If he’s read it once, he’s read it a thousand times, the warrant he chased after, sentencing Willie Jones to a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause death, and the application and continuance of such current through the body of the said Willie Jones until said Willie Jones is dead.
Still, Polly reads it one more time, stares at it. The document sits on his desk, atop a desk pad on which he’s scribbled endless geometric shapes, one against the next in an ever-expanding city of them that grows according to his nerves. He holds his hand over his mouth, chin in palm, elbow on desk, staring at the words beneath him as if they somehow might change. He taps the fingers of his free hand on the desktop, a gentle galloping thud, three beats for each tick of the mantel clock. It’s getting dark outside, and city hall has mostly emptied for the night; the clerks and accountants and the mayor have all gone home. His office is getting dark, too; when he sat down, afternoon sunlight was streaming in through the window, so he didn’t bother with the lights, and even now that the sun has set he still hasn’t bothered.
He lifts his eyes from the document before him only when the phone at the edge of his desk begins to ring. His mind springs to the possibility of an eleventh-hour reprieve, but that hope dies before it’s even fully realized; Willie’s court-appointed lawyers barely mounted a defense. Polly looks at the phone as it rings again, the receiver rattling in its cradle. He frowns, and brings the receiver to his ear.
“Yuh,” he says. “DA Livingstone.”
“Polly.” He follows the voice in his mind through the long stretches of telephone wire to the kitchen on Bryant Avenue, where he can see Nell leaning against the counter, her face wearing the tight expression that’s become her mask of late, impenetrable, yet somehow accusing in its impenetrability.
“Nell,” he says.
“Are you coming home?”
“Yuh,” he says. His eyes fall to the death warrant, which he tucks into a folder. “I had a couple of things to finish up. I’ll be home soon.” He glances at his wristwatch. “Sorry. I didn’t realize the time.”
“It’s fine. Gabe’s not home, yet, either. I just wasn’t sure if you were coming home at all before tonight.”
“No, no, I’m finished here.”
There’s a tap on the glass of his office door, which he’d left cracked open; he looks up as the door is pushed open the rest of the way. Earl Montgomery stands in the doorway, unshaven, burly, barrel-chested. An image of Gabe flashes into Polly’s mind, of Gabe emerging terrified from the back of a car filled with other men like this one: Stout Biggs and Leroy Mason in the front seat, Pope Crowley in the back, Montgomery’s heavy hand on Gabe’s neck as he steered the boy from the car. That’s what devastated Polly most, the man’s hand on Gabe’s neck, that intimate spot where his own hand falls instinctively with love.
“Well, I don’t know how these things—” his wife is saying.
“Nell,” Polly interrupts her. “Let me call you back.”
He replaces the receiver, then turns on the desk light. He puts his hands on his desk, and stands. “Montgomery,” he says.
“Evenin’, prosecutor.” Montgomery lifts his chin, looks at Polly down the length of his bulbous nose.
Polly waits.
“Tonight’s the big night, then,” Montgomery says. “You done good.”
“I did my job.”
Montgomery raises his eyebrows. “Some prosecute better ’n others,” he says. “Never do know, what with the nigger-lovin’ type. But, long as there’s no last-minute hiccups, I’d say you done good.”
“I did my job,” Polly says again. “You can thank the jury if the sentence pleases.”
Montgomery lifts his hands in a gesture of mock defense. “Nothin’ intended. Just deliverin’ our thanks.”
Polly says nothing.
Montgomery sniffs. “And how’s that boy of yours?”
Polly looks at him levelly. For a moment, he does not respond. “My boy,” he says, finally, “is fine.”