Paris Trout (35 page)

She had not known Trout before he took over his own
defense, but it seemed to her that the writing made him crazy. He was
more normal, at least, when he came into the store in the morning
than he was when he left. Of course, he visited his mother every
morning at the retirement home on the way to work, and she thought
that might account 'for his good moods early in the day.

By afternoon she would hear him in the back.
Unimaginable language. Sometimes there were noises, as if furniture
were being overturned. Once she thought she heard him crying.

He never cursed her, though. He never abused her at
all except in the hours he forced her to keep and the low wages he
paid. She never asked for less work or more money.

She knew a peg-legged woman was fortunate to have any
job at all. She could not feel relaxed in the store, if he was in it
or not. She knew that he had killed someone once, and did not intend
to give him reason to do it again. He carried a pistol everywhere,
even when he came only a few steps out of the office to open one of
the safes lined up against the wall in the hallway. The light back
there was poor, and he lit matches to dial the combinations.

He visited the safes
regularly, at the beginning of his day and at the end and sometimes
following his afternoon meal.

* * *

THE NOTICE THAT THE Supreme Court had voted not to
consider his appeal reached Paris Trout at eleven o'clock in the
morning by registered mail. About the same time a similar letter
arrived at the office of Judge John Taylor, who studied the document
longer than he normally would, looking for some way to relinquish
authority in the matter, and then — finding none — revoked
Trout's bail and issued orders for his arrest.

As an afterthought he made copies of the notice and
his order and sent them to Ward Townes.

Later in the clay judge Taylor took a call in his
quarters from Sheriff Edward Fixx. "I got this order here to
arrest Paris Trout," the sheriff said.

"
That is correct."

"You want him arrested?"

"
I didn't send the damn thing over for you to
wipe your ass."

"
All right," Edward Fixx said. "I only
asked. You want this done today?"

"
Today, tomorrow, it's no consequence. Call him
first, let him know when you're coming."

"Yessir, I'll do that."

The line went quiet for a moment. "There's no
reason to make this a public spectacle," the judge said. "You
might have him to come in himself."

After he had hung up, judge Taylor pulled the notice
from the Supreme Court out and looked at it again. Six to three. He
thought Paris Trout must have written up an impressive application.

"
The man's that
smart," he said out loud, "he ought know better to get
caught shooting up colored people's homes."

* * *

TEN MINUTES AFTER THE notice arrived, Paris Trout was
on the telephone with a Petersboro County attorney named Rodney
Dalmar, who had written him shortly after the trial, offering his
services in the event Trout "exhausted ordinary legal remedies".

In the letter Dalmar said he'd had some success
"arbitrating" jail terms at the state work farm, where
Trout had been sentenced to serve his one to three years.

The letter had been sitting in Trout's desk,
unacknowledged, for nearly three years, but Rodney Dalmar's manner
was familiar, as if it were something he and Trout had talked about
yesterday. "Mr. Trout," he said, "what may I do for
you today?"

"
Your letter," he said. "You said you
might help me when the time came."

"Yessir, I might could."

"Well, the time is come."

"I see," said the attorney.

"
I have just received notice that the Supreme
Court has denied to review my conviction."  The voice
sounded flat and calm.

"
Communists," Rodney Dalmar said. "But
what can you do?"

It was quiet a moment. "I took it from your
letter that you would know what to do," he said finally.

"
Possibly," the lawyer said. "Possibly
I might." There was another silence, then: "This gone run
you some money, you know that."

"
I never thought anything different."

"
It isn't myself," the lawyer said. "It
was up to me, I'd do it gratis. A man ought not to be in your
situation, not over collecting a nigger debt."

There was an uncomfortable moment, and then Trout
said, "It was a tampered jury."

"
Sir?"

"
Somebody got in my business. I know every one
of their names."

"
I heard that rumor," the attorney said.

"
I know names, I know where they live."

"I'm sure your time will come," the
attorney said.

Trout did not answer.

"
Mr. Trout?"

"
I am getting up a list," he said. "They're
all on it."

"
I don't blame you," the attorney said. "I
might do the same thing in your place."

The line went quiet again, the lawyer began to wonder
what Paris Trout was doing. "I can tell you got your mind on
other things right now," he said, "but I might just take a
minute to explain our situation down here in Pete County."

While the lawyer explained the situation, Trout took
a blank piece of paper out of his desk and began to print the names
and addresses of all the jurors. He knew them by heart. Beneath them
he wrote judge John Taylor, Ward Townes, Harry Seagraves, and Hanna
Nile — his wife's maiden name.

He thought for a moment and added Hubert Norland,
Edward Fixx, and Jack Handley — the police chief, the sheriff, and
the new district attorney.

The lawyer was going over the people in Petersboro
County who had to be paid. "There are legal fees to the court,
of course," he said, "attorneys and the judge, but the real
expense is the work farm itself: The man there is a hard man, and he
can make it as steep as he wants .... "

"
Tell me what it costs," Trout said.

"
Altogether I'd say twenty thousand."

"
Twenty thousand," he said.

"
Yessir," the lawyer said. "Just give
us a call when you're coming, and we'll be out to meet you."

Trout hung up the phone. It rang again, a few minutes
later, and he sat looking at it eight or nine rings before he picked
it up. He put the receiver against his ear without speaking.

"
Mr. Trout?"

