'How did Roseanne Hazlitt come to know Mr and Mrs Jack Vanzandt, Bunny?'
'I took her out to their house once. I intro—'
'Introduced her to whom?'
'Just what I said. I took her to their house.'
His words were binding in his throat now, the scar along his jaw turning as dark as blood against his tan.
'Did you have sexual intercourse with Mrs Vanzandt?' I asked.
'Relevance, your honor,' Marvin said.
'I'll allow it,' the judge said. 'The witness will answer the question.'
'I did it once. It was 'cause she was mad over something, I mean with her husband. She was like that,' Bunny said.
'Did Roseanne ever slap you before that night at Shorty's?'
'No, sir.'
'Roseanne said her baptism might wash off on you. Why was she so angry at you, Bunny? Why did she feel so betrayed?'
'Cause she didn't have no friends left. Except Lucas. He's the only one done right by her.'
'But she wanted you to take her to her baptism? Because you owed her in a big way, didn't you?'
'I guess that's what she thought.'
'Why did you owe her, Bunny? Why did she say her baptism might wash off on you?'
He kneaded his hands between his thighs, the balls of his feet tapping neurotically on the stand, his head pulled down on his chest. His long hair fell down around his throat like a girl's.
'Answer the question, please,' I said, but I had lowered my voice now, the way you do when you hope your own capacity for cruelty will be forgiven.
'I drove her to Dallas to meet Mr Vanzandt. He rented three rooms at the Four Seasons, like there wasn't nothing unusual about him being with a couple of young people. But we all knew why we was there. I took her down to his room the first night, for drinks out on the balcony and all, but I left by myself,' he said.
He rested his forehead on his fingers, staring numbly at the floor. Then he added, as though his own behavior had been explained to him by someone else, 'That's what I done, all right.'
Emma Vanzandt rose from her chair and walked down the aisle and out of the courtroom, her face like parchment about to wrinkle in a flame.
'How many times did you do this?' I asked.
'Whenever he wanted her. At least up until she thought she was pregnant and he told her to get it cut out of her, 'cause he wasn't gonna have no woods colt with his name on it…'
The only sound in the courtroom was the hum of the fans and the rain clicking on the windowsills. No one looked at Jack Vanzandt, except his son, who studied his father as though a strange and new creature whom he didn't recognize had just swum into his ken.
Fifteen minutes later a power failure darkened the building for three hours, and Temple and Lucas and I drove to a barbecue restaurant on a hill that overlooked the river outside of town. It had stopped raining, and the sky in the west was blue and you could see the shadows of clouds on the hillsides.
Lucas couldn't eat. I reached over and picked a piece of blooddried tissue paper off his cheek where he had cut himself shaving.
'There's nothing to it. Just be who you are,' I said.
'Be who I am?' he said.
Temple was watching my face.
'You heard me. Tell the truth, no matter what it is. When you go on that stand, you just be Lucas. Don't try to hide anything, don't try to manipulate the jury, don't back away from a question,' I said.