The five members of the parole board were pressured by Keith, Bill Allain, and many others, including the governor, to say no. By a vote of 5–0, parole was denied.
For Keith, the relief was only temporary. Because of his good behavior in prison, Lance’s sentence would soon end, and he would be free to return to the Coast and resume operations. With Fats dead, and honest men running both the sheriff’s office and the city of Biloxi, no one knew what mischief Lance would create. Perhaps he would attempt to go straight and stay out of trouble. He had plenty of legitimate properties to oversee. But whatever he decided to do, Keith would be watching.
With her husband’s return imminent, Carmen Malco finally filed for divorce. Her lawyers negotiated a generous settlement, and she left the Coast and moved to Memphis, only two hours from Parchman. She visited her son on death row every Sunday.
She did not visit her ex-husband.
* * *
In February, Keith, Ainsley, and the rest of the Rudy clan threw a large announcement party at the Broadwater Beach Hotel near the Strip. The main ballroom was packed with family and friends, most of the local bar, the courthouse gang, and an impressive group of business leaders from the Coast. Keith gave a rousing speech and promised to use the AG’s office to continue to fight crime, specifically the drug trade. Cocaine was raging through the country, and south Mississippi was riddled with distribution points that changed weekly. The cartels had more men and money, and the state, as usual, was lagging behind with its interdiction efforts. Without getting too carried away, Keith took a generous share of the credit for cleaning up the Coast, but warned that the old vices of gambling and prostitution were nothing compared to the dangers of cocaine and other drugs. He promised to go after not only the narco-traffickers and street pushers, but also the public officials and cops who looked the other way.
From Biloxi, Keith and Ainsley flew to Jackson for another announcement event. He was the first candidate to qualify for the AG’s race and the press was interested. He drew a nice crowd at a Jackson hotel, then met with a group of trial lawyers who had money and were always politically active.
Keith had about a hundred friends from law school scattered around the state, and for the past six months had been priming that network for support. Since he was not challenging an incumbent, his friends were eager to get involved and most of them signed on. From Jackson, Ainsley went home and Keith hit the road in a leased car, alone. For eighteen straight days he crisscrossed the state, meeting with volunteers recruited by his lawyer pals, glad-handing his way through courthouses, speaking at civic clubs, talking with editors of small-town newspapers, and even hustling votes in busy shopping centers. He stayed with friends and spent as little as possible.
In his first campaign trip, he visited thirty-five of the eighty-two counties and signed up hundreds of supporters. The money started trickling in.
His strategy was to run hard in the southern half of the state and carry the Coast by a wide margin. One likely opponent was from Greenwood, in the Delta. Another was a state senator from a small town near Tupelo. Several others were being discussed, but all of them lived north of Jackson. There was no clear favorite for the vacant office, not until a newspaper editor in Hattiesburg informed Keith that he had placed first in an unofficial poll. When this became a story, on page four of the first section, Keith ran a thousand copies of the article and sent it to his volunteers and supporters. The same editor told Keith the Rudy name was highly recognized. The candidate embraced his role as the front-runner and worked hard to convince everyone else.
Since losing to Jesse in 1971, Rex Dubisson had built a high-powered law practice specializing in offshore oil rig injuries. He was a making a fortune and was active in the lawyers’ organizations. He leaned on his fellow tort stars and passed the hat. When he felt like they weren’t serious enough, he passed it again. Then he hosted a cocktail party at Mary Mahoney’s and informed Keith that he had raised $100,000 and was promising at least that much by summer. Rex was also busy picking the pockets of national trial lawyers and tort firms, and was optimistic that even more money could be raised.