The voice was different, he couldn't place it at
first. "Mr. Trout, this is Edward Fixx."

It was quiet a moment. Then: "I just put you on
my list."

Sheriff Fixx took a moment too. "Yessir, thank
you .... The reason I was calling is to ask you to come in."

"
Come in where?"

"
The sheriff department. Judge Taylor got notice
from Washington that your appeal run out, and he wanted me to pick
you up. I thought it might be better you just come in on your own,
save you riding up Main Street in a patrol car."

Trout reached into his pocket and found the handle of
the pistol. He brought it out and laid it on his desk.

"It don't have to be today," the sheriff
said. Judge Taylor indicated tomorrow would be all right, maybe a day
more if you need it."

"
I'll be over to see
you," he said, and hung up the phone again. Then he tore the
cord out of the wall.

* * *

THAT EVENING, AS WAS her habit, Charlotte Hock tapped
on the office door to let Mr. Trout know she was leaving. The way she
would put it was "Is there anything else you need, sir?" It
made her feel less guilty about stopping work.

She tapped, but there was no answer. She tapped
again. It sounded like someone was moving furniture. "Mr. Trout?
Are you all right?"

When he didn't answer again, she cracked the door and
put her head inside and found herself looking right down the barrel
of eternity itself.

The desk had been moved to the corner and set on its
end, and lying right across the top, as flat as a snake, was Mr.
Trout's arm. She glimpsed his face behind the gun. "Send them
in," he said.

"There ain't nobody to send in," she said.
"It's just me."

"
Move out the way," he said, and showed her
the direction with the gun. She stepped in that direction, farther
into the office and away from the door. He moved the gun off her, and
she saw him better from that angle. His eyes were jittery, and he'd
got himself dirty moving the desk.

"
I was making to inquire if there was anything
else you need before I left," she said.

Without any reason she could see, he began to smile.
Mr. Trout did not smile much, not even in the morning, and it would
have made her uncomfortable even if he was not barricaded behind his
desk, with his gun turned on the door.

"
No," he said, "I don't need you
anymore."

"
Then I'l1 be going."

"I would if I was
you," he said.

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING CHARLOTTE Hock pictured herself
quitting her job. She stayed in bed until seven o'clock, thinking of
getting up and locking the door to her house and then just lying back
down and falling to sleep.

What she could not imagine doing was calling Mr.
Trout and telling him that she wasn't coming in. She was afraid how
he would take it. She could not imagine herself acknowledging that
what had happened the night before was out of the ordinary.

And in the end, lacking imagination, she got up,
attached her leg, dressed, and brushed her hair. She tried not to
think about the way he had looked holding the gun, she tried not to
think about the way he had looked when he smiled.

In the end what she thought about was that a
peg-legged woman was fortunate to have any job at all.

She walked into the store at eight-thirty, using her
key to the back door. The office door was open, and looking in, she
saw that the desk was returned to its place. Mr. Trout was behind it,
wearing a suit. She thought perhaps he was going up to Mercer College
for the day to study lawbooks.

"
Are you leaving somewhere today, Mr. Trout?"

He looked at her in an ordinary way, then he stood
up. She jumped.

He walked around the desk and past her, out the door,
to one of the safes. He lit a match and began to move the tumbler. "I
got some bi'nis out of the county," he said, "you be all
right here alone today."

"
Yessir." She was suddenly happy, the
thought of working alone.

"
I'll be down to Morganville a day or two."

"
Yessir."

He stood up, holding a handful of hundred-dollar
bills. He spread them once, then straightened the money on the top of
the safe and put it into an envelope.

"
Any colored people come in, you tell them you
don't handle money," he said, and then he put the envelope in
his pocket.

Which were the same instructions he left her with
when he went to Mercer College. "No sir, I'll tell them to come
back another time."

She saw he had put his gun in a holster inside his
coat; she could not think of what sort of formal occasion it might be
that he would carry his gun in a holster. She knew he had no
connections to church. He looked at her more carefully now, the way
he had before he hired her. "If this don't go right in
Morganville," he said, "I will send you instructions how to
handle the niggers."

The thought of handling the niggers terrified
Charlotte Hock. Not that she was afraid of them — she felt like she
was colored half the time herself — but that she would do it wrong.
Keeping a store was one thing, running the bank was another. "I
don't know that I could do that, Mr. Trout," she said.

He touched her then, it was the first time that she
could remember.

His hand was on her shoulder. "Of course you
could," he said. "They ain't that different from you or me,
that's the secret."

She watched him out the
door that morning, wondering what had gotten into him now.

* * *

PARIS TROOUT DROVE ONE of his cars — a
three-year-old Ford with a cracked engine block — to the sheriff s
department and asked for Edward Fixx. Sheriff Fixx came out from the
back, wearing his uniform.

A bone-handled thirty-eight sat on his hip at an
unnatural angle, like some knot that had grown off a tree. He seemed
surprised to see Paris Trout, or perhaps just timid. "I
'preciate your coming down, Mr. Trout," he said.

Trout looked around the room. He had been in the
place before, of course, but it looked different this morning.
Smaller, for one thing.

"
You said to come in."

Sheriff Fixx opened a swinging door — it didn't
reach a person's waist — and Trout walked into the back. A woman
there was operating a typewriter, using all her fingers. He thought
of his wife.