handguns, child abuse, knives, crack addiction, and boxcutters. They were flooding in, choking the hallways and corridors, people that were downgraded to files and finally to statistics, the life bled from them, and the humanity.
For a second I felt stunned, thinking there was nothing I could do about it, no matter how hard I tried. Not even if I was right about Eileen, not even if I was wrong. Because there were twenty others waiting to take her place, itching to take aim. They lined ’em up, like the vice presidents. And they would be met with equal and opposite force, one that had arms as well as the law. There was a war on, truly, a pitched battle. And as clearly as I perceived it, I still didn’t know which side I was on. I was in the middle, at sea.
Rowing furiously, and not knowing either shore.
4
I walked to clear my head, striding down Benjamin Franklin Parkway under the colorful, oversized flags that hung from the streetlamps. They billowed like spinnakers in the stiff breeze from the Schuylkill River not ten blocks away, rattling the chains that fastened them to the poles. It made me wish I was out on the river, sculling. The water would be choppy in the wind and there’d be whitecaps, little ones that kept things exciting. Maybe tonight, I promised myself, as I headed to the chrome monolith known as the Silver Bullet, there to find my best friend Sam Freminet and drag him out to lunch.
I hit the building’s marble lobby and grabbed the first elevator, only to feel a familiar constriction in my gut as it headed skyward to my old law firm, the huge and insanely conservative Grun amp; Chase. We used to call it Groan amp; Waste, as in our young associates’ lives, but I hide those bad memories away. Groan amp; Waste didn’t own me anymore. Nobody did.
“Where’s that Looney Tune? He in?” I said to the young receptionist when the doors opened on Sam’s floor. She had no idea who I was, but knew exactly whom I meant.
“He’s in. Should I tell him who’s here?” She was reaching for the phone, unsure whether I was a lawyer or a troublemaker, when in fact I was a little of both.
“Bennie Rosato, his favorite Italian,” I said, and breezed past her questioning glance. I’ve gotten that look as many times as I’ve heard how’s the weather up there, because I don’t look Italian at all. With some cause.
I charged by the costly Amish quilts and large-scale oils on the walls, past secretaries with files in hand to give their conspiratorial giggling some ostensible business purpose. I didn’t recognize any of them; all the secretaries I knew were smart enough to leave. “Hey, ladies,” I said anyway, because I have a soft spot for secretaries. My mother used to be one, or so she says.
“Hello,” answered one, and the rest smiled. They assumed I was a client, since no Grun lawyer would greet a secretary.
An associate scurried self-importantly by, but I didn’t recognize him either. Of fifteen of us associates, only Sam had stayed and made partner. Since then he’d ascended the classes of partners to the tippy-top of the firm, becoming the youngest three-window partner ever, which is the tax-bracket equivalent of a five-star general. If they’d known Sam was gay and not merely eccentric, they would have set him on fire and billed somebody for it.
I reached Sam’s sunny office and closed the door behind me. “Honey, I’m homo!” I called out.
“Benniieeee!” Sam looked up, blue eyes bright behind neat rimless glasses. Tall and slim, he had a handsome face, with a straight nose and fine cheekbones, framed by reddish-brown hair that was trimmed every four weeks. “How are you doing?” he said, coming around the desk to give me a warm hug.
“I need cheering up. How are you?”
“I’m looney, as usual, and up-cheering is my specialty. Siddown.” He waved me into a leather sling chair and mock-tiptoed back to his desk. “Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. We’we hunting wabbits.”
I laughed and flopped into the chair.
“See? It’s working already.”
“I knew it would. That’s why I came.” My gaze wandered over the framed cartoon cels hanging on the walls amid Sam’s double Yale diplomas. Slumped on a glass-topped table against the far window were stuffed toys of Sylvester the Cat, Foghorn Leghorn, and Porky Pig. Pepe Le Pew had fallen into a pornographic clinch with the Tasmanian Devil. “I see Pepe’s out of control again.”
“Per usual. That skunk’s a regular JFK.”
“Don’t say that about my Pepe.”
“Pepe has no idea what matters in life. Daffy does. He’s a duck with priorities.”
“Like what?” I asked, though the answer was staring me in the face. A statue of Daffy sat on the desk, roosting atop a mountain of dollar bills and a sign that readBIGGER BETTER FASTER CHEAPER. “Money?”
“Yes, money, and don’t say it that way. Daffy is happening, Bennie. Daffy is God.”
“He’s too greedy.”
“You can never be too greedy,
“Because you’re morally bankrupt?”
“Only partly. The reason is, I understand money. Where it went, where it should have been, how to get it back. I have a sixth sense for it. You, on the other hand, maintain the absurd belief that love is more important than money. What kind of lawyer are you?”
“A dinosaur.”
“Extinct.”
“So be it. But Pepe Le Pew is my man.”
“‘Ah, ze l’amour. Ah, ze toujour. Ah, le grand illusion,’” Sam said. “ ‘Scent-imental Romeo’, 1951. You can be bought, too, you know.”
“Bullshit.”
“
“Thanks.”
Sam pouted, sticking out a lower lip. “I’m not cheering you up anymore, am I?”
“It’s okay.”
“What’s up, doc? You still feeling bad about Mark?”
I sighed in resignation. “It’s annoying, isn’t it? He dumped me a month ago. I should be getting over it.” I felt like kicking something, but most of the office furniture was glass.
“That’s not so long, Bennie. You were together for, what, six years?”
“Seven.”
“You’re going to hurt awhile, expect it. Fucking Eve is so lame. She was here last week with Mark, annoying the shit out of me. So smooth and plastic. She’s Lawyer Barbie.”
I didn’t want to dwell on it. “Why’d you call me last night, Samuel? I got home too late to call back.”
He hunched over his desk. “I’m worried. I heard a nasty rumor. There’s an associate defection in progress, did you know that?”
“At Grun, somebody going for the barbed wire?”
“No, at R amp; B.”
“What? At
“That’s what I heard,” he said, nodding. “A partner of mine in litigation got a call from one of your associates. The kid said he’d be looking for a job soon, and another associate was looking, too.”
“Who? Who were the associates?”
“They didn’t say. What’s going on, Bennie? Can you afford to lose two associates?”
“No, not with the cases I have coming in. Damn.” We had only seven associates, with Mark and me as the only partners. “It can’t be true.”
“Why not? You know how these things go, especially lately. Half the firms in the city are breaking up. Look at
