"I don't want the deed to your land. Why? Because nobody wants to buy it, and if you can't sell it, it's no good. We've got to have cash, Carl Lee. Not for me, but for the psychiatrists."
"Why?"
"Why!" Jake repeated in disbelief. "Why? Because I'd like to keep you away from the gas chamber, and it's only a hundred miles from here. It's not that far. And to do that, we've got to convince the jury that you were insane when you shot those boys. I can't tell them you were crazy. You can't tell them you were crazy. It takes a psychiatrist. An expert. A doctor. And they don't work for free. Understand?"
Carl Lee leaned on his knees and watched a spider crawl across the dusty carpet. After twelve days in jail and two court appearances, he had had enough of the criminal justice system. He thought of the hours and minutes before the killings. What was he thinking? Sure the boys had to die. He had no regrets. But did he contemplate jail, or poverty, or lawyers, or psychiatrists? Maybe, but only in passing. Those unpleasantries were only by-products to be encountered and endured temporarily before he was set free. After the deed, the system would process him, vindicate him, and send him home to his family. It would be easy, just as Les-ter's episode had been virtually painless.
But the system was not working now. It was conspiring to keep him in jail, to break him, to make orphans of his children. It seemed determined to punish him for performing an act he considered unavoidable. And now, his only ally was making demands he could not meet. His lawyer asked the impossible. His friend Jake was angry and yelling.
"Get it," Jake shouted as he headed for the door. "Get it from your brothers and sisters, from Gwen's family, get it from your friends, get it from your church. But get it. And as soon as possible."
Jake slammed the door and marched out of the jail.
Carl Lee's third visitor of the morning arrived before noon in a long black limousine with a chauffeur and Tennessee plates. It maneuvered through the small parking lot and came to rest straddling three spaces. A large black bodyguard emerged-from behind the wheel and opened the door to release his boss. They strutted up the sidewalk and into the jail.
The secretary stopped typing and smiled suspiciously. "Good mornin'."
"Mornin'," said the smaller one, the one with the patch. "My name is Cat Bruster, and I'd like to see Sheriff Walls."
"May I ask what for?"
"Yes ma'am. It's regardin' a Mr. Hailey, a resident of your fine facility."
The sheriff heard his name mentioned, and appeared from his office to greet this infamous visitor. "Mr. Bruster, I'm Ozzie Walls." They shook hands. The bodyguard did not move.
"Nice to meet you, Sheriff. I'm Cat Bruster, from Memphis."
Chapter Ten
"Yes. I know who you are. Seen you in the news. What brings you to Ford County?"
"Well, I gotta buddy in bad trouble. Carl Lee Hailey, and I'm here to help."
"Okay. Who's he?" Ozzie asked, looking up at the bodyguard. Ozzie was six feet four, and at least five inches shorter than the bodyguard. He weighed at least three hundred pounds, most of it in his arms.
"This here is Tiny Tom," Cat explained. "We just call him Tiny for short."
"I see."
"He's sort of like a bodyguard."
"He's not carryin' a gun, is he?"
"Naw, Sheriff, he don't need a gun."
rair enougn. wny aon t you and liny step into my office?"
In the office, Tiny closed the door and stood by it while his boss took a seat across from the sheriff.
"He can sit if he wants to," Ozzie explained to Cat.
"Naw, Sheriff, he always stands by the door. That's the way he's been trained."
"Sorta like a police dog?"
"Right."
"Fine. What'd you wanna talk about?"
Cat crossed his legs and laid a diamond-clustered hand on his knee. "Well, Sheriff, me and Carl Lee go way back. Fought together in 'Nam. We was pinned down near Da Nang, summer of '71. I got hit in the head, and, bam!, two seconds later he got hit in the leg. Our squad disappeared, and the gooks was usin' us for target practice. Carl Lee limped to where Fs layin', put me on his shoulders, and ran through the gunfire to a ditch next to a trail. I hung on his back while he crawled two miles. Saved my life. He got a medal for it. You