by Mark Gimenez
“That’s a Ralph Lauren.”
Pajamae shrugged. “Whatever.”
“The price is six hundred fifty, but I only have hundred-dollar bills,” the lady said. “Do you have change?”
“No, ma’am, sure don’t.”
“But I want this chair!”
“So does that man over there.”
The woman turned. “What man?”
“Bald dude in the blue shorts, with the big belly, talking to the fat woman in the striped shirt? He said he was bringing his wife over to look at it.”
In fact, Pajamae had not spoken to the man.
“Don’t you let him have this chair!”
“Ma’am, first rule of yard sales is, cash rules.”
The woman again studied the chair, then the bald dude, then the chair. Finally she said, as Pajamae knew she would say, “I’ll pay seven hundred.”
Pajamae removed her Sharpie from behind her ear and wrote as she spoke: “Sold to Miz…”
“Smythe, with a y and an e. S-M-Y-T-H-E.”
“Pay the man.”
“I live just down the street. Can you deliver?”
“No, ma’am, but Louis can carry.”
Pajamae waved at Louis standing off to the side like he was trying to go unnoticed, as if a six-foot-six, 330-pound black man in Highland Park could blend in. When he arrived, she said, “Louis, this nice lady needs this chair carried to her house.”
Louis leaned down, spread his arms, grabbed the sides of the big chair, and lifted it without effort. He began walking toward Mr. Fenney like he was carrying a sack of groceries.
The lady said, “Do I have to tip him?”
“No, ma’am,” Pajamae said, “just don’t make him mad.”
Mrs. Smythe with a y and an e looked at Louis’s broad back walking away with her chair, frowned, and said, “I’ll tip him. Twenty. No, fifty.” She followed Louis over to Mr. Fenney.
Pajamae shook her head: White people wouldn’t last a day down in the projects. When Boo walked up, Pajamae said, “Mama would love this.”
“What?”
“Rich white people at a yard sale.”
“Do you shop at yard sales often?”
“Yard sales are our shopping malls.”
“Do you get good stuff?”
“Nothing like this. Course, we don’t look for designer labels. We just make sure the clothes don’t have blood stains, and no one’s thrown up on the furniture.”
Just then a woman wearing big sunglasses walked over holding out a handbag. “Is this a knockoff?” she asked.
Boo gave her a look. “Ma’am, my mother would rather have died than be seen with a knockoff. That’s a Louis Vuitton original, retails for seven-fifty. We’re offering that bag for two-fifty. My mother never even took it out of the house.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Pay the man.”
The woman left and Pajamae said, “Your mama has some fine stuff.”
Boo nodded. “Mother always said, any girl says money can’t buy happiness just doesn’t know where to shop. But I guess she was wrong.”
Boo pulled a black party dress off a rack. “A thousand dollars. She wore it one time to a party at the club.” She replaced the dress and picked up a red spike-heeled shoe. “Three hundred dollars.”
“For shoes?”
“Dior.”
“Dee who?”
“Christian Dior. Women kill for these shoes.”
Pajamae took the shoe and examined it. “My mama could wear these to work.”
Scott had moved Rebecca’s entire closet down to the backyard, hundreds of dresses and shoes and pants and shirts and garments of every kind and color. He had never once ventured into her huge walk-in closet so he had never realized just how many clothes she owned. He wondered now how much they had cost. Scott smiled as he accepted money from another customer buying his wife’s clothes.
Pajamae was holding up a powder blue fringed miniskirt.
Boo said, “That was Mother’s Cattle Barons’ Ball outfit.”
“Wearing this, she’d fit right in with Mama and Kiki working Harry Hines.”
Pajamae replaced the skirt and picked up red pajamas.
“Neiman Marcus,” Boo said. “One hundred thirty dollars.”
“You think Mr. Fenney would sell these to me? I can pay seven dollars.”
“You want red silk pajamas?”
“For Mama, so she doesn’t have to sleep in that jail uniform.”
