Paris Trout (9 page)

He kept it that way intentionally, resisting changes.
The people he represented — in the legislature as well as the
courts — liked the way things were and worried in an unfocused way
that they were somehow losing what they had, mostly to the federal
government.

His secretary was a middle-aged woman named Emma
Grandy. She looked up as he came through the doorway. "Mr.
Townes has called twice," she said.

Seagraves looked at his watch, it was twenty minutes
after nine. He had known Townes would call, but he had expected him
to take more time to think it through. "Would you call Cornell
Clinic for me," he said to her. "Inquire to the condition
of one Rosie Sayers."

"Yessir," she said.

He walked into his private office and took off his
coat and his shoes. His feet hurt from the walk; he determined to
have someone look them over. He couldn't decide between a doctor and
a shoe salesman; they didn't bother him at all after he ran.

The office was filled with old furniture and
pictures. Lucy as Miss Ether County, 1935. His brother's children as
babies. There was a diploma from Georgia Officers Academy on the
wall, along with his law degree from the University of Georgia. Class
of 1934.

Mrs. Grandy knocked on the door and looked in. She
had a child's face and took everything he said seriously. She
understood the law as well as most of his partners but kept it to
herself.

"
I called the clinic," she said. "Rosie
Sayers is quite grave .... "

Seagraves nodded. "Did you talk to Dr. Braver
himself?"

"
No sir, Dr. Braver was busy. I talked to his
girl."

"
If you get a moment later," he said, "you
might try to get the doctor on the phone for me. I'd like to speak to
him myself."

"The girl said he was in surgery," she
said, "some little boy that cut himself this morning on the
rocks at the church — "

"Whenever he's finished," Seagraves said.
"It's no hurry."

She closed the door, and Seagraves picked up his
telephone. Ward Townes answered the other end himself. "County
prosecutor's office," he said, "good morning."

Seagraves said, "Mr. Prosecutor? This is Harry
Seagraves."

"
Thank you for getting back to me," he
said. "There was a problem yesterday afternoon down to Indian
Heights .... "

"
I heard that," Seagraves said.

"
I thought you might. You still represent the
Trout family?"

"
As far as I know."

"
Then let me suggest that you bring your client
by my office this afternoon, save us getting Chief Norland upset,
having to pick him up." `

"
Charges been pressed?"

"
Not yet," Townes said. "But people
been shot."

"We might could settle this between the parties,
save everybody some aggravation."

"
I think it's too late," Townes said.

"Does this mean you aren't in a settling mood
today, Mr. Prosecutor? We could come in some other time."

"
That girl he shot in the stomach, she's
fourteen years old," he said. There was no anger in the words,
it sounded more like an argument you might have with yourself, trying
to decide what to do.

"
That somebody shot," Seagraves said.
"There was more than one gun. Buster Devonne had a gun, maybe
some of them had guns too."

"
Buster Devonne's already told me who did the
shooting," Townes said. "He came in yesterday afternoon
after it happened."

"Buster Devonne is a known liar."

There was a pause, Townes considering Buster Devonne.
"He said Paris shot the girl. Followed her into the kitchen to
finish it, and then both of them lit out the back like thieves."

"
You believe him?"

"You don't?" Townes said.

Seagraves measured his answer. "I believe Paris
Trout's been a businessman in Ether County a long time," he
said. "His sister's a court I clerk. People know him, they
traded with him. Not just whites. He's got loans out all over the
county. Indian Heights, some in the Bottoms too, and there isn't
anybody either color ever heard of this Sayers girl or her people."

"
Obscurity isn't grounds to shoot children in
the state of Georgia," Townes said, and there was something in
his voice now. "The law doesn't say anything about the social
station of the deceased."

Seagraves saw the conversation had somehow turned
personal and moved it a different direction. He said, "Buster
Devonne, he cracked so many burrheads they had to take him off the
police. The first man in the history of Cotton Point, Georgia, they
took off the police for assaulting Negroes. He went from that to
cotton stealing, you brought him in this office yourself for that.

"
He got off on cotton stealing, and the next
thing you know, he's got a death grudge against a man, all he did was
catch Buster stealing his cotton. Bragging all over town he's going
to do this and that to some dirt farmer — hell, I think he was a
Methodist — and then sneaks out one night and sets his chicken coop
on fire.

"
You couldn't find a jury in Ether County that
is going to believe the testimony of a man that settles his grudges
by setting chickens on fire — not over Paris Trout."

Townes said, "The man was there. It's what he
said. The clinic reports the girl made the night, but she won't make
another. The nurse said isn't a thing left to do for her but dig a
hole."

"
That isn't up to the nurse, to say that she's
gone."

"
That's so," Townes said, "but she's
shot, four, five times, and I want to see Paris Trout about that at
one o'clock in my office this afternoon. If he isn't here, I'll send
Chief Norland to get him."

"No need for that," Seagraves said. "I
think we'd both be served to keep this as uncomplicated as possible."

"Thank you, Mr. Seagraves, and we'll see you at
one."

Seagraves put the phone back in its cradle, surprised
at Ward Townes's sudden anger — which wasn't noticeable unless you
knew him — and opened one of the lower drawers in his desk. He put
his feet in the drawer, resting them on somebody's papers. He didn't
look to see whose. He thought of Buster Devonne on the witness stand
testifying against Paris Trout. Confused and undignified and scared.

He thought of Buster Devonne, and then he thought of
the witnesses from Indian Heights. Paris Trout would be sitting
beside him all the time in a blue suit, where the jury could compare
him to his accusers. He might not need to say a word.

Still, something in it tugged at him. He called Mrs.
Grandy in the outside office. "Did you locate Dr. Braver yet?"

