'And you?'

'You're right. I didn't fit. Because I wanted something different. I was going to make something of myself. My granny, she was the same. The black folks down there used to say she was a hard old woman who put on airs about how fine she was, even though she lived in a little shack with no indoor plumbing and a chicken coop in the back. The ones that made it out – like your goddamn Tanny Brown – couldn't stand that she had pride. Couldn't stand that she wouldn't bow her head to no one. You met her. She strike you as the type likely to step aside on the sidewalk and let someone else pass?'

'No, she didn't.'

'She's been a fighter all her life. And when I came along, and I wasn't a get-along type like they wanted, well, they just came after me.'

He looked ready to go on, but Cowart stopped him. 'Okay, Ferguson, fine. Let's say that's all true. And let's say that I write the story: Flimsy evidence. Questionable identification. Bad lawyer. Beaten confession. That's only half of what you promised.' He had Ferguson's full attention now. 'I want that name. The real killer, you said. No more screwing around.'

'What promises do I have…'

'None. My story, to tell as I report it.'

'Yeah, but it's my life. Maybe my death.'

'No promises.'

Ferguson sat down and looked over at Cowart. 'What do you really know about me?' he asked.

The question set Cowart back. What did he know? 'What you've told me. What others have told me.'

'Do you think you know me?'

'Maybe a bit.'

Ferguson snorted. 'You're wrong.' He seemed to hesitate, as if rethinking what he had just said. 'What you see is what I am. I may not be perfect, and maybe I said and did things I shouldn't have. Maybe I shouldn't have pissed off that whole town so much so that when trouble came driving down the roadway, they only thought to look for me, and they let their trouble just drive on past, without even knowing it.'

1 don't get it.'

'You will.' Ferguson closed his eyes. 'I know I may come on a bit strong sometimes, but you got to be the way you are, right?'

'I suppose.'

'That's what happened in Pachoula, you see. Trouble came to town. Stopped a couple of minutes and then left me behind to get swept up with all the other broken little pieces of life there.' He laughed at Cowart's expression. 'Let me try again. Imagine a man – a very bad man – driving a car heading south, pulling off the roadway into Pachoula. He stops, maybe to eat a burger and some fries, beneath a tree, just outside a school yard. Spots a young girl. Talks her into his car because he looks nice enough. You've seen that place. It ain't hard to find yourself out in the swamp in a couple of minutes, all alone and quiet. He does her right there and drives on. Leaves that place forever, never thinking about what he did for more'n one or two minutes, and that's only to remember how good it felt to him to take that little girl's life.'

'Keep going.'

'Man zigzags down the state. A little trouble in Bay City. A bit in Tallahassee. Orlando. Lakeland. Tampa. All the way to Miami. Schoolgirl. Tourist couple.

Waitress in a bar. Problem is, when he gets to the big city, he's not quite as careful, and he's busted. Busted bad, busted big time. Murder one. Sound familiar?'

'Starting to. Keep going.'

'After a couple of years in court, man ends up right here on the Row. And what does he discover when he gets here? A big joke. Biggest joke he could ever imagine. Man in the cell next to him is waiting a date for the crime he committed and nearly goddamn forgot about because there were so many crimes, they all sort of got rolled together in his mind. Laughs so hard he'd like to split a gut. Only it isn't so funny for the man in the next cell, is it?'

'You're telling me that…'

'That's right, Mr. Cowart. The man who killed Joanie Shriver is right here on Death Row. Do you know a man named Blair Sullivan?'

Cowart breathed in sharply. The name exploded like shrapnel in his head. 'I do.'

'Everyone knows Blair Sullivan, right, Mr. Reporter?'

That's right.'

'Well, he's the one that did her.'

Cowart felt his face flush. He wanted to loosen his tie, stick his head out some window, stand in a breeze somewhere, anything to give himself some air. 'How do you know?'

"The man told me! Thought it was the funniest damn thing.'

'Tell me exactly what he said.'

'Not too long after he got sent up here, he was moved into the cell next to mine. He's not all there, you know. Laughs when nobody's made a joke. Cries for no reason. Talks to himself. Talks to God. Shit, man's got this awful soft voice, kinda makes a hissing sound, like a snake or something. He's the craziest motherfucker I've ever met. But crazy same as a damn fox, you know.

'Anyway, after a week or two, we get to talking and of course he asks me what I'm doing there. So I tell him the truth: I'm waiting on the death man for a crime I didn't do. This makes him grin and chuckle and he asks me what crime. So I tell him: Little girl in Pachoula. Little blonde girl, he says, with braces? Yeah, I say. And then he starts to laugh and laugh. Beginning of May? he asks. Right, I says. Little girl all cut up with a knife, body tossed in a swamp? he asks. Right again, I say, but how come you know so much about this? And he keeps giggling and laughing and snorting and just rolling about, wheezing, he thinks it's so funny. Hell, he says, I know you didn't do that girl, 'cause I did. And she was mighty fine, too. Man, he says, you are the sorriest fuck on this row, and he keeps laughing and laughing. I was ready to kill him right there, you see, right there, and I start screaming and yelling and trying to get through the bars. Goon squad comes down the row, flak jackets and truncheons and those helmets with the plastic shit in front of their eyes. They pound my ass for a bit and haul me off to isolation. You know isolation? It's just a little room with no window and a bucket and a cement cot. They toss you in there naked until you get your act together sufficiently.

'By the time I got out, they had shifted him off to another tier. We don't get exercise the same time, so I don't see him. Word has it, he's really off the deep end. I can hear him sometimes at night, yelling for me. Bobby Earl, he calls out, kinda high-pitched and nasty. Bobbbbby Earrrrll! Why won't you talk to meeeeee? Then he laughs when I don't call back. Just laughs and laughs and laughs.'

Cowart shivered. He wanted to have a moment to stand back and assess the story he'd heard, but there was no time. He was locked in, fastened by the words that had flowed from Robert Earl Ferguson.

'How can I prove this?'

I don't know, man! It ain't my job to prove things!'

'How can I confirm it?'

'Damn! The sergeant'll tell you they had to move

Sullivan away from me. But he don't know why. No one knows why, except you and me and him.'

'But I can't…'

'I don't want to hear what you can and can't do, Mr. Reporter. People all my life have been telling me lots of can'ts. You can't be this, you can't do that, you can't have this, you can't even want that. That's my whole life, man, in one word. I don't want to hear it no more.'

Cowart was silent. 'Well,' he said, 'I'll check…'

Ferguson turned swiftly, pushing his face toward him, his eyes electric with fury. 'That's right. You go check' the prisoner said. 'Go ask that bastard. You'll see, damn you, you'll see.'

Then Ferguson rose abruptly, pushing himself away from the table. 'Now you know. What you gonna do? What can you do? Go ask some more damn questions, but make damn sure I ain't dead before you finish asking 'em.'

The prisoner walked over to the door and started pounding on it. The noise was like gunshots reverberating in the small room. 'We're finished in here!' he called. 'Sergeant Rogers! Damn!' The door staggered under the violence of his assault. When the prison guard swung the door open, Ferguson tossed a single look back at Cowart, then said, I want to go back to my cell. I want to be alone. I don't need to make any more talk. No, sir.' He held out his hands and they were cuffed. As the manacles were clicked shut around his wrists, he looked once more at the reporter. His eyes were piercing, harsh, filled with challenge and demand. Then he turned and disappeared through the doorway, leaving Cowart sitting quietly, feeling for all the world as if his legs were dangling over the edge of a whirlpool, threatening to suck him in.