39

Five minutes later, Garey was wheeled into the chamber by the guards. A spiritual adviser dressed in black, of generic affiliation, followed. The subject lay on a heavy stainless-steel gurney, restrained by wrist and ankle straps of thick leather. The heart monitor, Diogenes noticed, was already connected.

“You want a flunky to do the venipuncture?” Dr. LeBronk asked.

Diogenes shook his head. “Might as well go soup to nuts.”

He stepped through the door into the execution chamber. The far wall was obscured by curtains. Garey craned his thick neck around to get a look at the agent of his impending death. He was a big bull of a man, his skull shaven, denim eyes small and pale and nearly expressionless, the skin of his arms, neck, and chest a mass of blurry blue prison tats. It was hard to tell what emotions he was experiencing: fear, anger, disbelief seemed to play across his face, one after the other.

Diogenes glanced around, refamiliarizing himself with the room, going through the upcoming procedure in his head. Reaching for a jar of cotton balls, he swabbed the inside of the man’s right arm with alcohol.

The IV line ran from the drug administration room onto a rack that stood by the gurney. Diogenes tied a tourniquet, flicked the back of a fingernail against Garey’s skin to get a good cubital vein. He had some difficulty due to needle scarring, but in short time found the vein and slid the IV needle home. Then he snapped off the tourniquet.

Garey watched the procedure without curiosity.

Diogenes went through the final preliminary steps, then withdrew from the gurney into the doorway of the drug administration room. Once he was out of sight, a modesty sheet was placed over Garey’s gown and legs, extending as high as his midriff. Then the curtains on the far wall drew back with a faint whirring sound, exposing two large panels of one-way glass. Garey couldn’t see the witnesses beyond, but they could see him.

There was a faint rasp over the loudspeaker system. “Silence in the witness area, please,” came the voice of the warden. A brief pause. “Does the condemned have any last words?”

“Fuck you,” said Garey. There was now nothing left on his face but anger. He spat in the direction of the one-way glass.

In the drug administration room, Diogenes signed paperwork handed him by the warden. He then checked the drug delivery apparatus, which consisted of a number of syringes, already prepped and loaded by trained prison flunkies. Instead of the usual two sets, tonight there was only one. Along with several other states, Florida used a combination of three drugs: a controversial cocktail that underwent frequent updating, based on the availability of the drugs. The intended result, however, never varied. The first drug would induce unconsciousness; the second would cause paralysis, halting respiration; and the third would stop the heart. They were always introduced serially.

Diogenes examined the drugs and dosages in the delivery system: one hundred milligrams of midazolam hydrochloride, followed by equally LD-excessive doses of vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. He picked up the bulky, state-mandated execution forms and filled out the first of two sections, including his name, the name of the subject, his physician number, execution license serial number, and drugs to be administered.

“Five minutes,” the warden said.

Diogenes broke the paper seals around the syringes, then fitted the syringes tightly into the three IV lines, one after the other. In the execution chamber, Garey was beginning to shout now: angry outbursts, mostly incoherent save for curses. Diogenes paid no attention as he turned on the cardiac monitor in order to observe the subject’s heart rhythm. It was considerably elevated — as might be expected.

A death house guard stepped into the room.

“Final statement?” the warden asked wearily, going through the standard checklist.

“If you want to call it that, yes, sir,” the guard answered.

“Governor’s office?”

“Green light.”

All was silent in the room save for Garey’s expletives, louder now, filtering through the partially open door. The warden watched the wall clock tick slowly through one minute, then two. And then he turned to Diogenes. “The execution may commence,” he said.

Diogenes nodded. Turning toward the first syringe, he injected the midazolam. The colorless liquid went down the IV tube, which snaked — along with several other tubes — through a small circular hole into the execution chamber.

Constance,” he whispered to himself, almost reverently.

At first, Garey’s loud, harsh vocalizing remained unchanged. Then it grew slow and garbled. Within thirty seconds it was little more than a sporadic, incoherent mutter.

Diogenes depressed the second syringe, introducing the paralytic.

All eyes in the room were trained either on the partially open door to the execution chamber, or on the small observation window set into the nearby wall. Nobody noticed as Diogenes slipped one hand into the pocket of his lab coat, palmed another syringe he had already taken out of his medical bag and placed there, inserted its needle into the injection valve of the third catheter, and introduced its contents into the IV tube. Just as quickly, he replaced the now-empty syringe in his pocket.

