Bluff Walk. Charles R. Crawford

no, Thomas sells them. Hilfiger, Polo clothes, Nike shoes, all sorts of sports stuff.”

      “I assume he’s not a licensed distributor,” I said.

      “No, he’s a thief. Or at least he gets other people to steal it for him. Kids go into department stores and grab a whole stack of jeans and run out to a car waiting for them. Or somebody breaks into a truck or a train car, or even a warehouse, and gets the stuff. You know what they say, man. Memphis is America’s distribution center. Anyway, the thieves bring it to Thomas because he gives them a fair price.”

      “How does he sell it?” I asked.

      “On the black market, no pun intended. He’s got a van that he drives into the neighborhoods. He pulls up at a store or playground after dark and sets up shop. Word goes out real quick that the Designer is on the scene. He sells at a forty percent discount off retail and still makes a killing.”

      “Free enterprise at work, huh? So what do you think has happened to him?” I asked.

      “It beats the hell out of me,” he said, shaking his head.

      “My first guesses are out of town or dead,” I said. “What do you think about those options?”

      “If it weren’t Thomas, I’d say you were right,” he responded. “But Thomas has got a thriving business and this crack rap was bullshit. I don’t think he’d leave town. A real crack dealer might. I’ve had four skip out on me during the last twelve months. I don’t write them anymore.”

      “What about the dead choice?”

      “It’s more likely, but I’m having a hard time believing that one, too.”

      “Why?” I asked. “You don’t think Thomas was dealing crack, but the police do. Even if he’s not, here’s a guy who was driving around in war zones with all kinds of cash, and everybody knew it.”

      “I see your point, but Thomas was an urban legend, almost a hero. Some crackhead might off him for his cash, but the average gangbanger would no more shoot him than he would Jesse Jackson. And if a crackhead had shot him, the cops would have found the body the next day. Somebody like that is not going to hide a corpse, at least not well.”

      “You seem to have a pretty good handle on this crack stuff,” I said.

      “I ought to. One way or the other it supplies a good chunk of my business. People get arrested for buying it, selling it, using it, stealing for it, whoring for it, killing for it.”

      “Did you ever use it?” I asked.

      “Do I look stupid?”

      “I was just wondering what people see in it.”

      “If you want to find out, you can go out there on the sidewalk and buy some right now. And if you’re like nine out of ten people, it’ll be the first day of the end of your life.”

      “My curiosity doesn’t extend to that personal risk,” I said.

      “Then maybe you’re not as dumb as you look,” he said.

      “I appreciate that,” I said. “I think.”

      “What else can I tell you?” he asked. “Business will start picking up soon.”

      “Does Thomas have a lawyer?” I asked.

      “Not as far as I know. He had Clyde Johnson when he got sent to the penal farm the last time he was arrested. But I called Clyde a couple of days ago and he said he wasn’t representing him and hadn’t heard from him in years.”

      “Did Thomas say anything about why he might have been arrested for crack?” I asked.

      “Just that he had no idea why. He figured it was some mistake. The cops make them sometimes.”

      “Well, thank you for your time,” I said. “You’ve got my card there in your book if you think of anything else.”

      He turned the book on the counter over, opened it to my card, and stuck the card in the pocket of his t-shirt. He was reading a law school casebook on securities regulation.

      “Are you going to law school?” I asked.

      “Yeah, I’m in my last year. Does that surprise you?” he asked.

      “No, but it impresses me. Working a full time job and getting through three years of grind would take more energy than I have.”

      “How do you know? Did you go to law school?” he asked, pulling my card out of his pocket and looking at it for the first time.

      “Yeah, but I don’t practice anymore,” I said.

      He looked at me questioningly, but didn’t say anything.

      “Are you going to stay in this line, do criminal work?” I asked.

      “No, man, I’m going to get as far away from it as I can,” he replied. “I want to do corporate and securities work. I’m tired of whores and thieves.”

5 _____________________

      By the time I got back to the office, it was after four. I put in a call to an acquaintance at the DA’s office, but didn’t get anything but her voice mail. I decided to wrap it up for the day.

      I put on my workout clothes and ran over to the Y. I did weights and then stayed on the treadmill too long trying to impress the twenty five-year-old aerobics instructor who was on the stationary bike next to me. Just when I knew I couldn’t go on, she got off and left with some guy even younger than she was with tattoos and an earring. I walked home slowly, and decided right before I got there that I probably wasn’t going to puke.

      I showered and drank a beer, and then made a sandwich, my second nutritious meal of the day. After I ate, I cleaned up and made a pot of decaffeinated coffee. I got a light blanket and took a cup out on the balcony.

      The air was at least ten degrees cooler than when I had come in an hour before, and a strong breeze from the north added to the chill. Despite the city glow, the stars were out in a navy blue sky. Reflections from the lights on the M-shaped Hernando DeSoto bridge shimmered and danced on the black, shifting surface of the river. Interstate 40, from Los Angeles to the Carolina coast, and Interstate 55, from the Gulf of Mexico to Chicago, both crossed that bridge. On the river, barges cruised up and down, south towards Natchez and New Orleans, north towards St. Louis. Despite all the traffic, I was far enough removed that the noise was only a distant rumble.

      I sat down on a reclining lawn chair covered with a plastic and foam pad, and pulled the blanket over me. I sipped my coffee and let my mind wander over the day. I tried to think about the Tuggle case, but my inclination for analytical thought was non-existent.

      Despite a half-hearted effort not to let them go there, my thoughts drifted to my ex-wife. She was in business school at Vanderbilt when I was in law school. Mutual friends had fixed us up, knowing that I was from Memphis and that she had accepted an offer from Federal Express. She was from Michigan, short, vivacious and brunette, with a direct way about her that was new and different for a southern boy. There was never any doubt in my mind that I loved her more than she loved me.

      Neither one of us had much money, but she was determined to get as much as she could, and made no apologies for her attitude. It was the go-go eighties, and she could have joined an investment banking firm in New York or a Silicon Valley company, but she thought an established but innovative company like FedEx fit in better with her life plan. I wasn’t established or innovative, but I must have fit in somewhere, so we got married two weeks after graduation.

      We moved into a one-bedroom apartment in midtown, and I took the bar exam and then started as an associate with the Lipscomb Riley firm. It wasn’t the largest firm in the city, but it was one of the oldest and most prestigious. Kathleen started immediately at FedEx.

      I went straight to the commercial litigation team at Lipscomb Riley, working on commercial disputes