“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I just want to get it straight.”

“All right, this is the straight of it. She was sinking fast, her marriage on the rocks, the very idea of herself plummeting. It was a dangerous time, but she made the right move and gave me a call. She was shaking when she told me her situation. But I sensed the story right off and it didn’t take long. Her husband was an artist too, an instructor at that very same joint. A remote-controlled camera set in a bust of some naked twist got me all I needed. Snap snap. Caught the arse-hole cavorting, yes I did, with a model atop a table set with two apples, a book, an overturned jug. A real work of art, it was. I entitled it: Still Life with Two Cocks. A good patch of work if I say so myself. She was a nice lady and she got herself out of a bad situation, and she gained a new understanding of her own needs in the process.”

“You sound like Dr. Phil.”

“Yeah, well, in a way we’s in the same business, ain’t we? Helping our clients confront the truth. Only difference is I do it with pictures. So I was glad to be able to help. And the penthouse apartment on Rittenhouse Square she got in the settlement after showing my work of art at the deposition, well that didn’t hurt any neither.”

“Such a sweet story.”

“I do my best.”

“So you slept with her, didn’t you?”

Before he could respond, my phone rang. It was Ellie, my secretary, informing me that one R.T. Pritchett from the sheriff’s office was on the phone. I asked her to put him through to my cell.

“Where the hell are you?” I said.

“Something came up,” said R.T., his voice strangely empty of its western twang. “I’m gonna be late.”

“How late?”

“You got a calendar?”

“Come on, R.T. What’s going on up there?”

“We’re busy.”

“Not that busy.”

“You don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand? That your boss needs to unload a few more bushels of crab fries and he’s putting another hand in my pocket? There’s only so many crab fries a man can eat.”

“It’s got nothing to do with that.”

“Really? Then why don’t you tell me the hell what it has got to do with.”

“We’re just busy, is all. The word’s come down. We’re simply too busy at the moment to help out when it comes to you.”

“Me?”

“You.”

“What did I do?”

“You tell me, Victor. You must have pissed off someone, someone the size of a gorilla. The squeeze has been put on my boss and so the squeeze has been put on me and so I got no choice but to squeeze you out.”

“No choice?”

“None.”

“After all we been through together?”

“Don’t get weepy-eyed on me, Victor, it’s the way it is.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Not a thing, buckaroo.”

“You’re screwing me here, R.T.”

“Someone’s screwing you, Victor, that’s for sure. I just hope you’re enjoying it.”

I hung up the phone, thought about it for a moment. “Let’s go,” I said finally.

“He ain’t coming?” said Skink.

“Nope.”

“He give a reason?”

“Someone is mad at me.”

“Who?”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

“Someone heavy?”

“Morbidly obese, and mad enough that I’m not getting that car today. Or tomorrow. Or next week. Or next month. Which I figure is just as well.”

“You want me to disable it so it don’t go nowhere?”

“No. But I would like to know if he moves it.”

“I could mark them tires, check on them every so often.”

“Good.”

“So who is it, Vic, the heavy out to shut you off? He high up politically?”

“Yeah.”

“Councilman?”

“Higher.”

“Mayor?”

“Higher.”

“Jesus.”

“Higher.”

Skink laughed, a rough, sarcastic laugh, the laughter you loose at a clown in a barrel when he pratfalls.

“Yeah,” I said.

Chapter 35

SHE WAS WAITING for me in my office when I returned from my unsuccessful seizure of Manley’s LeBaron. She had made herself at home, sitting in my chair, leaning over my desk, scribbling so intently in some notebook that she didn’t notice me standing in my own door frame. I figured she’d show up, I just didn’t figure it would be so soon.

Alura Straczynski.

I watched her for a moment. She was engrossed, totally, in her work, slim eyeglasses perched on her nose, bracelets jangling as her wrist moved swiftly across the page. She was dressed stylishly, if a little bit too, in a red silk shirt, a green bandanna around her neck, long golden earrings. There was in her manner and her seeming indifference to her surroundings the intensity of an artist at the easel and she nodded, yes, yes, yes, as if each word was a dab of paint on a brilliant canvas. The tension in the edges of her mouth as her pen flew and the bangles jangled was surprisingly sexy. A woman at work, Rosie the Riveter.

She glanced up, over the top of her glasses, and spied me spying. “So,” she said as she put down her pen, closed the notebook, took off her glasses. “You’ve returned. From some great legal victory, I hope.”

“Nothing so dashing,” I said. “Something about a car.”

“But still it went well, I am sure.”

“Not really.”

“You don’t mind my using your desk, do you? Your secretary said you would only be a moment.”

“And she brought you in here?”

“She asked me to wait in the waiting room, but really. What’s the point in that? The seats are uncomfortable and your magazines are months old. Just sitting there made my teeth ache. When she stepped out for a moment I stepped in here.”

“You weren’t snooping around, were you?”

“What do you take me for? Of course I was. But too bad for me, I found nothing of a compromising nature. I suppose you don’t compromise, do you, Victor?”

“Not really,” I said.

“I couldn’t help but admire your decor.”

“I did it myself.”

“Obviously. The folders on the floor, the mismatched chairs, the lovely scuff marks on the thrillingly beige walls. It must be reassuring for your clients to know you don’t waste their money on interior design. You can tell a lot about a man from his office. I read yours as a little rundown, a little shady, a lot desperate, but with a tinge of strained heroism. I especially like the picture of the soldier on the wall.”

“Ulysses S. Grant.”

“Marvelous touch, that. Standing before his tent with that pose of calm ferocity. Why him?”

“Because he was pretty much a total failure well into middle age until the war came and he found his place and became the greatest military leader in the country’s history.”

“So there’s still hope for you, is that it? Tell me about the dented file cabinet.”

“A couple of new-age enforcers tried to enlighten my soul and scare me off a case at the same time.”

“Did your soul enlighten?”

“No.”

“Did you scare?”

“Absolutely. I scare quite easily.”

“Do I scare you?”

“You husband does.”

“Jackson? I didn’t know he was such a brute. But what about me? Don’t I scare you even a little?”

“Sure, if you want.”

“Oh, I want. It’s late, I’m thirsty. Let’s go get a drink.”

“Do you think it appropriate for a married woman to have a drink with a man she hardly knows?”

“God, I hope not. Where would the fun be in that?” She stood, put her notebook into her purse. “Let’s go, yes? I know just the place. And we have so much to talk about, don’t we?”

I thought about my promise to Slocum, but I had promised not to bother her and here she was, obviously bothering me. So this situation could surely be distinguished from my promise and I could go and have that drink with her and still be keeping my word, couldn’t I? Believe it or not, we actually do learn to think like this in law school.