Life Expectancy

guards searched the vehicle inside and underneath for larger objectionable items such as suitcase bombs and rocket launchers.
        "I'm scared," Lorrie admitted.
        "You don't have to go in with us," I told her.
        "Yeah. I do. Too much is riding on this. I've got to be there."
        Approved for entry to the lot, we parked as near the walk-in gate as possible. The bitter wind turned even the shortest walk into an ordeal.
        The staff had the privilege of a heated underground garage. This surface lot served visitors.
        On the day before Thanksgiving, you might expect a stream of loved ones. Instead, there were nine empty spaces for every vehicle.
        Considering that the prisoners were drawn from all over the Western states, perhaps the distance was too great for many of their relatives to visit regularly. Or perhaps their families didn't give a damn about them.
        In some cases, of course, they had killed their families and couldn't reasonably expect holiday reunions.
        Even in this sentimental season, I was unable to work up any sympathy for the lonely men in those drab cellblocks, their hearts heavy and their eyes turned longingly toward birds winging across the ashen sky beyond their mean windows. I've never understood the weird Hollywood mind-set that romanticizes convicts and prison life. Besides, most of these guys had TVs, subscriptions to Hustler, and access to whatever drugs they needed.
        Inside the main entrance, in a short reception corridor staffed by three armed guards-one with a shotgun-we identified ourselves, produced photo IDs, and signed in. We passed through a metal detector and submitted to fluoroscopic examination. Ceiling-mounted cameras watched us.
        A handsome German shepherd, trained to detect drugs, lay at his handler's feet, chin cushioned cutely on one paw. The dog raised his head, sniffed in our direction, and yawned.
        Our stash of aspirin and antacids was insufficient provocation to cause him to spring to his feet, snarling. I wondered how he might respond to visitors with legitimate Prozac prescriptions.
        At the end of the corridor, we were examined remotely by another camera. Then from the farther side, a guard opened another steel door to admit us to a holding chamber.
        Because our visit had been arranged through Huey Foster and because of the unusual nature of our business, we were given VIP treatment. The assistant warden himself, accompanied by an armed guard, led us from the holding chamber to an elevator, up two floors, along a series of halls, and through two additional gates that released after reading his fingerprints when he pressed his right hand against a wall-mounted scanner.
        Outside the conference room, we were required to take off our coats and hang them on a wall rack. We read a short list headlined rules of conduct posted beside the door.
        Initially, only Lorrie and I went into the room, which measured approximately twenty feet by fifteen. Gray vinyl floor tiles, gray walls, low acoustic ceiling with fluorescent panels.
        The sullen light of a dismal sky seemed barely able to penetrate the glass-and-wire-sandwich windows.
        Centered in this space was an eight-foot-long conference table. On the farther side of the table stood a single chair; four chairs waited on the nearer side.
        In the lone chair sat Punchinello Beezo, who did not yet know that he possessed the power either to grant our family a reprieve from tragedy or to condemn us to nearly unendurable suffering.
        Welded to Punchinello's side of the table were two steel rings that had been wrapped with electrician's tape for sound attenuation. Each of his wrists had been chained to one of those rings. The length of these shackles allowed him to get up from his chair and stretch his legs in place, but didn't provide him with enough slack to move away from or around the table. The legs of the table were bolted to the floor.
        Usually visitors spoke with prisoners through a speaker grille in a bulletproof-glass partition, in a communal lounge that served several parties simultaneously. Conference rooms like this one were used most frequently by attorneys who required privacy with their clients.
        We had requested a private meeting with Punchinello not because we wished to discuss something confidential with him but because we felt that in a more intimate atmosphere,