“Oh.” Boo thought for a moment, then said: “A. Scott put us in charge of pricing because he doesn’t have a clue how much Mother paid for this stuff-he’d stroke out if he knew-so I’m going to mark these down to seven dollars. Pay the man.”
“The little black girl said to pay you.”
“Yep.”
Scott looked up to see Penny Birnbaum.
“Oh, uh, hi, Penny. Did you find something you like?”
“I found something I liked the first time I was here.” She smiled that smile and licked her red lips wet. “You want to go inside and see if I can find it again?”
“Well, uh, Penny, I’ve, uh, I’ve got to tend to the cash register, see?”
“You don’t need cash. I’m giving it away.”
She leaned in and her shirt gaped, revealing the top of her tanned breasts. Scott inhaled her perfume and he remembered that day in the steam shower and he became weak. He thought of feeling Penny’s naked body against his and his hands on her and hers on him and her mouth on…but he thought of Boo. She wouldn’t be very proud of her father if he gave in to his weakness.
Penny said, “I’ve come by every day and you haven’t been home. Don’t you want to see what else I can do?”
In fact, Scott had been home, but when he had seen who was standing on his front porch, he had hidden until she left.
“Oh, well, I know you’re a very talented girl and-”
“Girl with the cornrows, she said to pay you.”
Thank God. An old lady had walked up with a handful of clothes. Penny dropped three hundred-dollar bills on the counter and sashayed down the drive with two of Rebecca’s purses, her narrow bottom in the tight shorts moving side to side so temptingly.
Bobby couldn’t afford to buy any of the stuff Scotty had for sale-not that any of the furniture would go with the East Dallas flea-market decor of his little house-and he wasn’t helping Boo and Pajamae sell the stuff because he’d probably punch out the first rich bitch who tried to negotiate him down on a price. So he was shooting pool in the garage, hoping the GQ dude checking out the pool table wouldn’t buy it because he was hoping Scotty might give it to him in lieu of some of his fees. He could put it in his combination living/dining room.
“Your wife shopping outside?” he asked Mr. GQ.
“Yeah.” Mr. GQ picked up a cue stick and said, “Wanna play?”
Bobby shrugged. “Why not.”
Bobby played pool at the Mexican bar next to his office in the strip center two, three hours a day, sometimes more. Okay, usually more. In fact, his regular clients knew to call there if they had an emergency, which is to say, if they were unexpectedly arrested by the vice squad.
Bobby racked the balls and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “For a twenty? Or is that too much?”
Mr. GQ recoiled. “Too much?” He slapped a twenty on top of Bobby’s bill and busted the rack. Not a ball fell.
Bobby chalked his cue tip. On his eighth straight stroke, he rolled the eight ball into the side pocket for the win. He reached over for the two bills when Mr. GQ said, “Double or nothing?”
Bobby smiled. The GQ dude didn’t make his money playing pool in a Mexican bar. Two games later, when his wife came looking for him, Bobby had netted $140, more than he made lawyering most days.
Boo saw a familiar face and said, “See that woman over there, the blonde?”
Boo pointed and Pajamae followed her finger. “Wearing the short shorts and heels? The real skinny girl?”
“A lollipop? You mean, like a sucker?”
“Unh-huh. See how her head looks too big for her body?”
Pajamae studied the woman. “She does look like a lollipop. That white girl needs to put some meat on her bones.”
“Mother said she eats and then she throws up.”
“’Cause she’s sick?”
“No, on purpose! So she doesn’t gain weight.”
“Boo, you pulling my leg?”
“No! She was Mother’s sorority sister. She married money.”
Pajamae frowned. “How do you marry money?”
“You look like her and you find an old man with money.”
“Oh. Kind of like Mama does, only it lasts longer.”
“Mother said she’s only thirty-three, but she’s had breast implants, a tummy tuck, a butt lift, and liposuction. Mother said the only part of her that’s real is her brain, and that’s only because they don’t do brain implants.” Boo shrugged. “That’s what Mother said, anyway.”
