Southern Justice, Part 55

I’m Fixin’ To present part 55 of Southern Justice:

The next morning Ray McKinley arrived at the appointed hotel restaurant 30 minutes early and waited until he was able to secure a booth that gave him a full view of the front entrance. A waiter brought him coffee, juice, ice water and directed his attention to the breakfast buffet. “Might as well go ahead and eat,” Ray mumbled to himself. “I didn’t come here to dine with this guy, just to blackmail him.”

He was polishing off the remains of a huge breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage and biscuits with gravy when he saw a bleary eyed Roland James walk into the restaurant. He said something to the hostess and then just stood there nervously looking all around.

After a few moments of enjoying his quarry’s discomfort while he cleaned his plate, Ray pushed it aside and walked over to the juice bar. After filling his glass with orange juice, he detoured to the entrance, stopped in front of Roland, put on his best tough guy look and said as he turned away, “Good morning, Mister James. Why don’t you just follow me.”

The waiter was right behind Roland as he slid into the booth across the table from Ray. He sat a cup in front of him and began pouring coffee while he asked, “Will you be having breakfast, sir?”

“No, just coffee,” Roland replied, and as soon as he was out of earshot he gave Ray a hard look and said, “Would you mind telling me what this is all about?”

“Nothing to tell Mister James, but I do have something to show you. Why don’t you take a gander at these photos,” Ray said as he passed the large brown envelope across the table to him.

With visibly trembling fingers Roland only got the first photo half way out of the envelope before he let out a loud gasp as his eyes widened and his face drained of all color.

“There are two more behind that one,” Ray informed him. “I want you to take a look at all three, but you might want to kind of hold them down out of public sight. When you’ve taken a good look I want you to put them back in the envelope and pass it back to me.”

“Oh my God!” Roland gasped. “I was afraid it was something like this! How much do you want? I’ll pay whatever it is!”

Ray thought for a moment he was going to break down in tears when he passed the envelope back. So he put on his good-guy face and said, “Now just take it easy. We don’t want any money—just a favor.”

“What-what-what kind of favor?” Roland stammered.

Ray took a deep breath and began. “On this past Monday afternoon you were at the county courthouse where you filed a law suit on behalf of Rick Haselton, Junior, to contest the will of his late father. We want that suit withdrawn today.

We also want all the original documents pertaining to it destroyed; furthermore, you are to have no communications with your client until after June the fifth. If you choose not to do this we’ll deliver a copy of these photographs to your wife, your church, your office building, and we’ll blow them up into poster size and plaster them all over—-”

“Stop!” Roland pleaded. It’s no problem—I’ll do what you want!”

“Today, by four o’clock,” Ray emphasized.

“Yes, it’ll be done exactly as you stated.”

Ray squinted his eyes as he said, “We have our ways of knowing whether or not our request has been completed.”

“Please,” Roland pleaded. “Let me assure you that it’ll be done at once. Uh, would you mind informing me who it is that you represent?”

“I don’t represent anybody and you’ve never seen me before,” Ray said as he got up and put on his coat. “I suggest you stay here and enjoy your coffee for about 10 minutes. And don’t forget to pay our check before you leave.”

Ray drove directly to B. Wendell’s office from the hotel. He had to wait until ten o’clock before his boss arrived. They immediately retired to his private office where Ray related the morning’s events to him while B. Wendell devoured six Krispy Kreme donuts.

“You think he meant it?” B. Wendell asked while he licked the sugar from his fingers.

“Hell yes, he meant it. He was ‘bout scared to death!”

B. Wendell was still licking his fingers when he said, “At five minutes after four this afternoon I want you to call Judge Garrett’s private number and we’ll find out just how scared Attorney Roland James is.”