Sycamore Row - John Grisham

old friend of Judge Atlee’s. I think he’s semiretired.”
“And he gets paid out of the estate?”
“Where else would the money come from?”
“Okay, so who all gets paid out of the estate?”
The lawyer thought for a moment, then said, “The estate lawyer, which is Jake for the
time being, though I don’t know if he’ll last. Rumor is he’s already fed up with the
Memphis lawyers and thinking of quitting. The administrator gets paid from the estate.
Accountants, appraisers, tax advisers, folks like that.”
“Who pays Sistrunk?”
“I’m assuming he has a contract with that woman. If she wins, he’ll take a
percentage.”
“What the hell is Rufus Buckley doing slinking around the case?”
“He’s the local counsel for Sistrunk.”
“Hitler and Mussolini. They trying to offend every single person in Ford County?”
“Apparently so.”
“And it will be a jury trial, right?”
The lawyer answered, “Oh yes. Seems like everyone wants a jury trial, including
Judge Atlee.”
“Why Judge Atlee?”
“It’s simple. Takes the monkey off his back. He doesn’t have to make the decision.
You’re gonna have big winners and big losers, and with a jury verdict no one can blame
the judge.”
“I’ll lay ten-to-one odds right now the jury finds against that woman.”
The lawyer said, “Let’s wait, okay? Let’s give it a few months so Judge Atlee will have
time to put everyone in their box, get things organized and planned and set for a trial.
Then right before it starts we’ll set up a pool and lay odds. I enjoy taking your money.
What, four Super Bowls in a row now?”
“How they gonna find twelve people who know nothing about this case? Everybody I
know’s got an opinion, and you can be damned certain every African within a hundred
miles is angling for a cut. I heard Sistrunk wants to move the trial to Memphis.”
The lawyer said, “It can’t be moved out of state, knucklehead. But he has requested a
change of venue.”
“Didn’t Jake try and move the Hailey case? To a friendlier county, one with more
black voters?”
“He did, but Judge Noose declined. Hailey was a far bigger case than this one,
though.”
“Maybe. It didn’t have twenty million bucks on the line.”
The Democratic geezer asked the lawyer, “You think Jake can win this case for that
woman?”
Everyone stopped talking for a second and looked at the lawyer. He’d been asked the
same question at least four times in the past three weeks while sitting at the same table.
“Depends,” he said gravely. “If Sistrunk is in the courtroom, there’s no way they win. If
it’s just Jake, then I’d give him a fifty-fifty chance.” And this from a lawyer who never