You Think You Know Me Pretty Well aka Mercy Read Free Page A

probably had an inbuilt defense mechanism against solitude. Whenever he was alone he would rush to find human company. He was always the first to stride up to a friend or a group and stick his face into the conversation. He was always the one to approach the new kid in the class and size them up as friend or foe: friend to be used as a sounding board, foe to be bullied, or at least harassed.
    Even in his own home he avoided solitude. He was an only child, but he always had friends over for sleepovers. More often than that, he slept over at friend’s places. He preferred that because he was embarrassed by his mother. He didn’t know who his father was – neither did his mother.
    Now, he had to dwell in solitude for the first time in his life, he had to confront his fears. And this was a young man who had never known fear before.
    But his fear of solitude – the fear that had always been there but that he had concealed from himself for so long – was now confronting him like an inner demon who would let him have no peace.
    His mother didn’t visit. She had written him out of her life. And his old school friends – the ones whose lives he had brightened up with his antics – seemed to have no desire to share a moment’s company with their fallen idol.
    But it wasn’t solitude as such that he feared. Solitude merely opened the door to his own personal Room 101 – that secret, terrifying inner chamber where one’s worst fears become a reality. It forced him to engage in introspection . And it was introspection that he feared the most. Human company had merely been a way to stave off the need to look inside himself at the miserable squalor of his own soul. But stripped of that shield, introspection was all he had. Now at last, in the deafening silence of solitude and living under the shadow of death, he had to take a look at himself for what he really was.
    And he didn’t like what he saw.
    He saw a man who had wasted every opportunity that had presented itself. He saw a man who had been needlessly cruel toward the weak. He saw a man who had achieved popularity with the mob at the expense of the frail and the vulnerable.
    But most of all he saw a man who had no chance to redeem himself.
    He knew that Dorothy Olsen must also have had inner demons, probably far worse than his. But he had just trampled all over her. And for what? For some cheap puerile thrills that meant nothing to him now.
    He wished he could have his life over again. He wished he could have those moments back so that he could make wiser – and kinder – decisions. But God grants no second chances … if there even was a God.
    He looked down at the letter and realized how little it really said – how little of what he really wanted to say.
    Seized by anger, he picked up the letter and ripped it to shreds.
    Through the bars, the cell guard watched with an implacably neutral look on his face.
     
     
     

09:45 PDT
     
    Alex sat there in stunned silence. Whatever he had expected, it had not been this. Clemency? Before he had even put his well-rehearsed arguments? And the mother of the victim had specifically requested it.
    Then reality kicked in.
    “She’s asked me to offer your client clemency.”
    The words had been chosen very carefully.
    “When you say ‘asked you’,” Alex said cautiously, “does that mean you haven’t decided yet?”
    “You know my views on the death penalty.”
    “Yes, sir, I do. And I’ve always respected your courage in taking that position.”
    He regretted saying this as soon as the words were out of his mouth. It sounded sycophantic, and the governor was too shrewd a politician not to see right through it.
    “And you also know that I’m pretty much my own man, especially now that I’m quitting politics.”
    Alex nodded. Like many others, he wasn’t quite sure if he believed this, but now was hardly the time to give voice to his skepticism.
    “Nevertheless, it would be inappropriate for me to set myself up