Dean nodded to Percy. Percy turned back over his shoulder – I could see a place just under the angle of his jaw where he’d cut himself shaving that day – and said in a low, firm voice: “Roll on one!”
There was a hum, sort of like the sound an old refrigerator makes when it kicks on, and the hanging lights in the storage room brightened. There were a few low gasps and murmurs from the audience. Del jerked in the chair, his hands gripping the ends of the oak arms hard enough to turn the knuckles white.
His eyes rolled rapidly from side to side in their sockets, and his dry breathing quickened even more. He was almost panting now.
“Steady,” Brutal murmured. “Steady, Del, you’re doing just fine. Hang on, you’re doing just fine.”
Hey you guys! I thought. Come and see what Mr. Jingles can do! And overhead, the thunder banged again.
Percy stepped grandly around to the front of the electric chain This was his big moment, he was at center stage, all eyes were on him. All, that was, but for one set. Delacroix saw who it was and looked down at his lap instead. I would have bet you a dollar to a doughnut that Percy would flub his lines when he actually had to say them for an audience, but he reeled them off without a hitch, in an eerily calm voice.
“Eduard Delacroix, you have been condemned to die in the electric chair, sentence passed by a jury of your peers and imposed by a judge of good standing in this state, God save the people of this state. Do you have anything to say before sentence is carried out?”
Del tried to speak and at first nothing came out but a terrified whisper full of air and vowel-sounds. The shadow of a contemptuous smile touched the corners of Percy’s lips, and I could have cheerfully shot him right there. Then Del licked his lips and tried again.
” I sorry for what I do,” he said. “I give anything to turn back the clock, but no one can. So now – ”
Thunder exploded like an airburst mortar shell above us. Del jumped as much as the clamps would allow, eyes starting wildly out of his wet face. “So now I pay the price. God forgive me.” He licked his lips again, and looked at Brutal. “Don’t forget your promise about Mr. Jingles,” he said in a lower voice that was meant just for us.
“We won’t, don’t worry,” I said, and patted Delacroix’s clay-cold hand. “He’s going to Mouseville – ”
“The hell he is’ ” Percy said, speaking from the corner of his mouth like a yardwise con as he hooked the restraining belt across Delacroix’s chest. “There’s no such place. It’s a fairy-tale these guys made up to keep you quiet. Just thought you should know, faggot.”
A stricken light in Del’s eyes told me that part of him had known … but would have kept the knowledge from the rest of him, if allowed. I looked at Percy, dumbfounded and furious, and he looked back at me levelly, as if to ask what I meant to do about it. And he had me, of course. There was nothing I could do about it, not in front of the witnesses, not with Delacroix now sitting on the furthest edge of life. There was nothing to do now but go on with it, finish it.
Percy took the mask from its hook and rolled it down over Del’s face, snugging it tight under the little man’s undershot chin so as to stretch the hole in the top. Taking the sponge from the bucket and putting it in the cap was the next, and it was here that Percy diverged from the routine for the first time: instead of just bending over and fishing the sponge out, he took the steel cap from the back of the chair, and bent over with it in his hands. Instead of bringing the sponge to the cap, in other words-which would have been the natural way to do it – he brought the cap to the sponge. I should have realized something was wrong, but I was too upset. It was the only execution I ever took part in where I felt totally out of control.