me, something along those lines. Forgive me. Some special favor only he can confer. Instead, his father is asking for what—work release?
“How much trouble?” Fitz wants to know.
“Big trouble,” his father says. “A boatload. If I miss this deadline, we go to trial unprepared. I could get sued. Slapped with malpractice.”
“Could you get fired?” Fitz asks.
“Maybe.”
It’s an appealing thought. Imagining his father being brought down. Fitz feels a certain pleasure in contemplating that. Some big boss man chewing him out. Telling him to clear out, clean out his desk.
But really, Fitz wonders, how could that be? It doesn’t sound right. So much riding on one guy’s signature. Who’s that important?
They’re coming into downtown St. Paul now, the capitol dome behind them, passing the science museum he used to visit with his mom, aiming straight for his father’s building. Fitz realizes that they’ve been headed to his office all along, even before he asked. It bothers Fitz that even today, his father can’t put away his work. That he has to share him. “They can’t get along without you? For one lousy day?”
“It’ll only take five minutes,” his father says. “I give it a quick read-through and sign my name.”
“What if you were sick?” Fitz asks. “I mean, really sick?”
“I’d come in, sign, and go back to bed.”
“What if you were in the hospital? What if you were hooked up to an IV? What if you were on life support? What if you slipped into a coma? What then? You’re telling me one of your lawyer buddies couldn’t sign?”
“Five minutes.”
“What about me?” Fitz asks. “You crack a window and leave me in the car like a dog?”
“No,” his father tells him. “No, no, no. Of course not. You come along with me. I can show you around. After that, I’m all yours.”
“Sure,” Fitz says. “Five minutes.” His father’s face brightens. He looks as happy as he has all day. Fitz really has done him a favor. It’s just not the one he wanted.
25
The firm of Plunkett and Daugherty takes up the entire twelfth floor of its building. They enter through two heavy, carved wooden doors, church doors. In the reception area, there are plants, muted abstract oil paintings on the wall, leather chairs, architectural magazines fanned out on a coffee table.
Here, Fitz feels dirty and disreputable, unkempt and unwashed. With his backpack slung over his shoulder, he feels homeless, a guy toting his belongings with him wherever he goes. In the car, back in the parking ramp, his father straightened his tie and fixed his hair in the rearview mirror. He put on his suit jacket, and now, fully wardrobed in his lawyer getup, he seems completely at ease.
The receptionist is a young woman in a black blouse wearing a headset, her hair pulled back austerely in a bunnish configuration. “Hello, Mr. Powell,” she says. She pushes a button in front of her. “Plunkett and Daugherty,” she says. “How may I direct your call?”
Fitz’s father gives her a little wave and motions to the left, this way. Fitz follows him down a long hallway, past offices, some with their doors open. He catches a glimpse of a silver-haired man in a bow tie and suspenders talking on the phone—he looks like the popcorn guy. They pass a kitchenette smelling of garlic, a little like his mom’s homemade red sauce.
His father pauses then and opens a door on the left. This is his office, his natural habitat, his lawyer lair. It’s more modest than Fitz imagined. He’s been picturing his father seated in some kind of padded, spinning leather throne, his desk ornate and expansive, the kind of place where sinister moguls in movies devise their evil plans. In fact, the office is neat—tasteful and understated.
There are framed diplomas on the wall and a painting of a sailboat. On the desk, there’s a computer monitor, a calendar, a leather cup full of pens. There’s a tall bookcase full of legal volumes, a credenza with a neat stack of file folders on it. No souvenirs, no knickknacks. No photographs. Nothing that implicates him in the life of another human being.
Fitz’s father stands at his desk and pushes a couple of buttons on his phone. He picks up a pen and makes a note on his calendar. His face takes on that half-abstracted, mildly impatient look people get when they listen to a recorded message.
His mom’s space at her school—it’s not quite an office, a kind of cubby really, just a desk and bulletin