And right up to that morning in court. As soon as they brung him in the door, handcuffed, he started to craning his neck, looking at all the faces, still craning his neck around at the folks still crowding in long after they had run out of anything to set on and still at it while they was choosing the jury, even trying to stand up on a chair to see better until they would shove him down; still craning and darting his head while the clerk read the indictment and then said, “Guilty or not guilty?” Only this time he had already stood up before they could stop him, looking out over the crowd toward the last faces at the clean back of the room and says:
“Flem!”
And now the Judge was banging his little mallet and the lawyer the Court had appointed was up too and the bailiff hollering, “Order! Order in the court!”
And Mink says again, “Flem! Flem Snopes!” Only this time the Judge his-self leaned down toward him across the Bench and says,
“You there! Snopes!” until Mink finally turned and looked at him. “Are you guilty or not guilty?”
“What?” Mink says.
“Did you kill Zack Houston or didn’t you?” the Judge says.
“Dont bother me now,” Mink says. “Cant you see I’m busy?” turning his head again toward the faces come to see if maybe they wouldn’t hang him anyhow, no matter who said he was crazy, since that was what he seemed to want his-self, having already tried it once and so the Law wouldn’t be doing no more than just accommodating him, saying: “Somebody there! Anybody with a car. To run out to Varner’s store quick and get Flem Snopes. He will pay you, whatever you charge and whatever extry — ten dollars extry — twenty extry — —”
Last summer Lawyer had to do something, he didn’t know what. Now he had to do something, he didn’t care what. I dont even think he especially hunted around for something. I think he just reached his hand and snatched something, the first nearest thing, and it just happened to be that old quick-vanishing power-plant brass that ever body in Jefferson, including Flem Snopes — sholy including Flem Snopes — had been trying out of pure and simple politeness to forget about.
When as acting City Attorney he drawed up the suit against Mayor de Spain’s bonding company, charging malfeasance in office and criminal connivance or however they put it, naturally ever body thought all he aimed to do then was to walk in and lay the papers on Manfred de Spain’s desk. But they was wrong; he never no more wanted to buy anything from De Spain than he did that night in the alley behind that Christmas ball, when his brother-in-law told him he couldn’t fight because he never knowed how — a piece of information already in Lawyer’s possession, having already lived with hisself for more or less twenty-two or maybe twenty-three years. He didn’t want nothing from De Spain because the only thing De Spain had that he wanted, Lawyer didn’t know his-self that was what he wanted until his paw told him that last afternoon.
So Lawyer filed the suit. And the first thing was the pleasant young feller from the bonding company in his nice city suit getting off the morning train with his nice city suitcase, saying “Now fellers lets all have a drink of this-here nice city whiskey and see if we can jest all get together on this thing,” then spending one quick horrified day, mostly on the long distance telephone between talking with them two Negro firemen, Tom Tom Bird and Tomey’s Turl Beauchamp, while waiting for Flem to get back from where he had went suddenly on a visit into the next county.
So on the third day the one come from the bonding company that was big enough in it to have the gray hair and come in a Pullman in striped britches and a gold watch chain big enough to boom logs with and gold eyeglasses and even a gold toothpick and the pigeon-tailed coat and the plug hat until by nightfall you couldn’t even a got a glass of water in the Holston Hotel for ever porter and waiter hanging around his door to wait on him and he could a owned ever other Negro in Jefferson too by tomorrow if he had had anything he could a done with them, saying “Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Gentlemen.” and the mayor coming in where they was all setting around the table, to stand there laughing at them for a while and then saying,
“You’ll have to excuse me. Even the mayor of just Jefferson, Mississippi has got to do a little work now and then.” And Lawyer Stevens setting there calm and white in the face and looking exactly like he done that night when he told his brother-in-law: “Can you suh-jest a better way for me to learn how to fight than the one I just tried?”
And Flem Snopes hadn’t got back yet and in fact they couldn’t even locate him, like he had evidently went on a camping trip in the woods where there wasn’t no telephone; and the big boss one, the one with the white vest and the gold toothpick, says: “I’m sure Mr de Spain would resign. Why dont we jest let him resign and forget all this here unhappiness?” and Lawyer Stevens says, “He’s a good mayor. We dont want him to resign,” and the white vest says, “Then what do you want? You will have to prove our client’s representative stole any brass and all you have is the word of them two nigras because Mr Snopes his-self has went out of town.”
“That water tank aint went out of town,” Lawyer says. “We can drain that water tank.”
So what they called was a special meeting of the board of aldermen. What they got was like one of them mass carcasses to vote between two beauty queens, the courthouse bell beginning to ring about eight oclock like it actively was some kind of a night session of court, and the folks coming up the streets and gathering in the Square, laughing and making jokes back and forth, until they decided right quick that the mayor’s office wouldn’t hold even the start of it so they moved into the courtroom upstairs like it was Court.
Because this was just January; that Christmas ball wasn’t barely three weeks old yet. Even when they chose sides it was still jest fun, because most of them had jest come to watch and listen anyhow, even after somebody beat the Judge’s mallet on the table until they quit laughing and joking and hushed and one of the aldermen said, “I dont know how much it will cost to drain that tank, but I for one will be damned — —”
“I do,” Lawyer Stevens says. “I already asked. It will cost three hundred and eighty dollars to rig a auxiliary tank long enough to drain and then fill the other one up again and then dismantle the auxiliary and get shut of it. It wont cost nothing to send somebody down inside of it to look because I’ll do that myself.”
“All right,” the alderman says. “Then I will still be damned — —”
“All right,” Lawyer says. “Then I will pay for it myself,” and the old bonding feller, the white vest one, saying “Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Gentlemen.” and the young one, the first one, standing up now and hollering:
“Dont you see, Mr Stevens? Dont you see, Mr Stevens? If you find brass in the tank, there wont be no crime because the brass already belongs to the city?”
“I already thought of that too,” Lawyer says. “The brass still belongs to the city even if we dont drain the tank. Only, where is it at?” and the little bonding feller saying:
“Wait! Wait! That aint what I meant. I mean if the brass aint missing there aint no crime because it wasn’t never stole.”
“Tom Tom Bird and Tomey’s Turl Beauchamp says it was because they stole it,” Lawyer says. Now they was two aldermen talking at once, saying,
“Hold up here; hold up here,” until finally the loudest one, Henry Best, won:
“Then who are you charging, Gavin? Are them nigras under Manfred’s bond too?”
“But there aint no crime! We know the brass is in that tank because that’s where the nigras said they put it!” the little bonding feller was hollering and all this time the big one, the white vest one, still saying “Gentlemen. Gentlemen. Gentlemen.” like a big bass drum a far piece
