Christopher Paul Curtis by Bucking the Sarge Page B

cousin's best friend's auntie that sued Bishop Airport for depressurizing her cat on a flight to Cleveland, and guess who her lawyer was?”
    “Hmmm, Dontay Gaddy.”
    Sparky seemed surprised. “What? Did I already tell you about this?”
    “Naw, Sparky, just get to the point.”
    “The point is that Sergeant Forde starts telling me how straight-up real this Dontay Gaddy dude is. He says that as soon as his cousin's best friend's auntie got in the office Dontay told her to call him by his first name, and even though my boy is just about a billionaire, Sergeant Forde said he'll see anybody for half a hour for free and let you know if you got a case. And what's the bomb is”—Sparky started whispering—“according to Dontay Gaddy,
every fool and his momma's
got a case!”
    “So the message you've been getting is to go see this lawyer and get you your free half hour, right?”
    “See? It's so plain that even you picked up on it!”
    “But who you gonna sue?”
    “That's the thing, Luther, I don't know. I figure if I talk to Dontay Gaddy he can give me a little professional guidance as to who it is what needs to be sued.”
    “And you want me to come with you.”
    “You know I'd appreciate a ride, my brother, and you know I can't depend on those MTA buses. My appointment is tomorrow right after school so I can't take a chance on being late. Besides, maybe Dontay will have the hookup for you, too.”
    “Yeah, like I need the Sarge to hear I went to somenickel-slick lawyer's office. My picture would be on every milk carton in America five minutes after she found out. But I'll take you, I'll have Little Chicago pick up the Crew and watch them for a while. I got the feeling you meeting Dontay Gaddy might be pretty interesting.”
    “Peace out, baby.”
    “Peace.”
    As soon as me and Sparky walked into Dontay Orlando Gaddy's office I could tell that even though the Sarge would have hated his guts, she'd've also had much respect for this man. She'd say that he was someone who knew how to work it. He was like a male version of the Sarge, he was milking everything and anything that moved. Shoot, Dontay Gaddy's reception room was so hype that you could see that this brother could get milk from something that didn't even have nipples on it!
    And his receptionists!
    They were such hotties that if they'da took off those five-hundred-dollar dresses they were wearing and started running around in a bikini top and some thongs you'da swore you walked into the middle of a 50 Cent video!
    Sparky went up to the one at the desk and said, “Excuse me, my name's Sparky and I got a three-thirty appointment to see the D.O.G.”
    “Just a moment, sir, I'll announce you to Mr. Gaddy.” Her voice was just as smooth as the rest of her.
    She pressed a button on a control board that looked like it came straight out of the Science Fiction Networkand said, “Excuse me, Mr. Gaddy, your three-thirty appointment, Mr. Sparky, is here.”
    A familiar voice came out of the control board. “Wonderful! Wonderful! Let Mr. Sparky know I've really been looking forward to meeting him and please show him in, Ms. Havens.”
    She got up and said, “This way, gentlemen.”
    We followed her down a long hall full of pictures of Dontay Gaddy with a bunch of celebrities. Yeah, in some of them it looked like he'd snuck up behind the celebrity and told someone to real quick take the picture, but in a whole lot of them he was actually shaking the famous person's hand.
    As we got closer to his door the pictures stopped being of famous people and started looking like they were of regular Flint folks. They were all smiling and shaking hands with Dontay Orlando Gaddy and holding up giant checks.
    The receptionist knocked on this big wood door, waited a second then walked us into the baddest office I'd ever seen.
    At the far end of the office was a desk the size of a king-size bed and walking from behind it with his hand stuck out wearing the same serious expression