walked in. Edna is the unchallenged crossword puzzle master of the Western world, and she attributes a great deal of that amazing ability to her powers of concentration. My entrance doesn't put a dent in them.
My call list consists of three charities and a wanna-be client, whom I've already turned down, but who is persistent. It's a DUI case, which resulted in a near-fatal injury to a pedestrian. The potential client, when he came to see me, had the smell of liquor on his breath. The decision to pass on the case was not a close call.
I sit at my desk for a while, moving the papers from the right side of the desk over to the left. That makes the desk look left-heavy, so I move half the papers-back to the right. The problem is, with papers now on each side, there's no place for me to put my feet up. So with my feet resting uncomfortably on the floor, I pick up the newspaper and read about the discovery of Alex Dorsey's headless body. In order to sell papers, the media usually try to make murders sound gory and disgusting. In this case, with those qualities preexisting, they are pretending to be embarrassed at having to participate in the revelations.
The meeting with Holbrook this morning, though it wasn't exactly arguing before the Supreme Court, has had an effect on me. I realize that I'm getting ready to get back in the action, that I want a case to sink my legal teeth into.
Since I don't happen to have one right now, and since Edna is paying no attention to me at all, I get up and wander down the hall to Sam Willis's office. Sam has been my accountant ever since I moved into this building.
Actually, Sam and I have exchanged professional services. Sam is nothing short of brilliant in two areas. On the one hand, he is as close as anyone I've met to being a financial genius. He knows everything there is to know about money and the rules that govern it. He also has an amazing and complementary expertise in computers, at least as it relates to financial matters. Sit him at a keyboard, and he is a true maestro.
Just a month or so after we met, Sam was accused of illegal hacking, a crime of which he was guilty. The mitigating circumstance, at least in my mind, was that he was retaliating on behalf of a client who was wronged by a large corporation. I got him off on a technicality, and we've been friends ever since.
The thing I find confusing about Sam is that, even though it must have taken a very significant amount of work and drive to learn all that he knows, he has never seen fit or been able to channel that drive into his own financial success. He should be financial guru to fee corporate stars, but instead his client list reads like a who's who of schleppers. As a former low-income nobody, I had fit right in. When I came into all this money, Sam got so excited I thought he was going to have a stroke.
Sam is in his office with Barry Leiter, a twenty-three-year-old whom Sam hired out of high school. Barry has been putting himself through night school at Rutgers in Newark by working for Sam, who claims that Barry is even better than he is on a computer. Sam clearly likes the idea of having a protege.
Sam and I have this ongoing contest that we call song-talking. The trick is to work song lyrics into a conversation. Just doing it is a plus; doing it without the other person realizing it is a total victory.
"Hey, Sam," I say, "what good is sitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play."
I expect him to ridicule my "Cabaret" opening as the feeble attempt that it is, but he doesn't seem to pay it any attention at all. The look on his face is of a man in real distress. "Hello, Andy," he says with no enthusiasm whatsoever. He then shoots a quick glance at Barry, who takes it as a sign he should leave, which he does.
"What's the matter?" I ask.
Sam sighs. "Everything."
"What does that mean?"
He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. "You ever meet my younger brother, Billy? When he came to visit?"
I nod. Billy lives in Pittsburgh, but he came to visit Sam last year and I met him then.