Hitching my shoulder, I strolled them both down the old school hall. There were still those little half-height metal lockers on either side on which various enterprising youngsters had scraped their initials, hearts, and an obscenity or two, all of these symbols now enlarging in rust.
'Can you believe this?' Brushy asked. 'It's phenomenal.'
'It certainly is,' I answered. 'Just phenomenal. Right at the last minute.
Brushy looked at me strangely.
'Tell her, Toots,' I said.
The old guy stared up at me dumbly. He wiped his mouth with the heel of his hand.
'It must have been a tough decision, Toots, to hire someone who looked more like Barry Fitzgerald or Bing Crosby.'
'Mack,' said Brushy.
Toots wouldn't even feign injury.
'Forget me. Forget you,' I said to him.
He displayed the rumpled-up sour face that appeared whenever I corrected him. He'd sunk onto another bench and was staring vacantly down the hall, rattling his cane and doing his best not to look at me. Somewhere a radiator spit a bit. I had not quite shaken the chill of winter since getting off the plane.
Brushy, now that it had come through, had lost color.
'Is he a priest at least?'
'A priest? I'll bet you a bundle this guy's name is Markowitz. He's straight from central casting.'
'I believed it,' Brushy said. She touched her head with her short hands and bright fingernails and sat down next to Toots whom she fixed with a brief, baleful look. '
'Sure you did,' I said. 'So would that dope Woodhull, probably. But somebody would figure it out eventually. Here or on the Court's Commission. If anybody ever asked for this guy's fingerprints, I'd book a seat on the next stagecoach.'
The old guy still wasn't saying anything. He'd learned from the best. If you get caught, dummy up. No good ever came from confessing. I thought about his luminous expression when he had Brushy going. It must have been music to him every time he fixed something. The unraveling of society was his secret symphony. He was the hidden conductor, the only guy who knew the real score. In a way you had to hand it to him. This was the
Woodhull appeared down the hall, outside the door to the hearing room.
'What's going on?' he demanded. His straight thick hair, dirty blond, had fallen down over one eye. Hitler youth. 'What are you up to now, Malloy? Who's that guy?' he asked as he came closer. He meant Father Markowitz, who was still on the bench down the way.
'Who's the guy?' Tom repeated. 'Is he a witness?'
Brushy and I looked at each other, neither of us answering.
'You have a new witness? Now?' It didn't take much from me to set Tom off. He'd brought a yellow pad with him and he began worrying it in the air, while he let his temper mount. 'Eleventh hour, we're going to get a surprise witness? Who we haven't heard word one about? Now? Who we haven't even had a chance to interview?'
'Talk to him,' Brushy said abruptly. I reached for her arm, and that gesture of restraint was all the encouragement Tom needed.
‘I will,' he said and advanced past the three of us.
I whisked Brushy around a corner and asked, concisely, if she'd lost her mind.
'It's unethical to put him on to testify,' she said. ‘I know that.'
''Unethical' isn't the word, Brush. You do straight time for that stuff.'
'Okay,' she said. 'But you said Woodhull would believe him.'
'So what? You don't think he'll drop the case. Woodhull doesn't know how to change his mind. The testimony's hearsay, and even if it comes in, he'll argue that it's worth nothing, that the judge was just too ashamed to level with his brother. You know the pitch.'
'But he'll believe him, right? That's what you said.'
'Probably. He's probably having a shitfit right now.'
'So he'll be afraid he's going to lose. Suddenly. A case everybody thought he was going to win.' She was giving me the reverse of her own logic, which is what I mean about her being quick-witted and devious. 'He'll be willing to settle. For something short of disbarment. That's what we want. Am I right?'
I finally saw her point. But there were still problems.
'Brush, think about this. You just introduced the Deputy Administrator of Bar Admissions and Discipline to a supposed witness who your client told you is an impostor.'
'My client didn't tell me anything. I didn't take any fingerprints. I'm an advocate. And I made no representations. Or introductions. Tom was free-associating. Am I supposed to protect him from himself?' She stared at me.'I believed this guy. If somebody else doesn't, fine. The witness won't testify either way. I mean, Mack,' she said quietly, 'there's no downside.'
Toots was gimping our way. He was having a great time. Father obviously was selling well. There was no point in warning the Colonel about consequences. He'd lived his life jumping chasms, scaling perilous heights. I heard Woodhull's voice rising around the corner.
The deal we cut was unique. Under the state law attorneys could be disbarred for five years. After that they were free to reapply, and the Court's Commission, with a frequency exasperating to BAD, tended to readmit them on the theory that for most of these men and women it was the only profession they knew, like shoemakers who could only make shoes. What we offered on Toots's behalf was something better: Toots would promise never to practice law again. Not much of a concession, since he didn't practice anyway, but he would take his name off the door of his firm, give up his office there, and not receive another penny from firm income. If he ever violated the agreement, he would consent to an order of disbarment. In exchange, the proceedings against him ended. No findings. No censure. No record. His name stayed on the rolls. He would never be publicly disgraced.
Toots, in the grand tradition of clients everywhere, refused to be grateful, becoming reticent as soon as the agreement was announced to the panel.
'How'm I gonna support myself?' he asked out in the hallway after we had put on our topcoats.
We both gave him the fisheye. Toots couldn't spend what was in his mattress if he lived to one hundred.
'Toots, it's what you want,' I told him.
‘I like the office,' he said, and no doubt he did. The secretaries who called him Colonel, the phone calls, the pols coming to visit.
'So take an office down the hall. You've retired. That's all. You're eighty-three, Colonel. It's logical.'
'All right.' But he was downcast. He looked elderly and glum. His color was bad and his skin seemed ripply like the rind on an orange. It's always sad to see the high brought low.
'Toots,' I said, 'they have never done this for anybody else. It's a one-of-a-kind. We have to swear to God and the Governor that we'll never leak one word of this deal to anyone. They can't admit they backed off on a disbarment.'
'Yeah?' He liked that better, being a category of one. 'So what's so special about me?'
'You hired the right lawyers,' I told him. That, finally, made him laugh.
B. Final Accounting
Back in the office, Brushy and I went for what is called a victory lap, moseying by the offices of various litigators and casually describing the result. The acclaim was universal, and by the time we reached the desk of our secretary, Lucinda, we were feeling roundly admired, a sensation I experienced with a surprising rush of sentiment, since it had been some time.
Brush and I stood there checking out our message slips and mail. The firm's fiscal year ended today, and all partners had received a solemn memo from Martin stating that even with good collections before midnight, income was likely to be down 10 percent. That meant the distribution of points two days hence on Groundhog Day was
