more. Okay, usually more. In fact, his regular clients knew to call there if they had an emergency, which is to say, if they were unexpectedly arrested by the vice squad.
Bobby racked the balls and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “For a twenty? Or is that too much?”
Mr. GQ recoiled. “Too much?” He slapped a twenty on top of Bobby’s bill and busted the rack. Not a ball fell.
Bobby chalked his cue tip. On his eighth straight stroke, he rolled the eight ball into the side pocket for the win. He reached over for the two bills when Mr. GQ said, “Double or nothing?”
Bobby smiled. The GQ dude didn’t make his money playing pool in a Mexican bar. Two games later, when his wife came looking for him, Bobby had netted $140, more than he made lawyering most days.
Boo saw a familiar face and said, “See that woman over there, the blonde?”
Boo pointed and Pajamae followed her finger. “Wearing the short shorts and heels? The real skinny girl?”
“She’s a lollipop.”
“A lollipop? You mean, like a sucker?”
“Unh-huh. See how her head looks too big for her body?”
Pajamae studied the woman. “She does look like a lollipop. That white girl needs to put some meat on her bones.”
“Mother said she eats and then she throws up.”
“’Cause she’s sick?”
“No, on purpose! So she doesn’t gain weight.”
“Boo, you pulling my leg?”
“No! She was Mother’s sorority sister. She married money.”
Pajamae frowned. “How do you marry money?”
“You look like her and you find an old man with money.”
“Oh. Kind of like Mama does, only it lasts longer.”
“Mother said she’s only thirty-three, but she’s had breast implants, a tummy tuck, a butt lift, and liposuction. Mother said the only part of her that’s real is her brain, and that’s only because they don’t do brain implants.” Boo shrugged. “That’s what Mother said, anyway.”
“Is her old man here?”
The lollipop turned and walked over to a white-haired man sitting on the love seat from the formal living room that was selling for $1,000. She sat down and he patted her skinny thigh.
“That’s him. Mother said he’s a billionaire.”
“He looks like her granddaddy. Mama would charge double to entertain a man as old as him. He must’ve paid a lot of money for his lollipop.”
Scott was taking cash faster than he could count for clothes he had never seen Rebecca wear, furniture he had never sat on, and rugs he had never stepped on. Rebecca had filled every square foot of the 7,500-square-foot residence with her stuff. Now Scott was selling six thousand square feet of her stuff. And he was enjoying it.
“Your daughter said to pay you.”
A middle-aged black woman had walked up to Scott.
“Hi, I’m Scott Fenney.”
“I’m Dolores Hudson. We just moved in down the street”-she smiled-“the first black homeowners in Highland Park history?”
“Oh, yeah, I read about you. Welcome to the neighborhood, although I won’t be here much longer.”
She gave him a sympathetic look. “I’ve read about you, too.”
“Yeah, well, you should believe everything you read.”
“I don’t think so. When are you moving?”
“I close on the sale of this place Thursday, then on the new place Friday. We’ll move right after the trial.”
“Well, if the timing doesn’t work out and you need a place to stay, you and the children come stay with us. And I bet those girls haven’t had any home cooking since your wife-”
She was embarrassed. But Scott smiled and said, “My wife didn’t cook.”
“Well, I do. I’ll bring something over.”
“Thank you, Dolores.”
“No, thank you, Scott. For what you’re doing. You know, we weren’t sure we were doing the right thing buying a home here. I didn’t know if I wanted to be the Rosa Parks of Highland Park, whether we’d be accepted here.”
“You did the right thing, Dolores. Most of the people here, particularly the younger ones, they’ll be fine. Some of the old-timers won’t accept you, but take it from me, you don’t want to be friends with them anyway.”
Dolores paid and said thanks again.
Boo was holding up a flowery sundress for a young woman.
“Luca Luca, you’ve heard of him, the Italian designer?”
“Of course. Who hasn’t?”
She took the dress from Boo and held it against her body. It was a perfect fit.
“Almost as pretty as it looked on my mother.”
“You know, I pledged the same sorority as your mother. She was six years before me. But she’s still a role model for all the girls-Miss SMU marries a football star who becomes a rich lawyer. It’s like Cinderella.”
Boo nodded. “I must’ve missed the part where Cinderella walks out on her family for a golf pro.”
Bobby was lining up a shot when someone stepped directly into his line of sight at the opposite end of the pool table. He raised up to tell the idiot to get the hell out of the way-
“Hi, Bobby.”
— and damn near hit himself with the pool cue.
“Karen, what are you doing here?”
“I quit.”
“What?”
“Ford Stevens.”
“You’re shi…You’re kidding me? Why?”
“I didn’t like the way they were making me think.”
“Like a lawyer?”
“Yeah.”
“Smart girl. What are you gonna do?”
“Work with you and Scott on your case.”
When the summer sun set on the yard sale at 4000 Beverly Drive in the heart of Highland Park, nothing was left-not a shoe or a dress or a lamp or even the pool table. In less than nine hours, Scott had sold most of the material possessions he had acquired during eleven years of marriage, all the things that evidenced his existence, his ambitions, his career, and his wife.
The girls were at the other end of the kitchen, adding up their profits on the floor. Louis was counting his tip money-“Six hundred dollars for carrying stuff”-and sitting with Scott, Bobby, and Karen Douglas on the floor and eating fried chicken Dolores Hudson had brought over. The table and chairs had sold for $1,500.
“Karen,” Scott said, “forget everything I ever told you about being a lawyer. I was wrong.”
“You’re a great lawyer, Scott, everyone at the firm says so, even since you left.”
“I didn’t leave. I got fired.”
“Well, even after that.”
“No, Karen, I was a corrupt lawyer. I cheated my clients, I cheated the law, and I cheated myself. I did whatever it took to win. I practiced law like it was a football game. It isn’t.”
“Karen wants to help us,” Bobby said.
“Why?”
Karen said, “Because you need help. And I like Bobby.”
Bobby dropped his drumstick.
Boo yelled over, “Sixty-seven thousand, four hundred fifty dollars.”
