That’s How I Roll

opposite direction. A certain kind of work still had to be done. But instead of getting paid, I was fixing to make some payments.

Maybe I should have said to myself, “Well, I was always loyal to them, why shouldn’t they do this one last thing for me?”

But you don’t ask favors of your employers. That’s not the relationship. Nothing I had done for them had been an act of friendship. You might be friendly with a doctor, but you don’t walk into his office without expecting a bill when you leave.

I never even considered the possibility. Even if they wouldn’t think of it as blackmail—and I wouldn’t blame them if they did—that’s just not how it’s done. I’d been paid fair and square for what I did, every time I did it. That’s where the old saying comes from: “If you don’t like the job, just put the bucket down.” My kind of work means that you put it down gently, not drop it and splash water all over everyone else.

I’d had a goodly amount put away, in different places. But once they had locked me up, I’d been forced to spend a big chunk of that money.

Most of that went toward keeping things in place while I waited them all out. That wasn’t so hard. I was used to doing business over the phone, and I could use the jailhouse pay phone anytime I wanted. After all, I hadn’t been actually convicted of anything yet, so I was what they call a “pre-trial detainee,” and that gives you certain rights.

And moving money you already had stashed away wasn’t difficult at all—if the Feds couldn’t watch it come in, they couldn’t watch it leave. Which meant they couldn’t see where it landed.

All I had to do was call certain people and tell them I was concerned about a project of mine: an ancient Ford I had found buried under a ton of garbage in this old barn that was on some property I’d purchased. That car was a pretty rare thing, especially because it still had the flathead V-8 it came with. I’d ask if they’d managed to find a certain part—like a fender or a headlight. For the people I called, those words were as easy to follow as a map.

Paying our way to keep everything in place, that had always been costly. But there had never been a shortage of work, so it hadn’t been a real problem. In fact, even as expensive as certain things I’d needed had been, I’d still been able to put quite a bit aside.

But now that I couldn’t work, there’d be no fresh money coming in, and no way to restock. I had to get my hands on one big chunk. No more installment plans for me; this one time, I had to buy what I wanted outright.

I knew one way I could transfer money so the Feds couldn’t trace it in a thousand years, but that was something I could pull off only once.

The people I was never going to name knew the position I was in, but they still trusted me. The way they proved that was by staying away. If they hadn’t trusted me, the first thing they would’ve done would’ve been to send in a lawyer. Only he wouldn’t be my lawyer; he’d be theirs. A spy.

Had they done that, it would have hurt me deep. Might have insulted me enough to push me over to whatever side made me the best offer.

By keeping their distance, they freed me from that choice. Maybe that was a show of respect, or maybe it was nothing more than them knowing I’d never trust any lawyer they sent. No more than I’d ever trusted them.

But what it probably came down to was simple, brutal math: I might be holding some high cards, but they held the trump.

My little brother.

tep Five was kind of forced on me. Considering my income—all the government knew about was what I got from Disability—the judge said I couldn’t afford a private lawyer. That meant the State had to give me one. In fact, they gave me two.

I didn’t want any special treatment from some judge that I’d never met—that was pretty typical of the way strangers had looked at me all my life. Strangers from around here, I mean. A lot of people I’d never met still seemed to know who I was when we got introduced.

“Poor Esau,” that’s how I was looked upon. Not by way of money, but … the way I was born. What I was born with. The burdens I had to struggle with. I could feel them thinking how terrible that must be for me.

And how glad they were it wasn’t them in that wheelchair.

But after I finished researching it, I realized that judge wasn’t treating me special after all. I found out that the State always gives two lawyers to any indigent defendant in a capital case.

I only met with those State-paid lawyers one time. “The first thing you need to understand is that we can’t do our job unless you’re totally honest with us,” I remember one saying before promising to come back in a few days.

Before that happened, another bunch of lawyers showed up. They were a private group, they told me. Like missionaries, traveling around the country. Only their mission wasn’t to save souls from hellfire; it was to save bodies from the death penalty.

They left me a bunch of stuff to read, the way a vacuum-cleaner salesman leaves his “literature” with everyone who’s not buying that day.

That was because I told them I wasn’t going to take any prosecution deal. I was going to trial, no matter how heavy the prosecutor sweetened the pot. They really perked up at that—and worked hard at trying not to let me see it.

I knew what was in their minds. It wasn’t that any of them expected me to be acquitted. But if I was going to trial, they had a good excuse to stick around. It was a capital case, after all. So even after—they said “if,” but I knew they must say it that way to every client they ever had—I was found guilty, there would still be what they called the “penalty phase.” And that was where they could outdo any court-appointed lawyers in the country, they told me.

That was where they were going to step in and save me. In the penalty phase, whatever I had done wouldn’t be as important as why I did it. “That’s the most critical factor, Esau,” the girl they always brought with them told me. “We have to make the judge and the jury see you as an individual. They have to know who you are, from the inside out. Because the more they know you as a person, the less they’ll be willing to … hand down the ultimate sentence.”

She just went on and on. They were going to show the jury how I really didn’t have any choice, the kind of life I’d had, blah-blah-blah.

They didn’t know one single thing about any of that. All they knew was what anyone could see for themselves: I was born bad—the spine thing. They just assumed I was raised even worse, me being poor white trash, living on Disability, no education, no job, no prospects. “No hope,” she said, like that was a knockout punch.

I’d rather take a bullet than pity, but how could these people know that? They didn’t know me.

They didn’t even know how dumb they sounded. How could they be such great lawyers in capital cases if they had so much experience with the penalty phase?

When I told them I wanted the death penalty, I thought they’d just pack up and go back to wherever they came from. Not a chance. They said that would be State-assisted suicide, and they weren’t about to let that happen.

So I made it even clearer—they didn’t have any choice about what they’d let happen or not. That was up to me, not them. I reminded them that they weren’t my lawyers. I didn’t hire them, so I couldn’t fire them, but the court hadn’t appointed them, either. And wasn’t about to.

What I didn’t tell them was that they reminded me of doctors standing around the bedside of a dying man, already counting up which of his organs they could salvage. I just told them to get lost.

They kind of smirked when I said that. Especially the girl. She was way younger than me, dressed a little flashier than people around here consider seemly. Smelled good, too. She came over to where I was and sat real close.

“The lawyers the State appointed for you have tried exactly three capital cases between the two of them,” she said, like she was sharing a secret.

I just shrugged.