– except spittoons and people. A low wooden rail with a swinging gate enclosed one corner of the room. Dusty made his way to the barrier, and gave his name to a graying, harried looking woman.
'McTeague?' she said. 'Something personal? You a friend of his? Well, you don't see Mac then. Kossy does all the seeing in this firm.'
'Well…' Dusty hesitated. He didn't want to see Kossmeyer – 'Caustic' Kossmeyer, as the newspapers called him. From what he had observed of the attorney, it would not be easy to say the things to him that he had come to say.
'Well,' the woman said. 'Kossmeyer?'
'You're sure I can't -?'
'Kossmeyer,' she said grimly. With finality. And jabbed a plug into her switchboard. 'Now sit down and stay put, will you? Don't go wandering off someplace where I can't find you.'
She kept her eyes on him until he sat down – on a bench between a middle-aged Mexican in soiled khakis and a middle-aged matron in crisp cretonne. Dusty started to light a cigarette, then noting the sidelong glance the matron gave him, dropped it into one of the ubiquitous spittoons. Uncomfortably, he looked around the room.
A young, scared-looking couple sat in one of the windows, holding hands. A few feet away from them, a paunchy man in an expensive suit talked earnestly to a bosomy, flashily dressed blonde. Two men with zoot coats and snapbrimmed hats were playing the match game. Three Negroes, obviously mother, father and son, huddled in a corner and conversed in whispers… It was as though a cross-section of the city's population had been swept up and set down in the room.
Dusty stood up, casually. The receptionist wasn't looking at him. He'd just saunter on out. Tomorrow he'd write a letter to the firm. A letter would do just as well as a personal talk – almost as well, anyway – and…
The door inside the barrier opened, and Kossmeyer came out. Rather, he lunged out, pushing a sharp-faced oldish young man ahead of him. His voice rasped stridently through the suddenly stilled room.
'All right,' he was saying. 'Suit yourself. Be your own lawyer. But don't come crying to me afterwards. You want to go to the jug, it's your funeral, but I ain't sending any flowers.'
'Now, look, Kossy' – the man's eyes darted around the room. 'I didn't mean-'
'You look,' said Kossmeyer. 'You ever see yourself in a mirror? Well, take a good gander…'
Dusty watched, fascinated.
Kossmeyer didn't look anything like the other man; he was barely five feet tall and he couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds. But now, despite their facial and physical dissimilarity, he looked strikingly like him. In an instant, he had made himself into a hideous caricature of the other. His eyes had become shifting and beady, his face sinisterly slack-jawed. He had called in his chest, simultaneously squaring his shoulders so that his elbows were forced out from his sides. His pants were drawn high beneath his armpits. He wore no coat, but he seemed to, a coat that hung almost to the knees like the other man's. Eyes darting he slowly revolved, not moving a muscle of his dead-pan face…
He was preposterous. Preposterous yet some how frightening. A cartoon labelled CRIME. And, then, suddenly, he was himself again.
'You seen Ace? You got three strikes called the minute they look at you. Just handing it to 'em straight ain't good enough. We got to knock 'em over, know what I mean? Pile it around 'em so high they can't see over it.'
The man nodded. 'You got me sold. Now, how about-'
'Beat it. Come back tomorrow.' Kossmeyer gave him a shove through the gate, and bent over the receptionist. He said, 'Yeah? Where?' and glanced up. Then Dusty heard him say, 'Oh… the son… junior…'
And the next instant he was out of the enclosure and gripping Dusty's hand.
'Glad to see you, Rhodes, Bill… No, I bet they call you Dusty, don't they? Come on in.'
Dusty hung back. Or tried to. 'I – it's nothing important, Mr. Kossmeyer. I can come back some other-'
'Nonsense.' The attorney propelled him through the throng. 'Been hoping you'd drop in. Let's see, you're over at the Manton, right? Nice people. Done a little work for them myself. How's your father? How you like this weather? What…?'
