As Hadley understood the operation, migrant fruit pickers often wished to be paid at the end of every day they worked in the fields, and labor contractors paid only weekly.  But a worker could receive daily wages through his crew boss, who paid him with cash supplied by the illegal lenders.  On Friday afternoon, a worker would receive his paycheck from the crew boss outside small rural groceries—so-called “country stores”—owned by the loan sharks, who cashed the checks and retained the amount they were owed, plus 10 percent interest for the week.  A crew boss would receive a portion of the interest that each of his workers paid.  The scheme potentially involved many hundreds of migrant workers, each of whom might earn $40 to $50 a day, or more, at the peak of the season.

Zeigler said that the loan sharks coveted James’s liquor license.  Since the group already controlled most of the “country stores,” which sold beer and wine, James’s license would mean a virtual monopoly on sales of alcohol in the black areas of Winter Garden and Oakland.

Zeigler said that the same group had attempted to force James out of business in 1974 by enforcing codes against the ramshackle old structure where James owned the tavern known as Brown’s Bar.  Zeigler and his father had persuaded Winter Garden’s pastors—in particular Fay De Sha, the influential minister of the First Baptist Church—to agree to a temporary relaxation of zoning laws so that James could rebuild.

Zeigler vouched for James’s character and helped Hadley to organize a defense based on the theory that James was being framed.  As Hadley recalled it in 1991, that defense would have been impossible without Zeigler.

What was in this for Zeigler?  Nothing, as far as Hadley could tell.  Zeigler seemed genuinely affronted that criminal methods were being used to deprive an honest man of his livelihood.

Zeigler said he knew that Andrew James was innocent, for he had visited James in the bar many tines.  Hadley thought this was remarkable: Brown’s Bar was in black neighborhood and had a black clientele.  It was a place where few whites ever ventured without a compelling reason.

Hadley soon discovered that Zeigler moved through West Orange’s black communities with ease and confidence, unlike any other white man Hadley had ever known.  He did not seem to be an interloper.  At one point, Hadley wanted to interview a black ex-convict who was wary of white authority.  Andrew James could not persuade the man to speak to Hadley.  But Tommy Zeigler did.

Hadley was also impressed by the friendship between James and Zeigler.  James respected Zeigler, but did not automatically defer to him.  Zeigler did not condescend to James.  Tommy Zeigler’s political ideas were reflexively conservative, but Hadley found him open and equal in his personal dealings with black people.