him. I stopped just on the outside of the open door.
“Shoe, you know who shot up my house?”
His eyes bugged momentarily before he looked to the side. When he looked back toward me, he was shaking his head, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Unh-uh.”
I nodded, and he quickly slipped inside the car and pulled the door to. He drove off without another word, and he and I both knew his silence was a goddamn lie.
7
Joe Black Pell for the Defense
I had come with my father to Bebe’s for lunch. Joe Black Pell was due to arrive any minute. “Mama, it’s a mistake to use Pell to defend Tommy,” my father said. “I’ve talked to Harve Foster and he’s willing to help. Pell doesn’t have any principles.”
Bebe frowned. “Buddy, you’re just parroting your father, and he never liked Joe Black’s politics. Joe Black is very smart, tough as they come, and he’s loyal. If Harvey Foster took the case and some big shot said ‘boo’ to him, he’d drop Tommy in a second.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I think I do, and you know why? Harvey never uttered a cross word to your daddy, and a good lawyer will take his client on when he needs to.”
“A good lawyer does what his client wants.”
“Look, Buddy, Joe Black has already started defending Tommy. He jumped right in that night at the hospital, and we should be thankful to have him.”
Daddy sat back and scowled. “Well, I just don’t like the sonuvabitch.”
She winced as she leaned forward in her easy chair, her legs still propped on the ottoman. She pointed a bony finger at Daddy. “You know, Buddy, you may be forty-seven years old, and I may be about to die, but it’s still not all right for you to cuss in front of me.” They glared at each other for a moment before she spoke again. “Besides, it’s going to be expensive and I’m the one with the money to pay out for a lawyer.”
She had played her two trump cards—the fact of her advancing cancer, and her control over the McKee finances. As if that settled it, she turned and looked out the window. Fury filled Daddy’s eyes, and he suddenly pushed out of his chair and stomped from the room. I squirmed in discomfort as Bebe stared at the door that closed behind him.
The effect of disease on her appearance was profound. She had been a beautiful woman—willowy with high cheekbones and black-Irish coloring—and she had remained so until the past few months. Once when Cathy and I were examining a 1920s-era photograph of her in a family album, we agreed Bebe looked very like Audrey Hepburn. When Bebe and I were at the Elite Café in Montgomery once, an old man in a linen suit and white buck shoes had stopped at our table for a reunion with her. As he was leaving, he said to me, “You take good care of this girl, you hear, son? The old boys in Montgomery still say Brigid McCarthy is the rarest beauty of them all.”
I wanted to say something, anything, to reassure her about her decision on Joe Black. “Bebe, I think Mr. Pell is a very colorful character.”
A smile slowly came on her thin, gray face. “‘Colorful’ hardly captures Joe Black’s character. Colorful like Blackbeard the pirate.” She looked away for a moment and then returned my gaze with a twinkle in her dark eyes. “Actually, the more apt analogy would be to Huckleberry Finn.”
They had gone to Catholic school together in Montgomery, Bebe explained, and the young Joe Black was mischievous, funny, but also very smart. He always insisted he wanted to marry Bebe, but his family didn’t have much money and by the time he had worked his way through college and law school and established a law practice, she was already married to Granddaddy. Much later Joe Black married a nice but rather plain Methodist, Bebe told me, but they didn’t have children. Joe Black was active in the “loyalist” wing of the Democratic Party, the group that supported the national Democrats and opposed the more conservative Dixiecrats, a faction in which Granddaddy had been a prime mover. Because Granddaddy didn’t approve of Joe Black, Bebe went years without seeing him, but after Granddaddy died, she asked Joe Black to help with her business.
“I did what my husband wanted for almost fifty years,” she said, “and that strikes me as abundant wifely submission. I thought I needed an adviser who wouldn’t always be telling me what ‘the Judge’ would have wanted.” The confusion must have been apparent on my face, but she didn’t explain further except to say, “Joe Black has been very attentive over the recent months.”
He arrived and we had lunch. Daddy didn’t come back, and his absence shadowed the table. Bebe called for Orene. “Since Buddy’s not here, let’s seat Marvin at that place.” When Marvin appeared and was introduced, Joe Black said, “Chicago! Son, that’s ’bout my favorite city.” Marvin looked curiously at the little, old man and nodded with almost a smile.
When Joe Black took the last bite of his chess pie, he smiled up at Orene. “You outdid yourself, darlin’, with this effort. What’s yo’ secret?”
“Good buttermilk and fresh lard for the crust.” Orene leaned over and kissed the little man’s bald head. “I’m going to put the rest in a box for you to take home.”
“God bless you.”
Bebe asked Joe Black what he knew about the charges against me. The court had set Buford Kyle’s trial for the second week in August, and I would testify then. I felt myself shiver a bit at the very idea of it.
“Brigid,” Joe Black said as he pushed away from the table, “the circuit solicitor told me this morning that he could see Tommy and me this afternoon to talk over the situation. We oughta go on down there and see can we talk some sense into this prosecutor, Cal Taliaferro. By the way, where is Buddy?”
She shrugged and glanced over at me. “I think you must go on without Buddy. You and Marvin can look after Tommy for me.” Joe Black smiled widely at the vote of confidence.
We had just driven out of Eden Rise when Joe Black asked what career interested me. It took a minute to respond because I was distracted by all that he was doing while he steered his Buick down the road. He took a cigar knife out of his pants pocket, carefully sliced the closed end of a large cigar, and then punched the thin rod up its center. He licked the twelve-inch cylinder all the way around twice, took out a box of matches, burned the cigar end for ten seconds, and finally put it in his mouth and puffed three times. While accomplishing these tasks mainly with his right hand, his left had been engaged in navigating past two trucks and a tractor on the narrow road, adjusting his outside mirror, and tapping time on the steering wheel to “King of the Road” playing on the radio. I had never seen such manual dexterity, and it was a good thing or we’d have been dead in the ditch.
I glanced over the seat at Marvin, who was shaking his head in disgust. I guessed that country novelty songs weren’t big in the Chicago ghetto.
“I like that Roger Miller, don’t you, son?” Joe Black said. “I kinda identify with that, drivin’ like I do from one courthouse to the next.” He puffed a couple of times. “I’m sorry, son. I interrupted you telling me about what kinda work you wanna do.”
“Well, Mr. Pell—”
“Son, call me Joe Black. I’ll let you know when I get old enough to
