That’s How I Roll: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

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.