“You just do what the judge told you to do,” Quentin said. “And pray he doesn’t remember your face the next time you show up in court.”

The mugger didn’t look frightened. “You gonna shoot me, old man?”

“My little brother, I will shoot you in the balls, and after you go limping away, I’ll plug you in the ass. Now drop that knife!”

Two seconds later the knife hit the ground.

“Listen to me, boy,” Joe Elder said. “You need money? There’s a bunch of nice ladies who work hard to keep up an old cemetery on Watkins Street. One of your ancestors might be buried there. You show up there next Wednesday afternoon. I’ll pay you to cut grass and help those ladies.”

The boy stared at the judge like he was crazy.

“If you don’t show, and you ever come before me in court? Boy, you’ll need diapers the rest of your life ’cause your asshole won’t close back up after your time in jail. You feel me?”

The boy bolted into the dark.

Judge Elder leaned over, picked up the knife, then threw it off the bluff into the kudzu below. “Jesus, Quentin. What’s this world coming to, when you can’t walk through a small town without getting mugged?”

“That’s pretty rare here, actually.”

“Not in Ferriday.” He blew a long stream of air from his cheeks. “You don’t carry that piece into court, do you?”

“Not yet.”

“You’re full of shit about me showing bias in the courtroom.”

“We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.”

Elder leaned on the fence and looked out over the gleaming river. Then he bent and pulled a weed stalk from the ground and stuck it between his teeth like a farm boy.

“You know, when I was growing up in Ferriday, folks used to say ‘Thank God for Mississippi,’ just so we wouldn’t be last in everything. But I believe Concordia Parish in those days was worse than any county in Mississippi. Except maybe the Gulf Coast.”

“Carlos Marcello had his hand in both places. Between his outfit and the local rednecks, it was pretty bad, Joe.”

Elder pushed himself off the fence and squatted in front of Avery’s wheelchair. “Quentin, what kind of crazy-ass game are you playing in my courtroom?”

Quentin smiled at his old protégé. “A long one.”

“Well, you’d better get your shit together quick. Or Dr. Cage is going to spend whatever time he’s got left in one of the worst prisons in America.”

Quentin’s eyes twinkled in the dark. “O ye of little faith. You’ve got no more confidence in me than that?”