"
No sir, they said he's having a time with that
boy."

"Keep trying him for me," he said.
"Meantime, get me Paris Trout. He'll be at the store."

"Yessir," she said. A minute later she
knocked and put her head inside. "There's no answer at the
store," she said.

"
Did you try the house?"

"
Yessir, I got his wife, but she said Mr. Trout
wasn't there." Harry Seagraves took his feet out of the drawer
and slipped them into his shoes.

"You want me to keep trying?" she said.

"
No," he said. "I'll go over there
myself. I need the exercise."

She said, "What if Dr. Braver calls?"

He said, "Tell him I'll be over to
see him directly."

* * *

SEAGRAVES FOUND PARIS TROUT in the back office of his
store. The front entrance was still locked — it was after ten
o'clock — so Seagraves had walked around the block to the alley and
found the door there open. Trout was holding his head in his hands
when Seagraves caught him, gray hair spilling out between his
fingers, his elbows resting on the table. He was focused on a bill of
sale in front of him. There was a bottle of mineral water next to the
paper and a strong body odor in the air.

Seagraves said, "Mr. Trout?"

Trout looked up slowly. His eyes were blood red, and
the front of his shirt was wrinkled, as if he'd slept in it. "It's
here in black-and-white," he said.

A light bulb hung from the ceiling, a little behind
the table, and when Trout took his finger off the bill of sale, the
shadow faded and grew until it covered most of the document.

"Right here," Trout said. "Account
payable, Henry Ray Boxer. One thousand and twenty-seven dollars for a
1949 Chevrolet. Neither God nor man can say that debt wasn't legal. I
have the proof." He pushed the paper at Seagraves, Seagraves did
not move. "Look for yourself?

The bill of sale was written in a tiny, neat
handwriting, the signatures were scrawled and unreadable. Seagraves
did not try to read it.

"Ward Townes called, like we thought," he
said quietly. "He wants to see us this afternoon at one
o'clock."

"
Does he care to see the bill of sale?"

Seagraves said, °'We can bring the bill of sale."

"
It's black-and-white," Trout said again.
"That car was sold as legal as the seal of Georgia." His
eyes opened wider, a frightening color. Seagraves realized he had no
idea whatsoever of the transformations going on in his head.

"
It would be a good idea you went home and
changed shirts," he said. "Shaved, cleaned yourself up."

Trout touched the bill of sale again. "He don't
need me," he said.

"
He's got everything he needs to settle this
right here."

"
No," Seagraves said, "we got to see
him ourselves."

Trout suddenly stood up and slammed his fist into the
middle of the table. Dust stirred, it settled. "He don't believe
these are the real signatures?"

Seagraves was suddenly aware of the size of Paris
Trout and the size of the room, and he wished he'd used the
telephone. More than that, he wished Paris Trout was somebody else's
client. This had a feeling he didn't like, that he was drawn into
something further than he ought to be.

"Sit down, Paris," he said, and was
surprised when Trout sat down. He began to pace. Trout followed him
with his eyes, back and forth.

"We got a problem here between us and the
prosecutor," he said. "It isn't black-and-white, at least
you better hope not. It doesn't matter what's in any bill of sale, it
concerns people that have been shot." Trout stole a quick look
at the paper. "It isn't in the goddamn bill of sale,"
Seagraves said. He leaned across the desk, smelling dried sweat, a
faint odor of vomit. "It's in Cornell Clinic. There's a child in
Comell Clinic named Sayers, and she's been shot four times and is all
but done living. That's all Ward Townes wants to talk to you about
now, and you would be smart to prepare yourself, not to make this
worse than it is."

Trout blinked his red eyes and waited. Seagraves
found himself suddenly calm. "Listen, now," he said. "I
want you to take yourself home, bathe, and put on something it don't
look like you've been wrestling pigs. And then, at one o'clock on the
dot, you be at the prosecutor's office, looking like somebody, and
talk to the man about that girl. Not that you shot her — don't put
yourself in as deep as you did with Hubert Norland — but talk about
the girl, acknowledge her."

Trout patted the paper on the desk. "This is the
proof," he said.

"Don't use that word this afternoon,"
Seagraves said. "Don't try to tell Ward Townes what proof is."
He thought for a moment and put it a different way. "I'll be
with you," he said. "I can stop you from saying the wrong
thing, but I can't make up the right words and whisper them in your
ear. I believe this thing is . . . an affront to Ward Townes.
Something in it is personal, like you had insulted him. Treat it like
that, like he was offended."

Trout sat still. "How much is this gone cost
me?" he said finally.

"
I don't know," Seagraves said. °'Some of
it's up to Ward Townes, some of it's up to you."

Trout took a mechanical pencil out of his shirt
pocket and handed it to Seagraves. "I want you to write it
down," he said.

"
Christ Almighty, Paris . . ."

The pencil was green and translucent, he could see
little specks floating around inside. The eraser was worn smooth at
the corners, and the word SCRIPTO was worn half off the side. It was
a nineteen-cent pencil, and Trout had kept it probably five years.

"The price to represent my legal case. I want
you to put it right here on a piece of paper, so we both know where
it is."

Seagraves put the pencil on the table, beside the
mineral water. He noticed spit floating on top. "The price
depends on the time," he said, "you know that as well as
anybody." It was part of the enigma of Paris Trout that he had
graduated from law school himself, someplace up in North Carolina,
but never practiced law.

Trout shook his head. "I want one price,"
he said.

"
I don't discuss price," Seagraves said. "I
got a girl that prepares the billings, but she can't tell you a thing
until we determine what that child in Cornell Clinic's going to do
and what Ward Townes intends to do about it."