Sycamore Row

Simeon woke up later in the parking lot, where they had dragged him to his truck and laid him on the tailgate. He sat up, looked around, saw no one, gingerly touched his right eye, which was closed, and delicately rubbed his left jaw, which was quite tender. He glanced at his watch but it wasn’t there. In addition to blowing the $1,000 he’d stolen from Lettie, he realized he’d lost $120 he’d planned to use for the groceries. All cash and coins had been pilfered. They had left behind his wallet, though it contained nothing of value. For a moment, Simeon thought about rushing into the tonk, grabbing one-legged Ontario or one-armed Loot, and demanding to be reimbursed for the stolen money. After all, he’d been robbed on their premises. What kind of tonk were they running?



He changed his mind, though, and drove away. He’d come back later and meet with Tank, get things settled. Ontario was watching, and when Simeon’s truck was out of sight, he called the sheriff’s office. They stopped him at the Clanton city limits, arrested him for drunk driving, handcuffed him, and gave him a ride to jail. He was thrown in the drunk tank and informed he could not use a telephone until he sobered up.



He wasn’t too eager to call home anyway.



In time for lunch, Darias arrived from Memphis with his wife, Natalie, and a carload of kids. They were hungry, of course, and Natalie had at least brought a large platter of coconut squares. Rontell’s wife had brought nothing. No sign of Simeon and the groceries. Other plans were made, with Darias dispatched by Lettie to the store. As the afternoon dragged on, the crowd moved outdoors where the boys played tackle football and the men sipped beer. Rontell fired up the grill and the rich aroma of barbecue ribs settled like a fog over the backyard. The women sat on the porch and talked and laughed. Others arrived—two cousins from Tupelo and some friends from Clanton.



They all wanted to spend time with Lettie. She loved the spotlight, the admiration, the fawning, and even though she was suspicious of their motives, she couldn’t deny the pleasure of being the center of attention. No one mentioned the will, the money, or Mr. Hubbard, at least not in her presence. The figure of $20 million had been tossed around so much, and with such authority, that it was now accepted fact, established and well known. The money was there and Lettie was all set to collect 90 percent of it. At one point, though, Darias couldn’t resist. When he and Rontell were alone by the grill, he asked, “You see the paper this morning?”



“Yep,” Rontell replied. “Don’t see how that can help much.”



“That’s what I was thinkin’. But it sure makes Booker Sistrunk look good.”



“I’m sure he called the newspaper, planted the story.”



Front page, Mid-South section of the Memphis morning paper. A nice, gossipy story about Mr. Hubbard’s suicide and his unusual will, with the same photo of Lettie all dressed up in her courtroom best with Booker Sistrunk and Kendrick Bost pawing at her.



“They’ll be comin’ out of the woods,” Darias said.



Rontell grunted and laughed and waved his arm. “They already here,” he said. “Lined up, just waitin’.”



“How much you reckon Sistrunk’ll take?”



“I asked her but she ain’t tellin’.”



“He won’t get half, will he?”



“Don’t know. He ain’t cheap.”



A nephew stopped by to check on the ribs, and the two uncles changed the subject.



Late in the afternoon, Simeon was removed from the drunk tank and led by a deputy to the small windowless room used by the lawyers to huddle with their clients. He was given an ice pack for his face and a cup of fresh coffee. “What now?” he asked.



“You got a visitor,” the deputy said.



Five minutes later Ozzie walked in and sat down. He was wearing blue jeans and a sports coat, with a badge on his belt and holster on his hip. He said, “Don’t think we’ve ever met.”



“I voted for you twice,” Simeon said.



“Thank you, but they all say that after you win.” Ozzie had checked the records and knew damned well Simeon Lang was not registered to vote.



“I swear I did.”



“Got a call from Tank; said stay away, okay? No more trouble out of you.”



“They cleaned my pockets.”



“It’s a tough place. You know the rules because there are no rules. Just stay away.”



“I want my money back.”



“You can forget that money. You wanna go home or you wanna stay here tonight?”



“I’d rather go home.”



“Let’s go.”



Simeon rode in the front seat of Ozzie’s car, no handcuffs. A deputy followed in Simeon’s pickup. Nothing was said for the first ten minutes as they listened to the squawking on the sheriff’s radio. Ozzie finally turned it down and said, “None of my business, Simeon, but those Memphis lawyers got no business down here. Your wife’s already lookin’ bad, at least in the eyes of the rest of the county. This all comes down to a trial by jury, and ya’ll are pissin’ everybody off.”



Simeon’s first thought was to tell him to butt out, but his brain was numb and his jaw was aching. He didn’t want to argue. Instead, he thought how cool it was, riding shotgun in the big car and being escorted home.



“You hear me?” Ozzie asked. In other words, say something.



“What would you do?” Simeon asked.



“Get rid of those lawyers. Jake Brigance will win the case for you.”



“He’s a kid.”



“Go ask Carl Lee Hailey.”



Simeon couldn’t think quick enough for a response, not that there was one. For blacks in Ford County, the Hailey verdict meant everything.



