“I’m talking about the Chicago judicial system. I know it sounds bad, but this was a judge asking for the money. This was the real world, not some moot court.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I tried to find that seventy-five thousand dollars.”

“How did you go about that?”

“First, I asked Mama for it. I was pretty sure she still had some money squirreled away. But she wouldn’t lift a finger to help Daddy, not by then. After her mother died in ’96, she lost a lot of empathy for Mr. Junius Jelks.”

And why was that? I wonder. But Shad doesn’t ask the question.

“So where did you get the money for the bribe?” he asks instead.

“From the escrow account of one of my clients.”

“You embezzled the money?”

“Yes, sir.”

A collective grunt of judgment comes from the gallery, but the tale is far from over. Redemption is still possible for our abused urchin.

“And what happened when you tried to pay the bribe?” Shad asks.

“The judge’s bagman took the money. But just by bad luck, my client learned I had dipped into his account, and he went after me. Before I knew what had happened, I’d been suspended, and Daddy had been sentenced to fifteen years without parole.”

“What happed to the money?”

“What do you think? The judge and his bagman played dumb. They’re probably still laughing today.”

“You must have had some hard feelings toward Junius Jelks by that time.”

“Not really, to tell you the truth. Not then. I thought we’d both been screwed by the system. I mean, he was guilty of fraud, sure, and I of embezzlement. But in my eyes, what that judge did was ten times worse. Abusing the public trust for his own gain?”

“Will you ever be allowed to practice law again?”

“Maybe. I hope so. First I have to pay restitution, but that’s hard to do when I can’t practice law to earn the money. It’s a catch-22.”

“Your mother wouldn’t help you pay the restitution?”

“No, sir. She thought I would just give the money to Daddy. Which he was asking me to do. He wanted to hire another lawyer and try to go after that crooked judge.”

“But you did ask your mother for the money?”

“Yes, sir. She flew into a rage. She said she wouldn’t waste one dollar trying to help Junius Jelks. They’d found her cancer by then, and she was pretty depressed. I think she blamed Daddy for most of the bad that had happened to us. She was screaming that he’d ruined my legal career.”

“Did you not blame Junius Jelks for that?”

“Not like she did.”

“Why not?”