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

They really perked up at that—and worked hard at trying not to let me see it.
    I knew what was in their minds. It wasn’t that any of them expected me to be acquitted. But if I was going to trial, they had a good excuse to stick around. It was a capital case, after all. So even after—they said “if,” but I knew they must say it that way to every client they ever had—I was found guilty, there would still be what they called the “penalty phase.” And that was where they could outdo any court-appointed lawyers in the country, they told me.
    That
was where they were going to step in and save me. In the penalty phase, whatever I had done wouldn’t be as important as why I did it. “That’s the most critical factor, Esau,” the girl they always brought with them told me. “We have to make the judge and the jury see you as an individual. They have to know who you are, from the inside out. Because the more they know you as a person, the less they’ll be willing to … hand down the ultimate sentence.”
    She just went on and on. They were going to show the jury how I really didn’t have any choice, the kind of life I’d had, blah-blah-blah.
    They didn’t know one single thing about any of that. All theyknew was what anyone could see for themselves: I was born bad—the spine thing. They just assumed I was raised even worse, me being poor white trash, living on Disability, no education, no job, no prospects. “No hope,” she said, like that was a knockout punch.
    I’d rather take a bullet than pity, but how could these people know that? They didn’t know me.
    They didn’t even know how dumb they sounded. How could they be such great lawyers in capital cases if they had so much experience with the penalty phase?
    When I told them I
wanted
the death penalty, I thought they’d just pack up and go back to wherever they came from. Not a chance. They said that would be State-assisted suicide, and they weren’t about to let that happen.
    So I made it even clearer—they didn’t have any choice about what
they’d
let happen or not. That was up to me, not them. I reminded them that they weren’t my lawyers. I didn’t hire them, so I couldn’t fire them, but the court hadn’t appointed them, either. And wasn’t about to.
    What I didn’t tell them was that they reminded me of doctors standing around the bedside of a dying man, already counting up which of his organs they could salvage. I just told them to get lost.
    They kind of smirked when I said that. Especially the girl. She was way younger than me, dressed a little flashier than people around here consider seemly. Smelled good, too. She came over to where I was and sat real close.
    “The lawyers the State appointed for you have tried exactly three capital cases between the two of them,” she said, like she was sharing a secret.
    I just shrugged.
    “Mr. Diamond has tried over one hundred capital cases,” she said, her eyes getting all big and shiny over the man she was worshiping. “Only seven defendants were sentenced to death, and every one of those is still on appeal.”
    “They still won’t even let him in the courtroom without my say-so,” I told her.
    “It’s a question of qualifications, Esau. When the court hears—”
    “You went to Yale, Brooke?” I interrupted her. I didn’t even meet her eyes, just kept looking down at the sheet of paper with her name at the top. I wouldn’t normally have ever talked to a woman like that; I pride myself on my manners. But when a girl half my age calls me by my first name, like I was a child instead of a grown man, I admit I resented that.
    “Yes, but—”
    “That’s where you learned to be a lawyer?”
    “Oh, no. Law school is where you learn the law. It’s only down in the trenches where you learn how to practice it.” She glanced over at this Diamond guy, hoping for any little nod of approval—the only stake she was really playing for.
    “There’s no trenches around here,” I told