Talking, rapidly, answering his own questions, he ushered Dusty into his office and slammed the door.
Except for the bookcases, the room was practically as barren as the one outside. Kossmeyer waved Dusty to a chair, and perched on the desk in front of him.
'Glad you came in,' he repeated. 'Wanted to ask you, but I knew you worked nights. How about a drink? You look kind of tired.'
'Thanks. I don't drink,' Dusty said.
'Yeah? Well I was saying – I'm damned glad you came in. I got a pretty good idea how you feel, Dusty. We've been on this thing about a year now, and we seem to be getting nowhere fast. Your father still out of a job. You stuck with a lot of expenses. You're asking yourself, what the hell, and I don't blame-'
'About that' – Dusty cleared his throat. 'About the expenses, Mr. Kossmeyer. I'm afraid I can't – I mean, it seems to me that-'
'Sure.' The little man nodded vigorously. 'They've been high. Just the costs alone on a deal like this can hit a guy pretty hard. I-' he paused. 'You know that's all we've taken, don't you? Just the actual expense of filing briefs and serving papers, and so on.'
'Well, no,' Dusty said. 'I didn't know it. But-'
'But it's still too much,' Kossmeyer interrupted. 'Anything's too much when it ain't buying anything. But that's just the way it looks to you, y'know, Dusty? It's just the way it looks from the outside. Actually, we're making a lot of headway. We've been pouring in the nickels, and now we're just about to hit the jackpot. I-'
'Mr. Kossmeyer,' said Dusty, 'I want you to drop the case.'
'Huh-uh. No, you don't,' the lawyer said. 'You just think you do. Like I've been telling you, kid, we're just about to pick up the marbles. Give me two or three more months, and-'
'It won't do any good if Dad does win. He's not going to be able to go back to his job. He's not – well, he's just not himself any more.'
'Who the hell is?' Kossmeyer shrugged. 'But I know what you mean, Dusty. I've seen him myself, y'know. This knocked the props out from under him, and he's still going around in a daze. I'd say the best way to snap him out of it is to-'
'He's not physically well either. He's-'
'Sure, he's not,' Kossmeyer agreed. 'A man's sick, he's sick all over.'
'I want you to drop it,' Dusty said stubbornly. 'Winning the case won't really change anything. People will go right on thinking that – what they've been thinking. It would be impossible for him to work.'
'Yeah, but, kid…' Kossmeyer paused, a puzzled frown on his small, sharp-featured face. 'Let me see if I got you right, Dusty. We're supposed to have free speech in this country; it's guaranteed by the constitution. So a man does something in support of that guarantee, and a bunch of know-nothings and professional patriots do a job on him. He's right and they're as wrong as teeth in a turkey, but he's supposed to take it. Just crawl in a hole and stay there. Don't give 'em no trouble, so they can go on and do the same kind of job on another guy. Is that what you mean?'
'I'm sorry,' Dusty said doggedly. 'I can't help it that things are the way they are. It's not right, of course, but-'
'I think you're low-pricing your dad,' Kossmeyer said. 'He thought enough of this issue to go to bat on it. I don't see him running for the dugout just because they're tossing pop bottles. If he gets his job back – when he gets it back, I should say – he won't let 'em smoke him out. He'll be right in there pitching a long time after these bastards are,ducking for cover themselves.'
He nodded firmly. Dusty shook his head. 'I don't think he felt that way. I mean, well, like he was fighting for something. I doubt that he even knew what he was signing. Someone handed him a petition and he just…'
'Yeah?' Kossmeyer waited. 'Why didn't he say so, then? That it was all a misunderstanding? That would have let him off the hook.'
'Well,' Dusty hesitated… he probably thought they wouldn't believe him.'
'I see,' said Kossmeyer. 'Well, possibly you're right. After all, if a son doesn't know his father, who does?'
He stared at Dusty blandly, his bright black eyes friendly and guileless. And yet' there was something about him, there had been something for several minutes how, that was vaguely disturbing. He was like some small