Ozzie pressed on. “You ask what I would do. I’d clean up my act and stay out of trouble. What you mean drinkin’ and whorin’ and losin’ money at cards on a Saturday mornin’, or any other day for that matter? Your wife’s gettin’ all this attention. White folk already suspicious, and you’re lookin’ at a jury trial down the road. Last thing you need is your name in the paper for drunk drivin’ or fightin’ or whatever. What’re you thinkin’?”



Drinking, whoring, and gambling, but Simeon fumed without speaking. He was forty-six years old and unaccustomed to being reprimanded by a man who was not his boss.



“Clean your act up, okay?” Ozzie said.



“What about the drunk drivin’ charge?”



“I’ll put it off six months, see how you behave. One more screwup and I’ll have you in court. Tank’ll call the minute you walk through his door. Understand?”



“I got it.”



“There’s somethin’ else. That truck you been drivin’, from Memphis to Houston and El Paso, who owns it?”



“Company in Memphis.”



“This company got a name?”



“My boss got a name, I don’t know who his boss is.”



“I doubt that. What’s in the truck?”



Simeon went quiet and gazed through the side window. After a heavy pause he said, “It’s a storage company. We haul a lot of stuff.”



“Any of it stolen?”



“Of course not.”



“Then why is the FBI askin’ questions?”



“I ain’t seen no FBI.”



“Not yet, but they called me two days ago. They had your name. Look, Simeon, you get your ass busted by the Feds, and you and Lettie can forget about a jury trial in this county. Can’t you see this, man? Front-page news. Hell, everybody in town is talkin’ ’bout Lettie and Mr. Hubbard’s will anyway. You screw up, and you get no sympathy from any jury. I’m not even sure the black folk’ll stick with you. You gotta think, man.”



The Feds, Simeon almost said, but he held his tongue and continued looking through the window. They rode in silence until they were close to his home. To spare him the indignity, Ozzie allowed him to get in his truck and drive. “Be in court at 9:00, Wednesday morning,” he said. “I’ll get Jake to handle the paperwork. We’ll bump it down the road for a while.”



Simeon thanked him and drove away, slowly.



He counted eight cars parked in his driveway and around his front yard. Smoke lifted from the grill. Kids were everywhere. A regular party as they closed ranks around their dear Lettie.



He parked on the road and began walking toward the house. This might get ugly.



16



Since the arrival of Mr. Hubbard’s last will and testament two weeks earlier, the morning mail had become far more interesting. Each day brought a new wrinkle as more lawyers piled on and scrambled for position. Wade Lanier filed a petition to contest the will on behalf of Ramona and Ian Dafoe, and it proved inspirational. Within days, similar petitions were filed by lawyers representing Herschel Hubbard, his children, and the Dafoe children. Since petitions were allowed to be liberally amended, the early drafts followed the same basic strategy. They claimed that the handwritten will was invalid because (1) Seth Hubbard lacked testamentary capacity and (2) he was unduly influenced by Lettie Lang. Nothing was offered to substantiate these allegations, but that was not unusual in the suing business. Mississippi held to the practice of “notice pleading,” or, in other words, just lay out the basics and try to prove the specifics later.



Behind the scenes, Ian Dafoe’s efforts to convince Herschel to join ranks with the Wade Lanier firm proved unproductive and even caused a rift. Herschel had not been impressed with Lanier and thought he would be ineffective with a jury, though he had little to base this on. In need of a Mississippi lawyer, Herschel approached Stillman Rush with the idea of representing his interests. As the attorneys for the 1987 will, the Rush firm was facing a declining role in the contest. It would have little to do but watch, and it looked doubtful Judge Atlee would tolerate its presence, even from the sideline, with the meter ticking, of course. Herschel made the shrewd decision to hire the highly regarded Rush firm, on a contingency basis, and said good-bye to his Memphis attorney.



While the contestants of the will jockeyed for position, the proponents fought among themselves. Rufus Buckley made an official entry into the case as local counsel for Lettie Lang. Jake filed a trivial objection on the grounds that Buckley did not have the necessary experience. The bombs landed when Booker Sistrunk, as promised, filed a motion to remove Jake and replace him with the firm of Sistrunk & Bost, with Buckley as the Mississippi attorney. The following day, Sistrunk and Buckley filed another motion asking Judge Atlee to remove himself on the vague, bizarre grounds that he held some sort of bias against the handwritten will. Then they filed a motion requesting a change of venue to another, “fairer” county. In other words, a blacker one.



Jake spoke at length to a litigator in Memphis, a stranger connected by a mutual acquaintance. This lawyer had tangled with Sistrunk for years, was no fan, but had come to grudgingly admire the results. Sistrunk’s strategy was to blow up a case, reduce it to a race war, attack every white person involved, including the presiding judge if necessary, and haggle over jury selection long enough to get enough blacks on the panel. He was brash, loud, smart, fearless and could be very intimidating in court and out. When necessary, he could turn on the charm in front of a jury. There were always casualties in a Sistrunk trial, and he showed no concern for who got hurt. Litigating against him was so unpleasant that potential defendants had been known to settle quickly.