A Time to Kill

6

K.T. Bruster, or Cat Bruster, as he was known, was, to his knowledge, the only one-eyed black millionaire in Memphis. He owned a string of black topless joints in town, all of which he operated legally. He owned blocks of rental property, which he operated legally, and he owned two churches in south Memphis, which were also operated legally. He was a benefactor for numerous black causes, a friend of the politicians, and a hero to his people.

It was important for Cat to be popular in the community because he would be indicted again and tried again, and in all likelihood acquitted again by his peers, half of whom were black. The authorities had found it impossible to convict Cat of killing people and of selling such things as women, cocaine, stolen goods, credit cards, food stamps, untaxed liquor, guns, and light artillery.

He had one eye with him. The other one was somewhere in a rice paddy in Vietnam. He lost it the same day in 1971 that his buddy Carl Lee Hailey was hit in the leg. Carl Lee carried him for two hours before they found help. After the war he returned to Memphis and brought with him two pounds of hashish. The proceeds went to buy a small saloon on South Main, and he almost starved before he won a whore in a poker game with a pimp. He promised her she could quit whoring if she would take off her clothes and dance on his tables. Overnight he had more business than he could seat, so he bought another bar, and brought in more dancers. He found his niche in the market, and within two years he was a very wealthy man.

His office was above one of his clubs just off South Main between Vance and Beale, in the roughest part of Memphis. The sign above the sidewalk advertised Bud and breasts, but much more was for sale behind the black windows.

Carl Lee and Lester found the lounge — Brown Sugar — around noon, Saturday. They sat at the bar, ordered Bud, and watched the breasts.

“Is Cat in?” Carl Lee asked the bartender when he walked behind them. He grunted and returned to the sink, where he continued his beer mug washing. Carl Lee glanced at him between sips and dance routines.

“Another beer!” Lester said loudly without taking his eyes off the dancers.

“Cat Bruster here?” Carl Lee asked firmly when the bartender brought the beer.

“Who wants to know?”

“I do.”

“So.”

“So me and Cat are good friends. Fought together in ’Nam.”

“Name?”

“Hailey. Carl Lee Hailey. From Mississippi.”

The bartender disappeared, and a minute later emerged from between two mirrors behind the liquor.

He motioned for the Haileys, who followed him through a small door, past the restrooms and through a locked door up the stairs. The office was dark and gaudy. The carpet on the floor was gold, on the walls, red, on the ceiling, green. A green shag ceiling. Thin steel bars covered the two blackened windows, and for good measure a set of heavy, dusty, burgundy drapes hung from ceiling to floor to catch and smother any sunlight robust enough to penetrate the painted glass. A small, ineffective chrome chandelier with mirror panes rotated slowly in the center of the room, barely above their heads.

Two mammoth bodyguards in matching three-piece black suits dismissed the bartender and seated Lester and Carl Lee, and stood behind them.

The brothers admired the furnishings. “Nice, ain’t it?” Lester said. B.B. King mourned softly on a hidden stereo.

Suddenly, Cat entered from a hidden door behind the marble and glass desk. He lunged at Carl Lee. “My man! My man! Carl Lee Hailey!” He shouted and grabbed Carl Lee. “So good to see you, Carl Lee! So good to see you!”

Carl Lee stood and they bear hugged. “How are you, my man!” Cat demanded.

“Doin’ fine, Cat, just fine. And you?”

“Great! Great! Who’s this?” He turned to Lester and threw a hand in his chest. Lester shook it violently.

“This here’s my brother, Lester,” Carl Lee said. “He’s from Chicago.”

“Glad to know you, Lester. Me and the big man here are mighty tight. Mighty tight.”

“He’s told me all about you,” Lester said.

Cat admired Carl Lee. “My, my, Carl Lee. You lookin’ good. How’s the leg?”

“It’s fine, Cat. Tightens up sometimes when it rains, but it’s fine.”

“We mighty tight, ain’t we?”

Carl Lee nodded and smiled. Cat released him. “You fellas want a drink?”

