“Okay Do I swim out?” : “No, I’ve got boats. Dickie’ll bring you.”

Dickie was the same thick young man who’d escorted Ray into the building. Now he escorted him out, where a very long silver Mercedes was waiting. Dickie drove it like a tank through the traffic to the Point Cadet Marina, where a hundred small vessels were docked. One of the larger ones just happened to be owned by Pat-ton French. Its name was the Lady of Justice.

“The water’s smooth, take about twenty-five minutes,” Dickie said as they climbed on board. The engines were running. A steward with a thick accent asked Ray if he’d like a drink. “Diet soda,” he said. They cast off and puttered through the rows of slips and past the marina until they were away from the pier. Ray climbed to the upper deck and watched the shoreline fade into the distance.

Anchored ten miles from Biloxi was the King of Torts, a hundred-forty-foot luxury yacht with a crew of five and plush quarters for a dozen friends. The only passenger was Mr. French, and he was waiting to greet his dinner guest. “A real pleasure, Ray” he said as he pumped his hand and then squeezed his shoulder.

“A pleasure for me as well,” Ray said, holding his ground because French liked close contact. He was an inch or two taller, with a nicely tanned face, fierce blue eyes that squinted and did not blink.

“I’m so glad you came,” French said, squeezing Ray’s hand. Fraternity brothers couldn’t have pawed each other with more affection.

“Stay here, Dickie,” he barked to the deck below. “Follow me, Ray,” he said, and they were off, up one short flight to the main deck, where a steward in a white jacket was waiting with a starched F&F towel folded perfectly over his arm. “What’ll you have?” he demanded of Ray.

Suspecting that French was not a man who toyed with light booze, Ray said, “What’s the specialty of the house?”

“Iced vodka, with a twist of lime.”

“I’ll try it,” Ray said.

“It’s a great new vodka from Norway. You’ll love it.” The man knew his vodkas.

He was wearing a black linen shirt, buttoned at the neck, and tan linen shorts, perfectly pressed and hanging nicely on his frame. There was a slight belly, but he was thick through the chest and his forearms were twice the normal size. He liked his hair because he couldn’t keep his hands out of it.

“How about the boat?” he asked, waving his hands from stern to bow. “It was built by a Saudi prince, one of the lesser ones, a coupla years ago. Dumb-ass put a fireplace in it, can you believe that? Cost him twenty million or so, and after a year he traded it in for a two-hundred-footer.”

“It’s amazing,” Ray said, trying to sound sufficiently awed. The world of yachting was one he had never been near, and he suspected that after this episode he would forever keep his distance.

“Built by the Italians,” French said, tapping a railing made of some terribly expensive wood.

“Why do you stay out here, in the Gulf?” Ray asked.

“I’m an offshore kind of guy, ha, ha. If you know what I mean. Sit.” French pointed, and they lowered themselves into two long deck chairs. When they were nestled in, French nodded to the shore. “You can barely see Biloxi, and this is close enough. I can do more work out here in one day than in a week at the office. Plus I’m transitioning from one house to the next. A divorce is in the works. This is where I hide.”

“Sorry”

“This is the biggest yacht in Biloxi now, and most folks can spot it. The current wife thinks I’ve sold it, and if I get too close to the shore then her slimy little lawyer might swim out and take a picture of it. Ten miles is close enough.”

The iced vodkas arrived, in tall narrow glasses, F&F engraved on the sides. Ray took a sip and the concoction burned all the way to his toes. French took a long pull and smacked his lips. “Whatta you think?” he asked proudly.

“Nice vodka,” Ray said. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one.

“Dickie brought fresh swordfish out for dinner. Sound okay?”

“Great.”

“And the oysters are good now.”

“I went to law school at Tulane. I had three years of fresh oysters.”

“I know,” French said and pulled a small radio from his shirt pocket and passed along their dinner selections to someone below. He glanced at his watch and decided they would eat in two hours.

“You went to school with Hassel Mangrum,” French said.

“Yes, he was a year ahead of me.”

“We share the same trainer. Hassel has done well here on the coast. Got in early with the asbestos boys.”

“I haven’t heard from Hassel in twenty years.”

“You haven’t missed much. He’s a jerk now, I suspect he was a jerk in law school.”

“He was. How’d you know I went to school with Mangrum?”

“Research, Ray, extensive research.” He swigged the vodka again. Ray’s third sip went straight to his brain.

“We spent a bunch of dough investigating Judge Atlee, and his family, and his background, his rulings, his finances, everything we could find. Nothing illegal or intrusive, mind you, but old-fashioned detective work. We knew about your divorce, what’s his name, Lew the Liquidator?”

Ray just nodded. He wanted to say something derogatory about Lew Rodowski and he wanted to rebuke French for digging through his past, but for a second the vodka was blocking signals. So he nodded.

“We knew your salary as a law professor, it’s public record in Virginia, you know.”

“Yes it is.”

“Not a bad salary, Ray, but then it’s a great law school.”

“It is indeed.”

“Digging through your brother’s past was quite an adventure.”

“I’m sure it was. It’s been an adventure for the family.”

“We read every ruling your father issued in damage suits and wrongful death cases. There weren’t many, but we picked up clues. He was conservative with his awards, but he also favored the little guy, the workingman. We knew he would follow the law, but we also knew that old chancellors often mold the law to fit their notion of fairness. I had clerks doing the grunt work, but I read every one of his important decisions. He was a brilliant man, Ray, and always fair. I never disagreed with one of his opinions.”

“You picked my father for the Gibson case?”

“Yes. When we made the decision to file the case in Chancery Court and try it without a jury, we also decided we did not want a local chancellor to hear it. We have three. One is related to the Gibson family. One refuses to hear any matter other than divorces. One is eighty-four, senile, and hasn’t left the house in three years. So we looked around the state and found three potential fill-ins. Fortunately, my father and your father go back sixty years, to Sewanee and then law school at Ole Miss. They weren’t close friends over the years, but they kept in touch.”

“Your father is still active?”

“No, he’s in Florida now, retired, playing golf every day. I’m the sole owner of the firm. But my old man drove to Clanton, sat on the front porch with Judge Atlee, talked about the Civil War and Nathan Bedford Forrest. They even drove to Shiloh, walked around for two days—the hornet’s nest, the bloody pond. Judge Atlee got all choked up when he stood where General Johnston fell.”

“I’ve been there a dozen times,” Ray said with a smile.

“You don’t lobby a man like Judge Atlee. Earwigging is the ancient term.”

“He put a lawyer in jail once for that,” Ray said. “The guy came in before court began and tried to plead his case. The Judge threw him in jail for half a day.”

“That was that Chadwick fella over in Oxford, wasn’t it?” French said smugly, and Ray was speechless.

“Anyway, we had to impress upon Judge Atlee the importance of the Ryax litigation. We knew he wouldn’t want to come to the coast and try the case, but he’d do it if he believed in the cause.”

“He hated the coast.”