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that bore the sign COLORED ONLY he could see another room, ruder and filled with more rickety furniture, all jammed up with pitiful Negroes. He turned to the white secretary behind a desk, whose hair was tidy but who ruled by right of a harsh face and too much makeup.
    He presented his card.
    “And, sir?”
    “And I wonder, ma’am, if I could have a word with Mr….” he struggled to remember the name painted on the door, then did. “Carruthers.”
    “What is this in reference to?” she said, with a Southern smile that meant nothing whatsoever.
    “Ma’am, I am a prosecutor myself, only recently retired on the basis of electoral whimsy. I wish to speak with my colleague.”
    “You from here in Mississip?”
    “No, ma’am. Up a bit. Arkansas, Polk County, in the west. It’s on the card.”
    “Well, I’ll see.”
    It wasn’t Carruthers who came to get him but a Mr. Redfield, an assistant city attorney, who made a show of ignoring the unfortunate Negroes in the back room and shook his hand heartily, escorting him back to a clean little office. As they walked, Sam searched his memory, and at last realized why Redfield admitted him: they’d met at some convention in Atlantic City in 1941, with a group of other prosecutors, all having a last fling before the war did with them what it did.
    “Glad to see you made it back, Mr. Redfield,” Sam said.
    “Never got the chance to leave, alas,” said the man, as they walked into the door of a clean little cubicle. “Four-F. Stayed here prosecuting draft dodgers while you boys had all the fun. Where’d you end up? Europe, wasn’t it?”
    “Finally. Ended up in the artillery.”
    “Win anything big?”
    “No, just did the job. Glad to be back in one piece.”
    Redfield broke out the bourbon and poured himself and Sam a tot. Tasted fine, too. They settled into chairs, chatted somewhat aimlessly on the subject of the others in attendance of that long ago convention, who was dead, who divorced, who quit, who rich, who poor. Redfield then segued neatly into local politics and gossip, his chances for getting the big job in the next election or maybe it would be better to wait until ’56, local conditions, which weren’t good, except for, he laughed heartily, the coming of some Northern fool’s waterproof coffin company to the South, which would put the ship carpenters to some good use until it failed, ha ha ha, or the gub’mint lost so many destroyers off Korea it needed to build some new ones. Sam didn’t really care, but down South here, it was the way business was done, until finally, when a ten-second pause and a second drink announced it to be the time, he launched into particulars.
    He explained, concluding with his unease about the upcoming trip.
    “Well,” said Redfield, “truth be told, I don’t know much about Thebes. That’s two counties up the river, and not much between but bayou and wild niggers and Choctaws living on ’gators and catfish, then finally your piney woods, thick as hell. Too thick for white people.”
    “Ah, I see.”
    “Don’t know why any feller’d go up there he didn’t have to.”
    “Well, Redfield, I really don’t want to. But I’ve accepted the job. I was hoping you’d write me a letter of introduction or give me a name of a colleague to whose good offices I could appeal.”
    “Most counties, that’d work just fine, that’d be the way to do it. But Thebes now, Thebes is different. It’s the prison farm, and that’s about all. You’d have to git into our state corrections bureaucracy, and I do know those boys run their territory very tight and private-like. Don’t like strangers, especially strangers from up North—”
    “Arkansas? Up North?”
    “Now, mind you, I ain’t saying I’d be in agreement with that sentiment, but that would be how their minds work. I’m only clarifying here. They’re a clannish bunch. They’ve got a system full of colored men, some of whom may be het up on juju, some on booze,