Book 2, Part 2 Summary

Part 2 of Book 2 has little to do with Gary Gilmore, but it has a great deal to do with self-serving profiteers and media ghouls with dreams of riches and career advancements rising from his corpse. Boaz has already positioned himself between the money and his client, but when he tries to play hardball with the big boys he finds that he is just what he is: a small-time dope-smoking hippie bush leaguer from a place nobody ever heard of.

Gary does not die from the Seconal, of course, and evidence suggests he never intended to. He takes the pills just a couple of hours before morning bed check, not at midnight as his pact with his lover dictates. With his knowledge of drugs, Brenda observes, he surely knows that he is ingesting less than a lethal dose for a man of...