This fourth, secret part of the lethal cocktail was one of Diogenes’s own devising: a combination of sodium benzoate and ammonium sulfate, preservatives used — among other things — to keep meat fresh.

A moment later there were gasps in the room, followed by a series of murmurings.

“Look at him,” said the death house guard. “He’s flopping around like a fish. Never seen that before.”

“It’s almost as if he’s in severe pain,” said Dr. LeBronk, his voice strained.

“How’s that possible?” The warden swore under his breath. Then he turned to Diogenes. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing at my end. Everything’s in order. I’m about to introduce the potassium chloride.”

“Hurry,” said the warden.

Slowly and carefully, Diogenes depressed the plunger of the third syringe, the contents of which would induce cardiac arrest and cause death. Given the unsanctioned chemicals introduced into his veins, the murderer was perhaps suffering more than was normally the case. Far more than normal, most likely. However, it was important that his harvest be as fresh as possible.

The plunger reached the hilt. Now it was just a matter of time. Diogenes watched the heart monitor begin to slow inexorably as, in the execution chamber, Lucius Garey struggled feebly, gargling and gasping for air, in evident torment despite the sedative and paralytic. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. He took a deep, shuddering breath and pushed the Old Voice down. It took a full twelve minutes for cardiac activity to cease completely.

“Done,” Diogenes said briskly, stepping back from the monitor.

The warden exchanged glances with the prison doctor. They were, Diogenes noticed, both ashen looking — the condemned had died an ugly, protracted, and painful death. He felt contempt for their weakness and hypocrisy.

The warden took a deep breath, mastering himself. “Very well,” he said. “Dr. Leyland, would you please confirm that the subject has expired and sign the death certificate?”

Diogenes nodded. Stepping away from the monitor, he plucked a few items from his medical bag — replacing the empty syringe in it as he did so — then stepped into the execution chamber. The viewing curtain was closed once again: already, the family members were being escorted out by prison staff, and official witnesses would be signing documentation. He walked over to the corpse of Lucius Garey. The man, in his agony, had struggled mightily against the leather bonds, as abraded and bleeding skin at the wrists and ankles attested to. Diogenes plucked the needle from the cubital vein and disposed of it in medical waste. He shone a light into Garey’s eyes and confirmed the pupils were fixed and dilated. After this, he did not look again at the face of the corpse: its unpleasant expression, including the fat protruding stub of a tongue — like an eggplant-colored Popsicle, papillae distinct and engorged as if from chelonitoxism — was offensive to him. Instead, he went methodically through the steps necessary to confirm death. He did a trapezius squeeze to ensure there was no pain reflex; observed the skin color; noted there were no signs of respiratory effort; felt the carotid artery for a pulse and found none. Using a stethoscope on the chest of the corpse, he listened carefully for respiration or a heart rhythm for two minutes. There was nothing; Lucius Garey was as dead as a mackerel. He stepped back, then turned and walked quickly away from the body with relief: Garey had voided his bowels during the execution process.

He walked out of the chamber, gave his findings to the warden and LeBronk, then completed the official paperwork, concluding with the time and date. Everything was done now — everything, that was, save what was for him the most important step of all.

By now, he knew, a refrigerated van would be waiting in a small parking area outside the death house. He’d drive back to the M.E.’s office in advance of it. He shook hands with the warden and LeBronk in turn. They both still appeared a little shaken from Garey’s protracted death. It amused Diogenes, on one level, that it had not occurred to either of them — or anyone else, for that matter — that the same doctor who’d administered the fatal cocktail of drugs to Garey would, rather unusually, also be the coroner who both pronounced the man dead and performed the postmortem. As a result, the unusual preservatives he had introduced would never be discovered in the deceased’s bloodstream. Of course, he hadn’t told Constance he was executioner as well as examiner — that would have distressed her unnecessarily.

Within five minutes he was out of the prison and headed toward LaBelle, county seat of Hendry County, where the M.E.’s office was located. He glanced southeast, in the direction of Miami. While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. In the trunk of his rental car — along with the beautiful suit, fast-acting hair coloring, and colored contact lenses of his Petru Lupei identity — was a special medical case, used in the transporting of organs or human tissue for such critical applications as transplants. At present, it was empty.

In an hour or so, he knew, it would be empty no longer.

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