'If nothing else,' Brutal said, 'just think how nice it'd be to get away from that sack of pus Wharton.'

Percy nodded, and I let him get out of the chair. He straightened his uniform shirt, tucked it in at the back, gave his hair a pass-through with his comb. Then he looked at us. 'Okay, I agree. I'm out front for Del tomorrow night; I'll put in for Briar Ridge the very next day. We call it quits right there. Good enough?'

'Good enough,' I said. That look was still in his eyes, but right then I was too relieved to care.

He stuck out his hand. 'Shake on it?'

I did. So did Brutal.

More fools us.

4

The next day was the thickest yet, and the last of our strange October heat. Thunder was rumbling in the west when I came to work, and the dark clouds were beginning to stack up there. They moved closer as the night came down, and we could see blue-white forks of lightning jabbing out of them. There was a tornado in Trapingus County around ten that night—it killed four people and tore the roof off the livery stable in Tefton—and vicious thunderstorms and gale-force winds at Cold Mountain. Later it seemed to me as if the very heavens had protested the bad death of Eduard Delacroix.

Everything went just fine to begin with. Del had spent a quiet day in his cell, sometimes playing with Mr. Jingles but mostly just lying on his bunk and petting him. Wharton tried to get trouble started a couple of times—once he hollered down to Del about the mousieburgers they were going to have after old Lucky Pierre was dancing the two-step in hell—but the little Cajun didn't respond and Wharton, apparently deciding that was his best shot, gave it up.

At quarter past ten, Brother Schuster showed up and delighted us all by saying he would recite the Lord's Prayer with Del in Cajun French. It seemed like a good omen. In that we were wrong, of course.

The witnesses began to arrive around eleven, most talking in low tones about the impending weather, and speculating about the possibility of a power outage postponing the electrocution. None of them seemed to know that Old Sparky ran off a generator, and unless that took a direct lightning-hit, the show would go on. Harry was in the switch room that night, so he and Bill Dodge and Percy Wetmore acted as ushers, seeing folks into their seats and asking each one if he'd like a cold drink of water. There were two women present: the sister of the girl Del had raped and murdered, and the mother of one of the fire victims. The latter lady was large and pale and determined. She told Harry Terwilliger that she hoped the man she'd come to see was good and scared, that he knew the fires in the furnace were stoked for him, and that Satan's imps, were waiting for him. Then she burst into tears and buried her face in a lace hanky that was almost the size of a pillowslip.

Thunder, hardly muffled at all by the tin roof, banged harsh and loud. People glanced up uneasily. Men who looked uncomfortable wearing ties this late at night wiped at their florid cheeks. It was hotter than blue blazes in the storage shed. And, of course, they kept turning their eyes to Old Sparky. They might have made jokes about this chore earlier in the week, but the jokes were gone by eleven-thirty or so that night. I started all this by telling you that the humor went out of the situation in a hurry for the people who had to sit down in that oak chair, but the condemned prisoners weren't the only ones who lost the smiles off their faces when the time actually came. It just seemed so bald, somehow, squatting up there on its platform, with the clamps on the legs sticking off to either side, looking like the things a person with polio would have to wear. There wasn't much talk, and when the thunder boomed again, as sharp and personal as a splintering tree, the sister of Delacroix's victim gave a little scream. The last person to take his seat in the witness's section was Curtis Anderson, Warden Moores's stand-in.

At eleven-thirty, I approached Delacroix's cell with Brutal and Dean walking slightly behind me. Del was sitting on his bunk, with Mr. Jingles in his lap. The mouse's head was stretched forward toward the condemned man, his little oilspot eyes rapt on Del's face. Del was stroking the top of Mr. Jingles's head between his ears. Large silent tears were rolling down Del's face, and it was these the mouse seemed to be peering at. Del looked up at the sound of our footsteps. He was very pale. From behind me, I sensed rather than saw John Coffey standing at his cell door, watching.

Del winced at the sound of my keys clashing against metal, but held steady, continuing to stroke Mr. Jingles's head, as I turned the locks and ran the door open.

'Hi dere, Boss Edgecombe,' he said. 'Hi dere, boys. Say hi, Mr. Jingles.' But Mr. Jingles only continued to look raptly up at the balding little man's face, as if wondering at the source of his tears. The colored spool had been neatly laid aside in the Corona box—laid aside for the last time, I thought, and felt a pang.

'Eduard Delacroix, as an officer of the court... '

'Boss Edgecombe?'

I thought about just running on with the set speech, then thought again. 'What is it, Del?'

He held the mouse out to me. 'Here. Don't let nothing happen to Mr. Jingles.'

'Del, I don't think he'll come to me. He's not—'

'Mais oui, he say he will. He say he know all about you, Boss Edgecombe, and you gonna take him down to dat place in Florida where the mousies do their tricks. He say he trust you.' He held his hand out farther, and I'll be damned if the mouse didn't step off his palm and onto my shoulder. It was so light I couldn't even feel it through my uniform coat, but I sensed it, like a small heat. 'And boss? Don't let that bad 'un near him again. Don't let that bad 'un hurt my mouse.'

'No, Del. I won't.' The question was, what was I supposed to do with him right then? I couldn't very well march Delacroix past the witnesses with a mouse perched on my shoulder.

'I'll take him, boss,' a voice rumbled from behind me. It was John Coffey's voice, and it was eerie the way it came right then, as though he had read my mind. 'Just for now. If Del don't mind.'

Del nodded, relieved. 'Yeah, you take im, John, 'til dis foolishment done—bien! And den after... ' His gaze shifted back to Brutal and me. 'You gonna take him down to Florida. To dat Mouseville Place.'

'Yeah, most likely Paul and I will do it together,' Brutal said, watching with a troubled and unquiet eye as Mr. Jingles stepped off my shoulder and into Coffey's huge outstretched palm. Mr. Jingles did this with no protest or attempt to run; indeed, he scampered as readily up John Coffey's arm as he had stepped onto my shoulder. 'We'll take some of our vacation time. Won't we, Paul?'

I nodded. Del nodded, too, eyes bright, just a trace of a smile on his lips. 'People pay a dime apiece to see him. Two cents for the kiddies. Ain't dat right, Boss, Howell?'

'That's right, Del.'

'You a good man, Boss Howell,' Del said. 'You, too, Boss Edgecombe. You yell at me sometimes, oui, but not 'less you have to. You all good men except for dat Percy. I wish I coulda met you someplace else. Mauvais temps, mauvaise chance.'

'I got something to say to you, Del,' I told him. 'They're just the words I have to say to everyone before we walk. No big deal, but it's part of my job. Okay?'

'Oui, monsieur,' he said, and looked at Mr. Jingles, perched on John Coffey's broad shoulder, for the last time. 'Au revoir, mon ami,' he said, beginning to cry harder. 'le t'aime, mon petit.' He blew the mouse a kiss. It should have been funny, that blown kiss, or maybe just grotesque, but it wasn't. I met Dean's eye for a moment, then had to look away. Dean stared down the corridor toward the restraint room and smiled strangely I believe he was on the verge of tears. As for me, I said what I had to say, beginning with the part about how I was an officer of the court, and when I was done, Delacroix stepped out of his cell for the last time.