In other words, he was perfect for the Memphis law firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke. Every one of the twenty partners in the firm was given a thick file on him. They knew that he had been born in poverty in Kentucky and brought up by his mother after his father's death. They knew that she had wasted the money the army gave her after her eldest son's death in Vietnam, and that only the other brother, Ray, had cared for him. They knew that he had won a place at Western Kentucky University because he was good at football, and had graduated top of his class. They could see the poverty hurt, and that he wanted to climb away from it.