“Is her old man here?”
The lollipop turned and walked over to a white-haired man sitting on the love seat from the formal living room that was selling for $1,000. She sat down and he patted her skinny thigh.
“That’s him. Mother said he’s a billionaire.”
“He looks like her granddaddy. Mama would charge double to entertain a man as old as him. He must’ve paid a lot of money for his lollipop.”
Scott was taking cash faster than he could count for clothes he had never seen Rebecca wear, furniture he had never sat on, and rugs he had never stepped on. Rebecca had filled every square foot of the 7,500-square-foot residence with her stuff. Now Scott was selling six thousand square feet of her stuff. And he was enjoying it.
“Your daughter said to pay you.”
A middle-aged black woman had walked up to Scott.
“Hi, I’m Scott Fenney.”
“I’m Dolores Hudson. We just moved in down the street”-she smiled-“the first black homeowners in Highland Park history?”
“Oh, yeah, I read about you. Welcome to the neighborhood, although I won’t be here much longer.”
She gave him a sympathetic look. “I’ve read about you, too.”
“Yeah, well, you should believe everything you read.”
“I don’t think so. When are you moving?”
“I close on the sale of this place Thursday, then on the new place Friday. We’ll move right after the trial.”
“Well, if the timing doesn’t work out and you need a place to stay, you and the children come stay with us. And I bet those girls haven’t had any home cooking since your wife-”
She was embarrassed. But Scott smiled and said, “My wife didn’t cook.”
“Well, I do. I’ll bring something over.”
“Thank you, Dolores.”
“No, thank you, Scott. For what you’re doing. You know, we weren’t sure we were doing the right thing buying a home here. I didn’t know if I wanted to be the Rosa Parks of Highland Park, whether we’d be accepted here.”
“You did the right thing, Dolores. Most of the people here, particularly the younger ones, they’ll be fine. Some of the old-timers won’t accept you, but take it from me, you don’t want to be friends with them anyway.”
Dolores paid and said thanks again.
Boo was holding up a flowery sundress for a young woman.
“Luca Luca, you’ve heard of him, the Italian designer?”
“Of course. Who hasn’t?”
She took the dress from Boo and held it against her body. It was a perfect fit.
“Almost as pretty as it looked on my mother.”
“You know, I pledged the same sorority as your mother. She was six years before me. But she’s still a role model for all the girls-Miss SMU marries a football star who becomes a rich lawyer. It’s like Cinderella.”
Boo nodded. “I must’ve missed the part where Cinderella walks out on her family for a golf pro.”
Bobby was lining up a shot when someone stepped directly into his line of sight at the opposite end of the pool table. He raised up to tell the idiot to get the hell out of the way-
“Hi, Bobby.”
— and damn near hit himself with the pool cue.
“Karen, what are you doing here?”
“I quit.”
“What?”
“Ford Stevens.”
“You’re shi…You’re kidding me? Why?”
“I didn’t like the way they were making me think.”
“Like a lawyer?”
“Yeah.”
“Smart girl. What are you gonna do?”
“Work with you and Scott on your case.”
When the summer sun set on the yard sale at 4000 Beverly Drive in the heart of Highland Park, nothing was left-not a shoe or a dress or a lamp or even the pool table. In less than nine hours, Scott had sold most of the material possessions he had acquired during eleven years of marriage, all the things that evidenced his existence, his ambitions, his career, and his wife.
The girls were at the other end of the kitchen, adding up their profits on the floor. Louis was counting his tip money-“Six hundred dollars for carrying stuff”-and sitting with Scott, Bobby, and Karen Douglas on the floor and eating fried chicken Dolores Hudson had brought over. The table and chairs had sold for $1,500.
“Karen,” Scott said, “forget everything I ever told you about being a lawyer. I was wrong.”
“You’re a great lawyer, Scott, everyone at the firm says so, even since you left.”