“No thanks,” said Carl Lee.

“I’ll take a beer,” said Lester. Cat snapped his fingers and a bodyguard disappeared. Carl Lee fell into his chair and Cat sat on the edge of his desk, his feet dangling and swinging like a kid on a pier. He grinned at Carl Lee, who squirmed under all the admiration.

“Why don’t you move to Memphis and go to work for me?” Cat said. Carl Lee knew it was coming. Cat had been offering him jobs for ten years.

“No thanks, Cat. I’m happy.”

“And I’m happy for you. What’s on your mind?”

Carl Lee opened his mouth, hesitated, crossed his legs and frowned. He nodded, and said, “Need a favor, Cat. Just a small favor.”

Cat spread his arms. “Anything, big man, anything you want.”

“You remember them M-16’s we used in ’Nam? I need one of them. As quick as possible.”

Cat recoiled his arms and folded them across his chest. He studied his friend. “That’s a bad gun. What kinda squirrels you huntin’ down there?”

“It ain’t for squirrels.”

Cat analyzed them both. He knew better than to ask why. It was serious, or Carl Lee wouldn’t be there. “Semi?”

“Nope. The real thing.”

“You talkin’ some cash.”

“How much?”

“It’s illegal as hell, you know?”

“If I could buy it at Sears I wouldn’t be here.”

Cat grinned again. “When do you need it?”

“Today.”

The beer arrived and was served to Lester. Cat moved behind his desk, to his orange vinyl captain’s chair. “Thousand bucks.”

“I got it.”

Cat was mildly surprised, but didn’t show it. Where did this simple small-town Mississippi nigger find a thousand dollars? Must have borrowed it from his brother.

“Thousand for anyone else, but not for you, big man.”

“How much?”

“Nothin’, Carl Lee, nothin’. I owe you somethin’ worth much more than money.”

“I’ll be glad to pay for it.”

“Nope. I won’t hear it. The gun’s yours.”

“That’s mighty kind, Cat.”

“I’d give you fifty of them.”

“Just need one. When can I get it?”

“Lemme check.” Cat phoned someone and mumbled a few sentences into the receiver. The orders given, he hung up and explained it would take about an hour.

“We can wait,” Carl Lee said.

Cat removed the patch from his left eye and wiped the empty socket with a handkerchief. “I gotta better idea.” He snapped at the bodyguards. “Get my car. We’ll drive over and pick it up.”

They followed Cat through a secret door and down a hall. “I live here, you know.” He pointed. “Through that door is my pad. Usually keep some naked women around.”

“I’d like to see it,” Lester volunteered.

“That’s okay,” said Carl Lee.

Farther down the hall Cat pointed to a thick, black, shiny iron door at the end of a short hallway. He stopped as if to admire it. “That’s where I keep my cash. Post a guard in there around the clock.”

“How much?” Lester asked with a sip of beer.

Cat glared at him and continued down the hall. Carl Lee frowned at his brother and shook his head. Where the hall ended they climbed a narrow stairway to the fourth floor. It was darker, and somewhere in the darkness Cat found a button on a wall. They waited silently for a few seconds until the wall opened and revealed a bright elevator with red carpet and a NO SMOKING sign. Cat pushed another button.

“You gotta walk up to catch the elevator goin’ down,” he said with amusement. “Security reasons.” They nodded approval and admiration.

It opened in the basement. One of the bodyguards waited by the open door of a clean white stretch limo, and Cat invited his guests in for a ride. They moved slowly past a row of Fleetwoods, several more limos, a Rolls, and an assortment of European luxury cars. “They’re all mine,” he said proudly.

The driver honked and a heavy door rolled up to reveal a one-way side street. “Drive slow,” Cat yelled to the chauffeur and the bodyguard way up front. “I wanna show you fellas around some.”

