she did need to be back home would grab what she needed from her own apartment, then go quickly next door to Jac’s. With Molly some nights, without when she was working and needed an hour or so to get ready at her own place, Molly already dropped off with Alaysha’s mom.
The first night she’d done that, she’d spent half an hour sorting out her clothes and putting on make-up at her own place — but then a sound outside on the corridor had made her skin bristle. When she looked through the spy-hole, it was nothing, visitors to another apartment three doors down; but it suddenly made her more aware of what would have happened if it had been something. She moved her main clothes and her make-up bag permanently next door to Jac’s.
Secrets. She hadn’t told her mother about robbing Malastra. Didn’t want her to shoulder any burden or guilt over what the money had been for. It was for your dialysis and treatment, Mom. I know it might have been foolish, but we’re talking about your life here!
The only person that knew was Jac. And he wasn’t here for her to talk to any more, tell him that with each passing hour her nerves were mounting, jumping out of her skin at the smallest sound outside. She’d been hoping to see him the next night, but there was a message on her answer-phone when she’d grabbed a couple of things before coming to his place to do her make-up for work.
‘Alaysha. Adam here. I can’t make our meeting tomorrow night, I’m afraid. I’ve had to leave the country unexpectedly. In fact, I’m on my way right now. Something to do with that big deal I mentioned. I’ll call you as soon as I get back.’
Adam. The name he’d chosen, his father’s, in case the police were listening in on her line, Jac changing his accent yet again from his own or Ayliss’s. Big deal: Durrant. A lot of echoing and noise in the background, sounded as if he was actually phoning from the airport.
They’d arranged to meet at nine o’clock, three hours after Durrant’s scheduled execution. It would all be over by then; Jac would have been able to share with her how everything had gone. One way or the other. Tears on her shoulder, or cracking a bottle of champagne together.
Alaysha focused in the mirror as she started applying her eyeliner. Some life they were living: her boyfriend like a chameleon, on the run for murder, and her sneaking around from one place to another, anywhere but -
Her nerves suddenly leapt, her eyeliner pencil dog-legging off a quarter-inch, as she heard her doorbell ring next door. She hadn’t even heard anyone come along the corridor! She padded silently in her stocking-feet to the door, looking to the side through the spy-hole: a messenger. FedEx, complete with buff uniform.
He rang the bell again, and at that moment Mrs Orwin’s door opened behind him. He pointed to Alaysha’s door, saying something about ‘special delivery’, though Alaysha couldn’t see a package in his hand, and then her heart froze as Mrs Orwin’s bony finger lifted and pointed to Jac’s apartment.
She’d noticed Mrs Orwin peering out a couple of times the night before as she’d gone between one apartment and the other, perhaps eager to alert the police in case that ‘killer McElroy’ returned, and obviously she’d done the same tonight.
The messenger nodded his thanks and approached Jac’s door — Alaysha shrinking back a step as the doorbell rang, her heart beating hard and fast. Memories of that black kid with a message, Gerry at her door a second later. The gunshot. Jac running through the night from the police.
She swallowed hard. But that was a street boy; this is a recognized messenger, in a uniform! Get a grip.
He rang the bell again, then four seconds later knocked.
Alaysha moved forward again, risking another glance through the spy-hole: the messenger looking down at his feet for a second, Mrs Orwin still behind him, frowning slightly; an ‘I’m sure she was there’ expression on her face.
Then finally, deciding he’d waited long enough, he wrote something on a card and slipped it through the letter box. And as Alaysha saw it come through, saw the official FedEx logo on its top, she thought: it must be real! Maybe even an urgent message from Jac. And what could possibly happen with Mrs Orwin still looking on?
She quickly slid back the latch and opened the door, caught the messenger as he was only a pace away. He turned back and smiled.
‘Mrs Reyner?’
‘Yes.’ Alaysha watched Mrs Orwin pull back behind her door, close it again. And of all the times she’d found her neighbour’s spying annoying, now she felt like screaming: ‘No, no! Stay here looking until at least this messenger has gone. Be as nosy as you fucking like!’
‘Alaysha Reyner?’
‘Yes.’
‘I have something for you.’
And as the messenger reached his hand toward her and she saw what he held, her breath caught in her throat, and she knew then that she’d made a mistake opening the door. A big mistake.
As Larry Durrant’s death approached, its tentacles reached out like an octopus.
There’d been a steady build up over the past weeks, but now in the last twenty-four hours, those tentacles carrying news of his fate spread deeper and wider than ever before: the night-before vigil was on every news channel, there were evening debates pro and con death-penalty, more again on breakfast TV, Durrant’s last meal, how he’d spend his last minutes, medical details of how he’d be executed, background to the recently-failed clemency plea to the Governor, details of the murder twelve years ago, drama with his last lawyer, his new lawyer Darrell Ayliss apparently no longer available for comment…
Louisiana and half the States beyond, who knew little about Larry Durrant’s life, got to know every last detail of his impending death, as if they were a modern-day Roman amphitheatre crowd blood-lust hungry for it.
Those tentacles reached people they never had before, and some felt deeply touched and saddened by Larry Durrant’s plight, became more anti-death-penalty, while others simply munched their popcorn faster, Come on, get on with it. Give it to the fucker!
But those tentacles gripped tightest around those who knew Larry Durrant. Francine Durrant changed channels or turned off the TV every time it came on, couldn’t watch it any more. Mike Coultaine found himself tapping his fingers anxiously on tables and counter tops, increasingly looking towards the phone, praying that Jac had managed to run the gauntlet through customs and would be in Cuba by now, that any minute the phone would ring with good news. And Mack Elliott stared absently out of the window at Henny’s on to a bright winter’s day, street bustling with life, as he bit into a Debris po-boy and tried desperately to remember what he’d seen on TV twelve years ago.
And as those news broadcasts talked more and more about time — time of last meal, time for the final medical examination, time Durrant would walk to the death chamber, time of execution — those tentacles pulled everyone’s eyes repeatedly to the clock; half the state, two million people or more, watching the hours and minutes tick down to his death.
Roland Cole was no exception. Over the past two hours, his eyes had lifted twenty times or more to the clock in the Algiers fish warehouse where he and a colleague were busily shifting that day’s shipments onto the right pallets.