The Green Mile(76)

But the death of Eduard Delacroix had been the ugliest, foulest thing I had ever seen in my life - not just my working life but my whole, entire life - and I had been a party to it. We had all been a party to it, because we had allowed Percy Wetmore to stay even after we knew he was horribly unfit to work in a place like E Block. We had played the game. Even Warden Moores had been a party to it. "His nuts are going to cook whether Wetmore's on the team or not," he had said, and maybe that was well enough, considering what the little Frenchman had done, but in the end Percy had done a lot more than cook Del's nuts; he had blown the little man's eyeballs right out of their sockets and set his damned face on fire. And why? Because Del was a murderer half a dozen times over? No. Because Percy had wet his pants and the little Cajun had had the temerity to laugh at him. We'd been part of a monstrous act, and Percy was going to get away with it. Off to Briar Ridge he would go, happy as a clam at high tide, and there he would have a whole asylum filled with lunatics to practice his cruelties upon. There was nothing we could do about that, but perhaps it was not too late to wash some of the muck off our own hands.

'In my church they call it atonement instead of balancing,' I said, 'but I guess it comes to the same thing.'

'Do you really think Coffey could save her?' Dean asked in a soft, awed voice. ''Just... what?... suck that brain tumor out of her head? Like it was a... a peach-pit?'

'I think he could. It's not for sure, of course, but after what he did to me... and to Mr. Jingles... '

'That mouse was seriously busted up, all right,' Brutal said.

'But would he do it?' Harry mused. 'Would he?'

'If he can, he will,' I said.

'Why? Coffey doesn't even know her!'

'Because it's what he does. It's what God made him for.'

Brutal made a show of looking around, reminding us all that someone was missing. 'What about Percy? You think he's just gonna let this go down?' he asked, and so I told them what I had in mind for Percy By the time I finished, Harry and Dean were looking at me in amazement, and a reluctant grin of admiration had dawned on Brutal's face.

'Pretty audacious, Brother Paul!' he said. 'Fair takes my breath away!'

'But wouldn't it be the bee's knees!' Dean almost whispered, then laughed aloud and clapped his hands like a child. 'I mean, voh-doh-dee-oh-doh and twenty-three-skidoo!' You want to remember that Dean had a special interest in the part of my plan that involved Percy - Percy - Percy could have gotten Dean killed, after all, freezing up the way he had.

'Yeah, but what about after?' Harry said. He sounded gloomy, but his eyes gave him away; they were sparkling, the eyes of a man who wants to be convinced. 'What then?'

'They say dead men tell no tales,' Brutal rumbled, and I took a quick look at him to make sure he was joking.

'I think he'll keep his mouth shut,' I said.

'Really?' Dean looked skeptical. He took off his glasses and began to polish them. 'Convince me.'

'First, he won't know what really happened - he's going to judge us by himself and think it was just a prank. Second - and more important - he'll be afraid to say anything. That's what I'm really counting on. We tell him that if he starts writing letters and making phone calls, we start writing letters and making phone calls.'

'About the execution,' Harry said.

'And about the way he froze when Wharton attacked Dean,' Brutal said. 'I think people finding out about that is what Percy Wetmore's really afraid of.' He nodded slowly and thoughtfully. 'It could work. But Paul... wouldn't it make more sense to bring Mrs. Moores to Coffey than Coffey to Mrs. Moores? We could take care of Percy pretty much the way you laid it out, then bring her in through the tunnel instead of taking Coffey out that way.'

I shook my head. 'Never happen. Not in a million years.'

'Because of Warden Moores?'

'Mat's right. He's so hardheaded he makes old Doubting Thomas look like Joan of Arc. If we bring Coffey to his house, I think we can surprise him into at least letting Coffey make the try. Otherwise... '

'What were you thinking about using for a vehicle?' Brutal asked.

'My first thought was the stagecoach,' I said, 'but we'd never get it out of the yard without being noticed, and everyone within a twenty-mile radius knows what it looks like, anyway. I guess maybe we can use my Ford.'

'Guess again,' Dean said, popping his specs back onto his nose. 'You couldn't get John Coffey into your car if you stripped him naked, covered him with lard, and used a shoehorn. You're so used to looking at him that you've forgotten how big he is.'

I had no reply to that. Most of my attention that morning had been focused on the problem of Percy - and the lesser but not inconsiderable problem of Wild Bill Wharton. Now I realized that transportation wasn't going to be as simple as I had hoped.

Harry Terwilliger picked up the remains of his second sandwich, looked at it for a second, then put it down again. 'If we was to actually do this crazy thing,' he said, 'I guess we could use my pickup truck. Sit him in the back of that. Wouldn't be nobody much on the roads at that hour. We're talking about well after midnight, ain't we?'

'Yes,' I said.

'You guys're forgetting one thing,' Dean said. 'I know Coffey's been pretty quiet ever since he came on the block, doesn't do much but lay there on his bunk and leak from the eyes, but he's a murderer. Also, he's huge. If he decided he wanted to escape out of the back of Harry's truck, the only way we could stop him would be to shoot him dead. And a guy like that would take a lot of killing, even with a.45. Suppose we weren't able to put him down? And suppose he killed someone else? I'd hate losing my job, and I'd hate going to jail - I got a wife and kids depending on me to put bread in their mouths - but I don't think I'd hate either of those things near as much as having another dead little girl on my conscience.'