desk.
Ten more pounds of pressure on the back of it and I can sell the chair for firewood. “What a shitty way to make a living,” he complains mildly.
“People think lawyers are all rich. I wouldn’t know a corporate client if one grabbed me by the balls.”
As gross as Clan is, I can’t imagine it either. “The business is out there,” I say hopefully.
“The trick is to get a reputation.”
Clan drops the files on my desk.
“There’re all kinds of reputations,” he reminds me.
“In twenty years, when I’m in for my third bypass, I don’t want the nurses sitting around figuring out ways to torture me because they heard I’m a scumbag lawyer.”
I wonder if I’m a scumbag for walking off with Andy Chapman. By the plain black phone that obviously had been hooked up while I was in court this morning, a wadded-up pink message slip with Oscar Mays’s name on it is staring me in the face. I’ve got to return the man’s call and get it over with. Surely Andy Chapman isn’t worth trying to sue me over. I’m not normally the philosophical type, but I can’t help remarking, “We didn’t invent the free enterprise system;
we’re just paid to defend it.”
“Bullshit,” says Clan amiably, hitching up his pants to keep them from binding him.
“Lawyers like you and me fight over the crumbs. With the kind of clients we get, we don’t really make money practicing law; if you can’t get ahead enough to invest what little windfall occasionally comes your way, you’re gonna end up like old man Sievers.”
I feel a shiver sweep the back of my neck thinking of Cash Sievers, who was still trying to represent clients until his death earlier this month, although he was senile. With no investments, no Social Security, he was the Blackwell County bar’s oldest and most visible legal disaster. The story was that nobody had the heart to blow the whistle on Cash, and lawyers spent entire days cleaning up his messes. Though ancient and stooped, even toward the end he still attracted clients, but rumor has it that he represented most for nothing, presumably on the hope that they would give him something at the end of their case. Judging by his office and the clothes he wore, they didn’t give him much.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I tell Clan, who is missing his mouth with the popcorn as often as he is hitting it.
“Find a rich widow or divorcee—there’s so many women looking for men out there you can almost advertise for ‘em,” he advises, “and then bird-dog her till she drops. You’re just the right age.”
I laugh, but with Clan you never know. His wife’s family has money. I have no doubt that Dan’s home near the Pinetree Country Club wasn’t paid for by him. The thought of marrying for money is sickening, but my usual thoughts about women aren’t all that noble either.
“To paraphrase St. Augustine when told he had to give up sex for the church,” I tell Clan, repeating a story I heard told by a Catholic priest when I was in boarding school at Subiaco after my father’s death, “
“Can’t I wait a few years?”
” At the mention of sex, Clan snickers, his sophomoric humor always waiting for the opportunity to surface.
“As long as you possibly can, but if you lose too much more hair, you’re gonna be playing in the minor leagues the rest of your life.”
I pat my bald spot. Is it my imagination, or has it expanded another finger’s width since I got up this morning?
“You know anything about Kim Keogh?” I ask.
Clan wipes the grease from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Do dreams count? What a fox! If they’ diet her anchor the ten o’clock news, I’d have a reason to make it past nine-thirty. Jesus Christ, isn’t middle age the pits?”
The odor of popcorn before lunch is starting to make me nauseous. The grease, I suppose. I brag, “She interviewed me this morning. She’s not married, is she?” I say, knowing she’s not. I didn’t see a
Ten more pounds of pressure on the back of it and I can sell the chair for firewood. “What a shitty way to make a living,” he complains mildly.
“People think lawyers are all rich. I wouldn’t know a corporate client if one grabbed me by the balls.”
As gross as Clan is, I can’t imagine it either. “The business is out there,” I say hopefully.
“The trick is to get a reputation.”
Clan drops the files on my desk.
“There’re all kinds of reputations,” he reminds me.
“In twenty years, when I’m in for my third bypass, I don’t want the nurses sitting around figuring out ways to torture me because they heard I’m a scumbag lawyer.”
I wonder if I’m a scumbag for walking off with Andy Chapman. By the plain black phone that obviously had been hooked up while I was in court this morning, a wadded-up pink message slip with Oscar Mays’s name on it is staring me in the face. I’ve got to return the man’s call and get it over with. Surely Andy Chapman isn’t worth trying to sue me over. I’m not normally the philosophical type, but I can’t help remarking, “We didn’t invent the free enterprise system;
we’re just paid to defend it.”
“Bullshit,” says Clan amiably, hitching up his pants to keep them from binding him.
“Lawyers like you and me fight over the crumbs. With the kind of clients we get, we don’t really make money practicing law; if you can’t get ahead enough to invest what little windfall occasionally comes your way, you’re gonna end up like old man Sievers.”
I feel a shiver sweep the back of my neck thinking of Cash Sievers, who was still trying to represent clients until his death earlier this month, although he was senile. With no investments, no Social Security, he was the Blackwell County bar’s oldest and most visible legal disaster. The story was that nobody had the heart to blow the whistle on Cash, and lawyers spent entire days cleaning up his messes. Though ancient and stooped, even toward the end he still attracted clients, but rumor has it that he represented most for nothing, presumably on the hope that they would give him something at the end of their case. Judging by his office and the clothes he wore, they didn’t give him much.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I tell Clan, who is missing his mouth with the popcorn as often as he is hitting it.
“Find a rich widow or divorcee—there’s so many women looking for men out there you can almost advertise for ‘em,” he advises, “and then bird-dog her till she drops. You’re just the right age.”
I laugh, but with Clan you never know. His wife’s family has money. I have no doubt that Dan’s home near the Pinetree Country Club wasn’t paid for by him. The thought of marrying for money is sickening, but my usual thoughts about women aren’t all that noble either.
“To paraphrase St. Augustine when told he had to give up sex for the church,” I tell Clan, repeating a story I heard told by a Catholic priest when I was in boarding school at Subiaco after my father’s death, “
“Can’t I wait a few years?”
” At the mention of sex, Clan snickers, his sophomoric humor always waiting for the opportunity to surface.
“As long as you possibly can, but if you lose too much more hair, you’re gonna be playing in the minor leagues the rest of your life.”
I pat my bald spot. Is it my imagination, or has it expanded another finger’s width since I got up this morning?
“You know anything about Kim Keogh?” I ask.
Clan wipes the grease from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Do dreams count? What a fox! If they’ diet her anchor the ten o’clock news, I’d have a reason to make it past nine-thirty. Jesus Christ, isn’t middle age the pits?”
The odor of popcorn before lunch is starting to make me nauseous. The grease, I suppose. I brag, “She interviewed me this morning. She’s not married, is she?” I say, knowing she’s not. I didn’t see a
Similar Books