Carl Lee had received the tour a few years earlier during his last visit to Cat. There were rows of beaten and paintless shacks that the great man referred to as rental properties. There were ancient red-bricked warehouses with blackened or boarded windows and no clue as to what was stored inside. There was a church, a prosperous church, and a few blocks away, another one. He owned the preachers too, he said. There were dozens of corner taverns with open doors and groups of young blacks sitting on benches outside drinking quart bottles of Stag beer. He pointed proudly to a burned-out building near Beale and told with great zeal the story of a competitor who had attempted to gain a foothold in the topless business. He had no competitors, he said. And then there were the clubs, places with names like Angels and Cat’s House and Black Paradise, places where a man could go for good drink, good food, good music, naked women, and possibly more, he said. The clubs had made him a very rich man. Eight of them in all.

They were shown all eight. Plus what seemed like most of the real estate in south Memphis. At the dead end of a nameless street near the river, the driver turned sharply between two of the red-bricked warehouses and drove through a narrow alley until a gate opened to the right. Past the gate a door opened next to a loading dock and the limo disappeared into the building. It stopped and the bodyguard got out.

“Keep your seats,” Cat said.

The trunk opened, then shut. In less than a minute the limo was again cruising the streets of Memphis.

“How ’bout lunch?” Cat asked. Before they answered he yelled at the driver, “Black Paradise. Call and tell them I’m comin’ for lunch.

“Got the best prime rib in Memphis, right here in one of my clubs. Course you won’t read about it in the Sunday paper. I’ve been shunned by the critics. Can you imagine?”

“Sounds like discrimination,” Lester said.

“Yeah, I’m sure it is. But I don’t use that until I’m indicted.”

“We ain’t read about you lately, Cat,” Carl Lee said.

“It’s been three years since my last trial. Tax evasion. Feds spent three weeks puttin’ on proof, and the jury stayed out twenty-seven minutes and returned with the two most precious words in the Afro-English language — ‘Not guilty.’ ”

“I’ve heard them myself,” Lester said.

A doorman waited under the canopy at the club, and a set of matching bodyguards, different bodyguards, escorted the great one and his guests to a private booth away from the dance floor. Drinks and food were served by a squad of waiters. Lester switched to Scotch and was drunk when the prime rib arrived. Carl Lee drank iced tea and swapped war stories with Cat.

When the food was gone, a bodyguard approached and whispered to Cat. He grinned and looked at Carl Lee. “Y’all in the red Eldorado with Illinois plates?”

“Yeah. But we left it at the other place.”

“It’s parked outside ... in the trunk.”

“What?” said Lester. “How—”

Cat roared and slapped him on the back. “Don’t ask, my man, don’t ask. It’s all taken care of, my man. Cat can do anything.”

As usual, Jake worked Saturday morning, after breakfast at the Coffee Shop. He enjoyed the tranquility of his office on Saturday — no phones, no Ethel. He locked the office, ignored the phone, and avoided clients. He organized files, read recent decisions from the Supreme Court and planned strategy if a trial was approaching. His best thoughts and ideas came during quiet Saturday mornings.

At eleven he phoned the jail. “Sheriff in?” he asked the dispatcher.

“Lemme check,” came the reply.

Moments passed before the sheriff answered. “Sheriff Walls,” he announced.

“Ozzie, Jake Brigance. How are you?”

“Fine, Jake. You?”

“Fine. Will you be there for a while?”

“Coupla hours. What’s up?”

“Not much. Just need to talk for a minute. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“I’ll be waitin’.”

Jake and the sheriff had a mutual liking and respect for each other. Jake had roughed him up a few times during cross-examinations, but Ozzie considered it business and nothing personal. Jake campaigned for Ozzie, and Lucien financed the campaigns, so Ozzie didn’t mind a few sarcastic and pointed questions during trial. He liked to watch Jake at trial. And he liked to kid him about the game. In 1969, when Jake was a sophomore quarterback at Karaway, Ozzie was a senior all-conference, all-state tackle at Clanton. The two rivals, both undefeated, met in the final game at Clanton for the conference championship. For four long quarters Ozzie terrorized the Karaway offense, which was much smaller and led by a gutsy but battered sophomore quarterback. Late in the fourth quarter, leading 44–0, Ozzie broke Jake’s leg on a blitz.

