Trumann and his office took the blame, along with Foltrigg’s underlings, and the press, and the jurors, and the corrupt defense bar, everybody but the great man himself.
But Trumann had quietly massaged and manipulated the egos of prima donnas before, and he could certainly handle this idiot.
It was late, and as he picked at the lettuce in his shrimp remoulade in the dark corner of a crowded oyster bar, the idea hit him. He called Foltrigg’s private office number, no answer. He dialed the number in the library, and Wally Boxx answered. It was nine-thirty, and Wally explained he and his boss were still buried deep in the law books, just a couple of workaholics slaving over the details and enjoying it. All in a day’s work. Trumann said he’d be there in ten minutes.
He left the noisy cafe and walked hurriedly through the crowds on Canal Street. September was just another hot, sticky summer month in “New Orleans. After two blocks he removed his jacket and walked faster. Two more blocks, and his shirt was wet and clinging to his back and chest.
He darted through the crowds of tourists lumbering along Canal with their cameras and gaudy tee shirts, and wondered for the thousandth time why these people came to this city to spend hard-earned money on cheap entertainment and overpriced food. The average tourist on Canal Street wore black socks and white sneakers, was forty pounds overweight, and Trumann figured these people would return home and brag to their less fortunate friends about the delightful cuisine they had uniquely discovered and gorged themselves on in New Orleans. He bumped into a hefty woman with a small black box stuck in her face. She was actually standing near the curb and filming the front of a cheap souvenir store with suggestive street signs displayed for sale in the window. What sort of person would watch a video of a tacky souvenir shop in the French Quarter? Americans no longer experience vacations. They simply Sony them so they can ignore them for the rest of the year.
Trumann was in for a transfer. He was sick of tourists, traffic, humidity, crime, and he was sick of Roy Foltrigg. He turned by Rubinstein Brothers and headed for Poydras.
FOLTRIGG WAS NOT AFRAID OF HARD WORK. IT CAME NAT-
ural to him. He’d realized in law school that he was not a genius, and that to succeed he’d need to put in more
hours. He studied his ass off, and finished somewhere in the middle of the pack. But he’d been elected president of the student body, and there was a certificate declaring this achievement framed in oak somewhere on one of his walls. His career as a political animal started at the moment when his law school classmates chose him as their president, a position most did not know existed and couldn’t have cared less about. Job offers had been scarce for young Roy, and at the last minute he jumped at the chance to be an assistant city prosecutor in New Orleans. Fifteen thousand bucks a year in 1975. In two years he handled more cases than all the other city prosecutors combined. He worked. He put in long hours in a dead end job because he was going places. He was a star but no one noticed.
He began dabbling in local Republican politics, a lonely hobby, and learned to play the game. He met people with money and clout, and landed a job with a law firm. He put in incredible hours and became a partner. He married a woman he didn’t love because she had the right credentials and a wife brought respectability. Roy was on the move. There was a game plan.
He was still married to her but they slept in different rooms. The kids were now twelve and ten. A pretty family portrait.
He preferred the office to his home, which suited his wife just fine because she didn’t like him but did enjoy, his salary.
Roy’s conference table was once again covered with law books and legal pads. Wally had shed his tie and jacket. Empty coffee cups littered the room. They were both tired.
The law was quite simple: Every citizen owes to
society the duty of giving testimony to aid in the enforcement of the law. And, a witness is not excused from testifying because of his fear of reprisal threatening his and/or his family’s lives. It was black letter law, as they say, carved in stone over the years by