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Jake walked to the edge of the porch and leaned on a coluain by Lucien He was an expert at poking holes in every case Jake tried It was sport to hiht

"Look, Jake, I don&039;t mean to sound so hopeless The case can be won-it&039;s a long shot, but it can be won You can walk him out of there, and you need to believe you can Just don&039;t get too cocky You&039;ve said enough to the press for a while Back off, and go to work"

Lucien walked to the edge of the porch and spat in the shrubs "Always keep in uilty as hell Most criminal defendants are, but especially this one He took the law into his own hands, and he al systeilante justice Now, you can win the case, and if you do, justice will prevail But if you lose it, justice will also prevail Kind of a strange case, I guess I just wish I had it"

"You serious?"

"Sure I&039;m serious It&039;s a trial lawyer&039;s dreaun in these parts It could make you rich"

"I&039;ll need your help"

"You&039;ve got it I need so to do"

After dinner, and after Hanna was asleep, Jake told Carla about the calls at the office They had received a strange call before during one of the otherand breathing But these were different They e if Carl Lee was acquitted

"Are you worried?" she asked

"Not really It&039;s probably just some kids, or some of Cobb&039;s friends Does it scare you?"

"I would prefer they didn&039;t call"

"Everybody&039;s getting calls Ozzie&039;s had hundreds Bul-lard, Childers, everybody I&039;m not worried about it"

"What if it becoer my family It&039;s not worth it I&039;ll withdraw froitimate I promise"

She was not impressed

Lester peeled off nine one-hundred-dollar bills and laid them majestically on Jake&039;s desk

"That&039;s only nine hundred," Jake said "Our agreeroceries"

"You sure Lester didn&039;t need some whiskey?"

"Come on, Jake, you knoouldn&039;t steal from oing to the bank to borrow the rest?"

"I&039;e?"

"Yeah, Stan Atcavage, next door at Security Bank

Good friend of ot the deed?"

"In ive us?"

"No idea Why don&039;t you go find out"

Lester left, and ten e was on the phone

"Jake, I can&039;t loan the money to these people What if he&039;s convicted-no offense, I know you&039;re a good lawyer-on death row?"

"Thanks Look Stan, if he defaults you own ten acres, right?"

"Right, with a shack on it Ten acres of trees and kudzu plus an old house Just what my neants Come on, Jake"

"It&039;s a nice house, and it&039;s almost paid for"

"It&039;s a shack, a clean shack But it&039;s not worth anything, Jake"

"It&039;s gotta be worth so"

"Jake, I don&039;t want it The bank does not want it"

"You loaned it before"

"And he wasn&039;t in jail before; his brother was, re at the paper mill Good job, too Now he&039;s headed for Parchman"

"Thanks, Stan, for the vote of confidence"

"Coot confidence in your ability, but I can&039;t loan et him off, you can And I hope you do But I can&039;t make this loan The auditors would scream"

Lester tried the Peoples Bank and Ford National, with the same results They hoped his brother was acquitted, but what if he wasn&039;t

Wonderful, thought Jake Nine hundred dollars for a capital murder case

Claude had never seen the need for printed menus in his cafe Years before when he first opened he couldn&039;t afford menus, and now that he could he didn&039;t need them because most folks knehat he served For breakfast he cooked everything but rice and toast, and the prices varied For Friday lunch he barbecued pork shoulder and spare ribs, and everybody knew it He had fehite custo the week, but at noon Friday, every Friday, his small cafe was half white Claude had known for some time that whites enjoyed barbecue as much as blacks; they just didn&039;t kno to prepare it

Jake and Atcavage found a small table near the kitchen Claude himself delivered two plates of ribs and slaw He leaned toward Jake and said softly, "Good luck to you Hope you get him off"

"Thanks, Claude I hope you&039;re on the jury"

Claude laughed and said louder, "Can I volunteer?"

Jake attacked the ribs and chewed on Atcavage for notthe loan The banker was steadfast, but did offer to lend five thousand if Jake would cosign That would be unethical, Jake explained

On the sidewalk a line forh the painted letters on the front s Claude was everywhere, taking orders, giving orders, cooking, countingthem to leave On Friday, the customers were allotted twenty minutes after the food was served, then Claude asked and sometimes demanded that they pay and leave so he could sell more barbecue

"Quit talkin&039; and eat!" he would yell

"I&039;ve got ten ot seven"

On Wednesday he fried catfish, and allowed thirty minutes because of the bones The white folks avoided Claude&039;s on Wednesday, and he knehy It was the grease, a secret recipe grease handed down by his grandmother, he said It was heavy and sticky and wreaked havoc with the lower intestines of white people It didn&039;t faze the blacks, who piled in by the carloads every Wednesday

Two foreigners sat near the cash register and watched Claude fearfully as he directed lunch Probably reporters, thought Jake Each tilared, they obediently picked up and gnawed a rib They had not experienced ribs before, and it was obvious to everyone they were from the North They had wanted chef salads, but Claude cursed them, and told them to eat barbecue or leave Then he announced to the crowd these silly fools wanted chef salads

"Here&039;s your food Hurry up and eat it," he had demanded when he served them

"No steak knives?" one had asked crisply

Claude rolled his eyes and staggered awayfor a few minutes, finally walked over and knelt by the table "Aren&039;t you Jake Brigarice, Mr Hailey&039;s attorney?"

