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"Mr. Dave," she said again. Her voice was low, as though she were speaking in church.
"I can't help, Tante Lemon," I said.
"He was at my little house. He didn't kill no redbone," she said.
"Somebody's going to take her home," the jailer said.
"I told all them people, Mr. Dave. They ain't listen to me. What for they gonna listen an old nigger woman worked Miz Hattie's crib? That's what they say. Old nigger putain lyin' for Tee Beau."
"His lawyer's going to appeal. There are a lot of things that can be done yet," I said. I kept waiting for the elevator doors to open.
"They gonna electrocute that boy," she said.
"Tante Lemon, I can't do anything about it,"
I said.
Her eyes wouldn't leave my face. They were small and wet and unblinking, like a bird's.
I saw Lester smiling to himself.
"A car's going to take you home," the jailer said to her.
"What for I goin' home, me? Be home by myself in my little house?" she answered.
"You fix something hot, you get out of them wet clothes," the jailer said. "Then tomorrow you talk to Tee Beau's lawyer, like Mr. Dave says."
"Mr. Dave know better," she said. "They gonna burn that little boy, and he ain't done nothing wrong. That redbone pick on him, make fun of him in front of people, work him so hard he couldn't eat when he got home. I fix chicken and rice, everything nice, just the way he like it. He sit down all dirty at the table and stare at it, put it in his mouth like it ain't nothing but a bunch of dry bean. I tell him go wash his face and arm, then he gonna eat. But he say, 'I tired, Gran'maman. I cain't eat when I tired.' I say, 'Tomorrow Sunday, you gonna sleep tomorrow, you, then you gonna eat.' He say, 'He comin' for me in the morning. We got them field to cut.'
"Where everybody when that little boy need he'p?" she said. "When that redbone roll up a newspaper and swat him like he's a cat? Where them police, them lawyer then?"
"I'll come over to your house tomorrow, Tante Lemon," I promised.
Lester lit a cigarette and smiled up into the smoke. I heard the elevator motor stop; then the door slid open and two uniformed sheriff's deputies walked Tee Beau Latiolais and Jimmie Lee Boggs out in chains. They were dressed in street clothes for the trip up to Angola. Tee Beau wore a shiny sports coat the color of tin, baggy purple pants, and a black shirt with the collar flattened out on the coat. He was twenty-five, but he looked like a child in adult clothes, like you could pick him up around the waist as you would a pillow slip full of sticks. Unlike his grandmother's, his skin was black, his eyes brown, too big for his small face, so that he looked frightened even when he wasn't. Someone in the jail had cut his hair but had not shaved the neck, leaving a black wiry line low on the back of his neck that looked like dirt.
But Jimmie Lee Boggs was the man who caught your eye. His hair was silver, long and thin, and it hung straight back off his head like thread that had been sewn to the scalp. He had jailhouse pallor, and his eyes were elongated and spearmint green. His lips looked unnaturally red, as though they had been rouged. The curve of his neck, the profile of his head, the pink-white scalp that showed through his threadlike hair, reminded me of a mannequin's. He wore a freshly laundered T-shirt, jeans, and ankle-high black tennis shoes without socks. A package of Lucky Strikes stuck up snugly from one of his pockets. Even though his hands were manacled to the waist chain and he had to shuffle because of the short length of chain between his ankles, you could see the lean tubes of muscle move in his stomach, roll in his arms, pulse over his collarbones when he twisted his neck to look at everyone in the room. The peculiar light in his eyes was not one you wanted to get lost in.
The jailer opened a file cabinet drawer and took out two large grocery bags that were folded and stapled neatly across the top. The name "Boggs" was written on one, "Latiolais" on the other.
"Here's their stuff," he said, and handed the bags to me. "If y'all want to stay up there tonight, you can get a per diem."
"Lookit what you send up there, you," Tante Lemon said. "Ain't you shamed? You put that little boy in chains, you pretend he like that other one, 'cause you conscience be bothering y'all at night."
"I had that boy in my jail eight months, Tante Lemon, long before he got in this trouble," the jailer said. "So don't be letting on like Tee Beau never done anything wrong."
"For taking from Mr. Dore junkyard. For giving his gran'maman an old window fan ain't nobody want. That's why y'all had him in y'all at jail."
"He stole Mr. Dore's car," the jailer said.
"That's what he say," Tante Lemon said.
"I hope I don't have to pay rent here tonight," Lester said, and brushed cigarette ashes off his slacks by flipping his nails against the cloth.
Then Tante Lemon started to cry. Her eyes closed, and tears squeezed out of the lids as though she were sightless; her mouth trembled and jerked without shame.
"Good God," said Lester.
"Gran'maman, I be writing," Tee Beau said. "I be sending letters like I right down the street."
