The Brethren Read Online Free PDF

jury let him walk. It’ll come up; everything will come up. But frankly, Mr. Lake, we’ll keep the attention diverted elsewhere. There’s an advantage in jumping in at the last minute. The press won’t have too much time to dig up dirt.”
    “I’m single. We’ve elected an unmarried president only once.”
    “You’re a widower, the husband of a very lovely lady who was well respected both here and back home. It won’t be an issue. Trust me.”
    “So what worries you?”
    “Nothing, Mr. Lake. Not a thing. You’re a solid candidate, very electable. We’ll create the issues and the fear, and we’ll raise the money.”
    Lake stood again, walked around the room rubbing his hair, scratching his chin, trying to clear his head. “I have a lot of questions,” he said.
    “Maybe I can answer some of them. Let’s talk again tomorrow, right here, same time. Sleep on it, Mr. Lake. Time is crucial, but I suppose a man should have twenty-four hours before making such a decision.” Teddy actually smiled when he said this.
    “That’s a wonderful idea. Let me think about it. I’ll have an answer tomorrow.”
    “No one knows we’ve had this little chat.”
    “Of course not.”

THREE
    I n terms of space, the law library occupied exactly one fourth of the square footage of the entire Trumble library. It was in a corner, partitioned off by a wall of red brick and glass, tastefully done at taxpayer expense. Inside the law library, shelves of well-used books stood packed together with barely enough room for an inmate to squeeze between them. Around the walls were desks covered with typewriters and computers and sufficient research clutter to resemble any big-firm library.
    The Brethren ruled the law library. All inmates were allowed to use it, of course, but there was an unwritten policy that one needed permission to stay there for any length of time. Maybe not permission, but at least notice.
    Justice Joe Roy Spicer of Mississippi earned forty cents an hour sweeping the floors and straightening the desks and shelves. He also emptied the trash, and was generally considered to be a pig when it came to his menial tasks. Justice Hatlee Beech of Texas was the official law librarian, and at fifty cents an hour was thehighest paid. He was fastidious about “his volumes,” and often bickered with Spicer about their care. Justice Finn Yarber, once of the California Supreme Court, was paid twenty cents an hour as a computer technician. His pay was at the bottom of the scale because he knew so little about computers.
    On a typical day, the three spent between six and eight hours in the law library. If a Trumble inmate had a legal problem, he simply made an appointment with one of the Brethren and visited their little suite. Hatlee Beech was an expert on sentencing and appeals. Finn Yarber did bankruptcies, divorces, and child support cases. Joe Roy Spicer, with no formal legal training, had no real specialty. Nor did he want one. He ran the scams.
    Strict rules prohibited the Brethren from charging fees for their legal work, but the strict rules meant little. They were, after all, convicted felons, and if they could quietly pick up some cash on the outside then everyone would be happy. Sentencing was a moneymaker. About a fourth of the inmates who arrived at Trumble had been improperly sentenced. Beech could review the records overnight and find the loopholes. A month earlier, he had knocked four years off the sentence of a young man who’d been given fifteen. The family had agreed to pay, and the Brethren earned $5,000, their biggest fee to date. Spicer arranged the secret deposit through their lawyer in Neptune Beach.
    There was a cramped conference room in the back of the law library, behind the shelves and barely visible from the main room. The door to it had a large glass window, but no one bothered to look in. The Brethrenretired there for quiet business. They called it their chamber.
    Spicer had just met with their lawyer