events, exchange recipes, that kind of thing.'
He's losing patience. 'Come on, Andy, can we move this along?'
'Okay. Let's pick a number, any number.' I point to a place on the sheet. 'How about this one?'
Holbrook looks where I'm pointing. 'What about it?'
'Dial it. On the speakerphone.'
He starts to argue, then shrugs and goes over to the phone, no doubt figuring that it'll get me out of his office that much sooner. As he goes back to his desk, we can both hear the phone ringing through the speaker.
The female voice comes through the phone. 'Carmichael residence.'
A look, of concern flashes across Holbrook's face as I walk toward the phone. 'Is the mayor home?' I ask.
'Who may I say is calling?'
I smile benignly at Holbrook and continue. 'Just tell him it's Deputy District Attorney John--'
Displaying catlike quickness that I had no idea he possessed, Holbrook leaps from his chair, moves deftly around his desk, lunges, and cuts off the call before I can finish identifying him. If he does as well on the parallel bars and horse as he's just done on the floor exercise, he's got a shot at the individual all-around.
With the phone safely hung up, he turns to me. 'Are you telling me the mayor bets with this guy? Is that what this little stunt was about?'
I shrug. 'Unless he's into recipes. I'll ask my client when I get him on the stand.'
Holbrook is indignant. 'You think this'll stop me? I didn't even vote for the son of a bitch.'
'On the other hand, he did appoint your boss.' I point to the list. 'Care to try another call?'
'Who else is on here? The pope?'
'My client is a really friendly guy who just loves to chitchat. You know the type?'
'Yeah, I know the type exactly,' he says. 'Now, get the hell out of my office.'
So that's what I do. I get out of his office and go to my own. On the way I call Danny and tell him that justice is about to prevail. He's really happy and asks how much he owes me. I tell him five hundred and we let it ride on the 76ers tonight. Maybe I'll win, and maybe I won't. Whatever.
My office these days is not exactly a beehive of activity. Edna, my erstwhile secretary, doesn't even look up from the
My call list consists of three charities and a wanna-be client, whom I've already turned down, but who is persistent. It's a DUI case, which resulted in a near-fatal injury to a pedestrian. The potential client, when he came to see me, had the smell of liquor on his breath. The decision to pass on the case was not a close call.
I sit at my desk for a while, moving the papers from the right side of the desk over to the left. That makes the desk look left-heavy, so I move half the papers-back to the right. The problem is, with papers now on each side, there's no place for me to put my feet up. So with my feet resting uncomfortably on the floor, I pick up the newspaper and read about the discovery of Alex Dorsey's headless body. In order to sell papers, the media usually try to make murders sound gory and disgusting. In this case, with those qualities preexisting, they are pretending to be embarrassed at having to participate in the revelations.
The meeting with Holbrook this morning, though it wasn't exactly arguing before the Supreme Court, has had an effect on me. I realize that I'm getting ready to get back in the action, that I want a case to sink my legal teeth into.
Since I don't happen to have one right now, and since Edna is paying no attention to me at all, I get up and wander down the hall to Sam Willis's office. Sam has been my accountant ever since I moved into this building.
Actually, Sam and I have exchanged professional services. Sam is nothing short of brilliant in two areas. On the one hand, he is as close as anyone I've met to being a financial genius. He knows everything there is to know about money and the rules that govern it. He also has an amazing and complementary expertise in computers, at least as it relates to financial matters. Sit him at a keyboard, and he is a true maestro.
Just a month or so after we met, Sam was accused of illegal hacking, a crime of which he was guilty. The mitigating circumstance, at least in my mind, was that he was retaliating on behalf of a client who was wronged by a large corporation. I got him off on a technicality, and we've been friends ever since.
The thing I find confusing about Sam is that, even though it must have taken a very significant amount of work and drive to learn all that he knows, he has never seen fit or been able to channel that drive into his own financial success. He should be financial guru to fee corporate stars, but instead his client list reads like a who's who of schleppers. As a former low-income nobody, I had fit right in. When I came into all this money, Sam got so excited I thought he was going to have a stroke.
Sam is in his office with Barry Leiter, a twenty-three-year-old whom Sam hired out of high school. Barry has been putting himself through night school at Rutgers in Newark by working for Sam, who claims that Barry is even better than he is on a computer. Sam clearly likes the idea of having a protege.
Sam and I have this ongoing contest that we call song-talking. The trick is to work song lyrics into a conversation. Just doing it is a plus; doing it without the other person realizing it is a total victory.
'Hey, Sam,' I say, 'what good is sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play.'
I expect him to ridicule my 'Cabaret' opening as the feeble attempt that it is, but he doesn't seem to pay it any attention at all. The look on his face is of a man in real distress. 'Hello, Andy,' he says with no enthusiasm whatsoever. He then shoots a quick glance at Barry, who takes it as a sign he should leave, which he does.
'What's the matter?' I ask.
Sam sighs. 'Everything.'
'What does that mean?'
He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. 'You ever meet my younger brother, Billy? When he came to visit?'
I nod. Billy lives in Pittsburgh, but he came to visit Sam last year and I met him then.
'He's been sick, you know?' I didn't know, but I nod, and Sam continues. 'At first nobody noticed, not even him, but he started feeling a little weak, and it seemed like no matter how much he ate, he was losing weight.'
'How much weight?' I ask.
'I thought just a few pounds, like five or ten. I've been talking to him on the phone, a few times a week, and he doesn't sound good, but he tells me he's just a little under the weather. That's how he puts it: a little under the weather.' Sam shakes his head sadly. I think I see tears in his eyes. This can't be good.
He continues. 'So I'm out there this weekend, for my mother's birthday, and I ask where's Billy, and Mom says, 'Up in his room. He's feeling under the weather.' All of a sudden I got a family full of meteorologists, you know? So I go up to his room … man, I'll never forget it as long as I live.'
'What?' I prompt, although I dread hearing it.
He composes himself before continuing. 'Billy … he … he's like wasting away, Andy. Right in front of me. He was this big guy, remember? Maybe a hundred and ninety pounds. You know what he weighs now? One fifteen. One fifteen! He's like skin and bones, just waiting to die.'
I shake my head; there's not much to say.
'So I take one look at him, and I get mad, you know? All these months, he's been lying to me, not telling me how sick he really was. I was so pissed, I just wanted to walk out of there and never come back.'
'So what did you do?'
He shrugs. 'What could I do? I mean, Billy, all skin and bones like that … I figured, 'he ain't heavy, he's my brother.''
Sam starts to cackle, recognizing full well that he has taken song-talking to a new level. The fact that he was willing to fake an agonizing, fatal disease for his own brother in the process does nothing to temper his glee.
I hang around for a little while, but nothing I say can take the satisfied smirk off his face, and it starts to get on my nerves. I head back to my office, preferring the company of the oblivious Edna.
Edna is not alone when I get back. Waiting with her is a tall man, maybe six foot two, with short black hair slicked back. He is wearing a leather jacket that without question cost more than it takes to adopt a family of