For years now he had threatened to break the other one. He always accused Jake of limping and asked about the leg.

“What’s on your mind, buddy?” Ozzie asked as they sat in his small office.

“Carl Lee. I’m a little worried about him.”

“What way?”

“Look, Ozzie, whatever we say here is said in confidence. I don’t want anyone to know about this conversation.”

“You sound serious, Jake.”

“I am serious. I talked to Carl Lee Wednesday after the hearing. He’s out of his mind, and I understand that. I would be too. He was talking about killing the boys, and he sounded serious. I just think you ought to know.”

“They’re safe, Jake. He couldn’t get to them if he wanted to. We’ve had some phone calls, anonymous of course, with all kinds of threats. Black folks are bad upset. But the boys’re safe. They’re in a cell by themselves, and we’re real careful.”

“That’s good. I haven’t been hired by Carl Lee, but I’ve represented all the Haileys at one time or another and I’m sure he considers me to be his lawyer, for whatever reason. I feel a responsibility to let you know.”

“I’m not worried, Jake.”

“Good. Let me ask you something. I’ve got a daughter, and you’ve got a daughter, right?”

“Got two of them.”

“What’s Carl Lee thinking? I mean, as a black father?”

“Same thing you’d be thinkin’.”

“And what’s that?”

Ozzie reared back in his chair and crossed his arms. He thought for a moment. “He’s wonderin’ if she’s okay, physically, I mean. Is she gonna live, and if she does, how bad is she hurt. Can she ever have kids? Then he’s wonderin’ if she’s okay mentally and emotionally, and how will this affect her for the rest of her life. Thirdly, he wants to kill the bastards.”

“Would you?”

“It’s easy to say I would, but a man don’t know what he’d do. I think my kids need me at home a whole lot more than Parchman needs me. What would you be thinkin’, Jake?”

“About the same, I guess. I don’t know what I’d do. Probably go crazy.” He paused and stared at the desk. “But I might seriously plan to kill whoever did it. It’d be mighty hard to lie down at night knowing he was still alive.”

“What would a jury do?”

“Depends on who’s on the jury. You pick the right jury and you walk. If the D.A. picks the right jury you get the gas. It depends strictly on the jury, and in this county you can pick the right folks. People are tired of raping and robbing and killing. I know white folks are.”

“Everbody is.”

“My point is that there’d be a lot of sympathy for a father who took matters into his own hands. People don’t trust our judicial system. I think I could at least hang a jury. Just convince one or two that the bastard needed to die.”

“Like Monroe Bowie.”

“Exactly. Just like Monroe Bowie. He was a sorry nigger who needed killing and Lester took a walk. By the way, Ozzie, why do you suppose Lester drove from Chicago?”

“He’s pretty close to his brother. We’re watchin’ him too.”

The conversation changed and Ozzie finally asked about the leg. They shook hands and Jake left. He drove straight home, where Carla was waiting with her list. She didn’t mind the Saturdays at the office as long as he was home by noon and pretty much followed orders thereafter.

On Sunday afternoon a crowd gathered at the hospital and followed the little Hailey girl’s wheelchair as it was pushed by her father down the hall, through the doors, and into the parking lot, where he gently raised her and sat her in the front seat. As she sat between her parents, with her three brothers in the back seat, he drove away, followed by a procession of friends and relatives and strangers. The caravan moved slowly, deliberately out of town and into the country.

She sat up in the front seat like a big girl. Her father was silent, her mother tearful, and her brothers mute and rigid.

Another throng waited at the house and rushed to the porch as the cars moved up the driveway and parked on the grass on the long front yard. The crowd hushed as he carried her up the steps, through the door, and laid her on the couch. She was glad to be home, but tired of the spectators. Her mother held her feet as cousins, uncles, aunts, neighbors, and everybody walked to her and touched her and smiled, some through tears, and said nothing. Her daddy went outside and talked to Uncle Lester and the men. Her brothers were in the kitchen with the crowd devouring the pile of food.