"Yes, I aer McKittrick, with The New York Times"

"Nice to meet you," Jake said with athe Hailey case, and I&039;d like to talk with you sometime As soon as possible, really"

"Sure I&039;m not too busy this afternoon It&039;s Friday"

"I could do it late"

"How about four?"

"Fine," said McKittrick, who noticed Claude approaching from the kitchen "I&039;ll see you then"

"Okay, buddy," Claude yelled at McKittrick "Time&039;s up Get your check and leave"

Jake and Atcavage finished in fifteen minutes, and waited for the verbal assault froers and mopped their faces and commented on the tenderness of the ribs

"This case&039;ll e

"I hope Evidently it won&039;t make any money"

"Seriously, Jake, won&039;t it help your practice?"

"If I win, I&039;ll have more clients than I can handle Sure

it&039;ll help I can pick and choose my cases, pick and choose my clients"

"Financially, what&039;ll it mean?"

"I have no idea There&039;s no way to predict who or what it ht attract I&039;ll have more cases to choose fro about the overhead"

"Surely you don&039;t worry about the overhead"

"Look, Stan, we&039;re not all filthy rich A law degree is not worth what it once was-too h, even in Clanton-not enough good cases and tootowns, and the law schools graduate et ten kids a year knocking onfiro Can you iine? Just like a factory, they laid them off I suppose they went down to the unemployment office and stood in line with the &039;dozer operators Lawyers now, not secretaries or truck drivers, but lawyers"

"Sorry I asked"

"Sure I worry about the overhead It runs me four thousand a month, and I practice alone That&039;s fifty thousand a year before I clear a diood, others slow They&039;re all unpredictable I wouldn&039;t dare estiross next month That&039;s why this case is so important There will never be another one like it It&039;s the biggest I&039;ll practice the rest of my life and never have another reporter from The New York Times stop me in a cafe and ask for an interview If I win, I&039;ll be the top dog in this part of the state I can forget about the overhead"

"And if you lose?"

Jake paused and glanced around for Claude "The publicity will be abundant regardless of the outcome Win or lose, the case will help my practice But a loss will really hurt Every lawyer in the county is secretly hoping I blow it They want hi and take away their clients Lawyers are extremely jealous"

"You too?"

"Sure Take the Sullivan firm I despise every lawyer in that firm, but I&039;m jealous to an extent I wish I had some of their clients, some of their retainers, some of their security They know that every uaranteed al bonus They represent old e Me, I represent drunks, thugs, wife beaters, husband beaters, injured people, most of whom have little or no money And I never know from one month to the next how many of these people will show up at e interrupted "I would really like to finish this discussion, but Claude just looked at his watch and then looked at us I think our twenty minutes are up"

Jake&039;s check was seventy-one cents e&039;s, and since both orders were identical, Claude was interrogated No probleot an extra rib

McKittrick was personable and precise, thorough and pushy He had arrived in Clanton on Wednesday to investigate and write about as billed as the most famous murder in the country, at the ested he talk to Jake He talked to Bullard, through the door, and the judge suggested he talk to Jake He intervieen and Lester, but was not perulars at the Coffee Shop and the Tea Shoppe, and he visited with the regulars at Huey&039;s and Ann&039;s Lounge He talked to Willard&039;s ex-wife and h with reporters One of Cobb&039;s brothers offered to talk for a fee McKittrick declined He drove to the paper mill and talked to the co-workers, and he drove to Smithfield to interview the DA He would be in town for a few more days, then return for the trial

He was froht drahich impressed the locals and opened them up He even said "you all" and "y&039;all" occasionally, and this distinguished hi to their crisp, precise, modern American pronunciation

"What&039;s that?" McKittrick pointed to the center of Jake&039;s desk

"That&039;s a tape recorder," Jake answered

McKittrick sat his own recorder on the desk and looked at Jake&039;s "May I ask why?"

"You may It&039;s my office, my interview, and if I want to record it, I will"

"Are you expecting trouble?"

"I&039; to prevent it I hate to be "

"Good Then you won&039;t "

"You don&039;t trust ance?"

"Hell no And my name is Jake"

"Why don&039;t you trust me?"

"Because you&039;re a reporter, you&039;re fro for a sensational story, and if you&039;re true to form, you&039;ll write so us all as racist, ignorant rednecks"

"You&039;re wrong First of all, I&039;m from Texas"

"Your paper is from New York"

"But I consider one?"

"About twenty years"

Jake s

"And I don&039;t work for a sensational newspaper"

"We&039;ll see The trial is several months away We&039;ll have tih"

Jake punched the play button on his tape recorder, and McKittrick did likewise

"Can Carl Lee Hailey receive a fair trial in Ford County?"

"Why couldn&039;t he?" Jake asked

"Well, he&039;s black He killed thite men, and he will be tried by a white jury"

"You mean he will be tried by a bunch of white racists"

"No, that&039;s not what I said, nor what I implied Why do

you automatically assume I think you are all a bunch of racists?"

"Because you do We&039;re stereotyped, and you know it"

McKittrick shrugged and wrote so on his steno pad "Will you answer the question?"

"Yes He can receive a fair trial in Ford County, if he&039;s tried here"

"Do you want it tried here?"

"I&039;m sure we&039;ll try to move it"

"To where?"

"We won&039;t suggest a place That&039;s up to the judge"

"Where did he get the M-16?"

Jake chuckled and stared at the tape recorder "I do not know"

"Would he be indicted if he hite?"

"He&039;s black, and he has not been indicted"

"But if he hite, would there be an indictment?"