The guard stopped at the entrance. “Who’s the guy for the last words?”
I stepped out of the file and jerked my thumb.
“Okay,” he said. “You wait here.”
The rest of the guys trooped down the passage and grouped themselves before the glass windows of the gas chamber. Hughson was the last one to take up a position. He said to me, as he passed: “Watch yourself, Bud.”
I was surprised that a grin didn’t come easy. This business was getting me a little nervy.
The gas chamber was octagonal in shape and made of steel, with windows on all sides. The narrow passage where the other boys had gone was built to allow four feet of space between the wall of the death house and the chamber. There was a very high steel chimney from the chamber up through the death house, to carry off the fumes once the execution was over.
I had a little more space on my side. I looked into the chamber. It was about five feet wide, and empty except for a steel chair, equipped with straps, standing in the centre. The cyanide ‘eggs’ were suspended from the bottom of the chair. I didn’t like the look of this spot. It gave me the heebies just to imagine myself sitting in there.
From where I stood, I could look through the window of the chamber and see the boys on the opposite side, looking through their window at me. They waved at me and I gave them the two-digit high sip. Those guys certainly looked a bunch of monkeys massed up behind the glass.
I had come to see Vessi, so I thought I might as well have a look at him. He was sitting in his cell, smoking a cigarette. He was naked but for a pair of underwear shorts.
I looked at the guard. “What’s the idea—him like that?”