“I didn’t leave. I got fired.”
“Well, even after that.”
“No, Karen, I was a corrupt lawyer. I cheated my clients, I cheated the law, and I cheated myself. I did whatever it took to win. I practiced law like it was a football game. It isn’t.”
“Karen wants to help us,” Bobby said.
“Why?”
Karen said, “Because you need help. And I like Bobby.”
Bobby dropped his drumstick.
Boo yelled over, “Sixty-seven thousand, four hundred fifty dollars.”
TWENTY-FOUR
"Voir Dire” is a legal phrase meaning “to speak the truth.” In the American legal system, “voir dire” refers to the process of picking a jury, perhaps because of all the players in a criminal trial, only the jurors are truly interested in the truth. Everyone else just wants to win.
In federal court, jurors must be citizens; at least eighteen years old; proficient in reading, writing, understanding, and speaking English; not be physically or mentally infirm; not have been convicted of a felony; and not have felony charges currently pending against them. Finding twelve people who meet such qualifications is easy; finding twelve people you would want to sit in judgment of your life is not.
That’s where voir dire comes in. The judge and lawyers question the prospective jurors to uncover biases, prejudices, and predispositions that might prevent them from rendering a fair and impartial verdict. At least that’s the theory. The reality is that every juror comes to court with his or her personal biases, prejudices, and predispositions that will absolutely prevent that person from rendering a fair and impartial verdict-which is precisely the kind of jurors both sides want. The real goal of voir dire is to find twelve jurors who are biased, prejudiced, and predisposed in your favor.
A trial in a court of law is not about truth, justice, and the American way. It’s about winning. Prosecutors want a conviction so that they can build a track record of putting criminals in jail, a prerequisite for election or appointment to higher political office; defense attorneys want an acquittal because acquittals in high-profile criminal cases bring fame and fortune. Thus neither the prosecutor nor the defense attorney is concerned with truth or justice: truth is whatever they can get a jury to believe, and justice is when they win.
As he sat in a federal courtroom in downtown Dallas on a hot day in August, Scott Fenney believed his clie
nt had put the barrel of her. 22-caliber gun to Clark McCall’s head and pulled the trigger. He also believed she had done so in self-defense. Now he had to question the men and women sitting before him in the hope of finding twelve jurors who might agree with him and, if not acquit his client, at least not send her to death row.
Judge Buford had already questioned the prospective jurors concerning their legal qualifications and dismissed only one, a man who, when asked if he had any pending felony charges, answered, “They haven’t been able to prove anything yet!”
Ray Burns had then questioned the prospective jurors about their willingness to find the defendant guilty knowing she might be sentenced to death. Seven prospective jurors said they were morally opposed to the death penalty and were excused.
Now twenty-nine prospective jurors were staring at Scott Fenney and Robert Herrin, waiting for the defendant’s counsel to question them. In every prior voir dire, sitting next to A. Scott Fenney had been an expensive psychologist trained in the art of jury selection, not a lawyer who practiced street law in a strip center next to a Mexican bar. For fees up to $1,000,000, such jury experts conduct mock trials, focus groups, and pretrial polling to develop a detailed psychological profile of the ideal juror. They investigate the prospective jurors’ employment, income, religion, hobbies, and politics. They study their clothes, their body language, and their answers during voir dire. They coach the lawyers on what to drive to the courthouse (leave the Mercedes-Benz at home because jurors might see you in the parking lot), what to wear to trial (no Rolexes or double-breasted Armani suits), and how to act in front of the jurors (try to “humanize” yourself; that is, pretend to be a normal human being in front of the jurors, a more difficult assignment for most lawyers than merely dressing down). They give the lawyer a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down on each prospective juror.
A lawyer learns with his first jury trial that the case is won or lost during jury selection. Today, with enough money, you can legally fix a jury. But since neither Scott nor his client had enough money to hire a jury expert, there was no paid consultant sitting next to Scott, only Bobby.