"You were clean for a hundred and forty days."
"A hundred and forty-one."
"What's the record?"
"Fourteen months. I came out of rehab a few years back, this great detox center that the old man paid for, and I kicked ass for a long time. Then I crashed."
"Why? What made you crash?"
"It's always the same. When you're an addict you can lose it any time, any place, for any reason. They haven't designed a wagon that can hold me. I'm an addict, Bro, plain and simple."
"Still drugs?"
"Sure. Last night it was booze and beer, same tonight, same tomorrow. By the end of the week I'll be doing nastier stuff."
"Do you want to?"
"No, but I know what happens."
The waitress brought their food. Forrest quickly buttered a biscuit and took a large bite. When he could speak he said, "The old man's dead, Ray, can you believe it?"
Ray was anxious to change the subject too. If they dwelt on Forrest's shortcomings they would be fighting soon enough. "No, I thought I was ready for it, but I wasn't."
"When was the last time you saw him?"
"November, when he had prostate surgery. You?"
Forrest sprinkled Tabasco sauce on his scrambled eggs and pondered the question. "When was his heart attack?"
There had been so many ailments and surgeries that they were difficult to remember. "He had three."
"The one in Memphis."
"That was the second one," Ray said. "Four years ago."
"That's about right. I spent some time with him at the hospital. Hell, it wasn't six blocks away. I figured it was the least I could do."
"What did you talk about?"
"Civil War. He still thought we'd won."
They smiled at this and ate in silence for a few moments. The silence ended when Harry Rex found them. He helped himself to a biscuit while offering the latest details of the splendid ceremony he was planning for Judge Atlee.
"Everybody wants to come out to the house," he said with a mouthful.
"It's off limits," Ray said.
"That's what I'm tellin' them. Y'all want to receive guests tonight?"
"No," said Forrest.
"Should we?" asked Ray.
"It's the proper thing to do, either at the house or at the funeral home. But if you don't, it's no big deal. Ain't like folks'll get pissed and refuse to speak to you."
"We're doing the courthouse wake and a funeral, isn't that enough?" Ray asked.
"I think so."
"I'm not sittin' around a funeral home all night huggin' old ladies who've been talkin' about me for twenty years," Forrest said. "You can if you want, but I will not be there."
"Let's pass on it," Ray said.
"Spoken like a true executor," Forrest said with a sneer.
"Executor?" said Harry Rex.
"Yes, there was a will on his desk, dated Saturday. A simple, one-page, holographic will, leaving everything to the two of us, listing his assets, naming me as the executor. And he wants you to do the probate, Harry Rex."
Harry Rex had stopped chewing. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with a chubby finger and gazed across the diner. "That's odd," he said, obviously puzzled by something.
"What?"
"I did a long will for him a month ago."
All had stopped eating. Ray and Forrest exchanged looks that conveyed nothing because neither had a clue what the other was thinking.
"I guess he changed his mind," Harry Rex said.
"What was in the other will?" Ray asked.
"I can't tell you. He was my client, so it's confidential."
"I'm lost here, fellas," Forrest said. "Forgive me for not being a lawyer."
"The only will that matters is the last one," said Harry Rex. "It revokes all prior wills, so whatever the Judge put in the will I prepared is irrelevant." :
"Why can't you tell us what's in the old will?" Forrest asked.
"Because I, as a lawyer, cannot discuss a client's will."
"But the will you prepared is no good, right?"
"Right, but I still can't talk about it."
"That sucks," Forrest said, and glared at Harry Rex. All three took a deep breath, then a large bite.
Ray knew in an instant that he would have to see the other will and see it soon. If it mentioned the loot hidden in the cabinet, then Harry Rex knew about it. And if he knew, then the money would quickly be removed from the trunk of the little TT convertible and repackaged in Blake & Son boxes and put back where it came from. It would then be included in the estate, which was a public record.
"Won't there be a copy of your will in his office?" Forrest asked, in the general direction of Harry Rex.
"No."
"Are you sure?" '
"I'm reasonably sure," Harry Rex said. "When you make a new will you physically destroy the old one. You don't want someone finding the old one and probating it. Some folks change their wills every year, and as lawyers we know to burn the old ones. The Judge was a firm believer in destroying revoked wills because he spent thirty years refereeing will contests."
The fact that their close friend knew something about their dead father, and that he was unwilling to share it, chilled the conversation. Ray decided to wait until he was alone with Harry Rex to grill him.
"Magargel's waiting," he said to Forrest.
"Sounds like fun."
They rolled the handsome oak casket down the east wing of the courthouse on a funeral gurney draped with purple velvet. Mr. Magargel led while an assistant pushed. Behind the casket were Ray and Forrest, and behind them was a Boy Scout color guard with flags and pressed khaki uniforms.
Because Reuben V Atlee had fought for his country, his casket was covered with the Stars and Stripes. And because of this a contingent of Reservists from the local armory snapped to attention when Retired Captain Atlee was stopped in the center of the courthouse rotunda. Harry Rex was waiting there, dressed in a fine black suit, standing in front of a long row of floral arrangements.
Every other lawyer in the county was present, too, and, at Harry Rex's suggestion, they were cordoned off in a special section close to the casket. All city and county officials, courthouse clerks, cops, and deputies were present, and as Harry Rex stepped forward to begin the crowd pressed closer. Above, on the second and third levels of the courthouse, another crowd leaned on the iron railings and gawked downward.
Ray wore a brand-new navy suit he'd purchased just hours earlier at Pope's, the only men's clothier in town. At $310 it was the most expensive in the store, and slashed from that hefty price was a ten percent discount that Mr. Pope insisted on giving. Forrest's new suit was dark gray. It cost $280 before the discount, and it had also been paid for by Ray. Forrest had not worn a suit in twenty years and swore he would not wear one for the funeral. Only a tongue lashing by Harry Rex got him to Pope's.
The sons stood at one end of the casket, Harry Rex at the other, and near the center of it Billy Boone, the ageless courthouse janitor, had carefully placed a portrait of Judge Atlee. It had been painted ten years earlier by a local artist, for free, and everyone knew the Judge had not been particularly fond of it. He hung it in his chambers behind his courtroom, behind a door so no one could see it. After his defeat, the county fathers placed it in the main courtroom, high above the bench.
Programs had been printed for the "Farewell to Judge Reuben Atlee." Ray studied his intently because he didn't wish to look around the gathering. All eyes were on him, and Forrest. Reverend Palmer delivered a windy prayer. Ray had insisted that the ceremony be brief. There was a funeral tomorrow.