by Sol Stein
"Thanks. Where's yours?"
"Around the corner."
"I'm sorry about the mess-up this afternoon."
"I got even. Can I come around to the front seat? I've been thinking about what I could do."
"Do?"
"About the case."
"I'm afraid I've got a date."
"We could talk while you're driving there, and I'll take a cab back. It won't take any extra time. Please?"
I got out and slipped into the front seat. He glanced over at me, then started the car.
"Your… date… someone important to you?"
"This evening, yes."
"Otherwise? I hope you don't mind my asking."
"She's married."
"I see. Did her husband let her out tonight?"
"Her husband's on a business trip. We've got three more days."
I wondered what a woman of his was like.
"My father thinks you have no second best."
"There are a lot of good lawyers around."
"You're just saying that."
He laughed, and looked over at me with an expression I remembered from our first meeting.
"Well," he said, "there're a few good lawyers around."
"Name two."
"Your father and me."
"He doesn't know anything about this whole area. Besides, I get a feeling there's something in your arsenal he's never had."
"Oh?"
"Guts. The great missing ingredient. I'm not knocking my father. He's got pluck. It's not the same. I'm thinking of the place where I work. Forty-six languages and not an ounce of guts. What's the matter?"
"I've been looking for a taxi stand. We're nearly there. I guess we can call one from her house."
"I'd like to meet your friend."
"Looks like you're going to."
The woman lived in Elmsford in a white frame house just a block off Route 9A. As we pulled up, I said, "She must like highway sounds."
Thomassy looked at me. That was the third time by my count. "She sure is going to be surprised to see you."
I said lightly, "Surprises keep our interest in life."
"Okay, philosopher," he said, "let's go."
When he rang, she didn't ask who it was, just yelled, "Come on in," and we both did that. She was coming toward the door with a drink in each hand.
"Perfect tim-…"
"This is Miss Widmer, Jane. A client. We were discussing her case. I'm afraid I messed up her appointment today."
"Now she's messing yours up."
"I just need to call a cab to get back to my car."
The flush in her face ebbed. "I'll call for you, honey. Where you headed?"
"Back to my office," said Thomassy.
Jane handed me one of the drinks, saying, "You might as well have this while you're waiting." She gave the other drink to Thomassy.
I could hear her at the phone in the other room. When she put her head in the doorway, she didn't seem happy about the news. "It'll be at least twenty minutes," she said. "Relax while I make myself one of those."
Thomassy tapped his foot restlessly.
"I'm afraid I've botched things up," I said.
"Forget it."
When she returned, it was as if nothing had happened.
"Skoal," she said.
"Skoal," said Thomassy.
I raised my glass.
Quietly she said to him, "We have a reservation?"
"We'll leave as soon as the cab comes," he said.
"What kind of client are you, dear?" Jane asked. "You look kind of sweet to be a criminal."
I would have guessed Jane to be thirty-eight, maybe forty. She was pretty, a little too much lipstick, winter suntan from, a lamp? A lot of time spent on hair. "And too young," she added.
"Most criminals," said Thomassy, "are younger than she is."
"Is that so?"
"That kid who was in with his mother this afternoon," he turned to me, "is fifteen."
"What'd he do?" said Jane. She was looking at my body instead of my face.
"Oh, the last snow of winter, last chance for sledding. Another kid went down dead man's hill out of turn. They had an argument. Buster knocked the other kid down. The other kid called him a shit. Buster picked up the kid's sled and rammed the point of the runners into the kid's gut. The other kids ran away. By the time somebody came, the kid had bled too much. Manslaughter."
"You associate with nice people," I said.
"This evening, yes."
"What will he get?"
"Juvenile delinquency. A year in reform school, out in three months."
"Easy."
"Usual."
"Why'd you take him on?"
"Another lawyer turned him down. He was in Woodside Cottage three days before the mother got to me and I worked out bail."
Jane spoke up. "Maybe he shoulda stayed in jail."
"It's just a holding tank. Some wino tried to force the kid to get down on his knees."
"Ah," I said. "Rape."
"This is a pretty tough kid and—"
He stopped when he realized what I was getting at. Jane looked from him to me to him. I nodded.
"Francine is a rape victim."
"Tell me about it."
"I'd rather not," I said.
"I mean," said Jane, "I always thought if you crossed your legs and scratched and yelled…"
"He had a pair of scissors."
"Oh? Did he use it?"
"He threatened to."
"Oh lots of them do."
"I didn't have lots of experience."
"Ladies," said Thomassy. "Why don't we have another drink while we're waiting. Just a light one for me. I have to drive."
"Look," said Jane, "I don't understand why she's here. What the hell is going on?"
I thought I'd better explain. "I'm not after his body. I'm seducing his legal talents. I want him to take my case."
"Well, honey," she said, "why don't you just agree to take her case so she can take the cab in peace."
Just then the phone rang. Jane excused herself and went to take it in the bedroom.
"It's probably her husband," said Thomassy. "He checks in with her every evening about this time."
"My father said you're very good in the courtroom. He didn't tell me about your technique of setting your opponents against each other."
Thomassy laughed.
Jane came back in. "That's done. What time is our reservation for?"
"We won't lose it."
"You wouldn't care to have your client join us so dinner'll be deductible?"
"Okay," I said, getting up, "I can wait for the cab outside. I can take care of myself."
"Good for you, dear. I prefer to be taken care of. Three-finger Italian isn't as good as old George here."
I caught the sting of embarrassment on his face.
I said goodbye from the door and went out. I could hear raised voices, hers then his, from inside. I walked down the path to the sidewalk, noticing the crocuses pushing through the thawed ground. I looked left and then right, trying to decide which way the cab would come from, when I heard his footsteps. I turned. Jane was at the door. "You'll be sorry," she said and slammed the door.
Thomassy opened the door of his Mercedes. "Get in." It sounded like an order.
He got in on the driver's side.
"What about the cab?" I said.
"It'll serve him right for taking so damn long."
We drove for a while before he said, "No use wasting that reservation. Dinner?"
"Mixed singles. How many sets?"
"You're a tennis player?"
"No. I play the same game you do."
"Oh? What's that?"
"Words."
Twelve
Thomassy
When we walked into the restaurant, Michael waved from behind the bar and came around to show us to my place, a corner table away from the chatter up front.
Michael Diachropoulis moved like a younge
r Sydney Greenstreet without the menace. His corpulence, achieved through an insatiable affair with his own cooking, slowed him down, but his dark eyes had the frantic rhythm of a proprietor intent on fulfilling the wishes of his customers.
As he good-evening'd us, Michael's eyes inspected Francine. He would be noticing that she was a lot younger than the women I usually brought. "Welcome!" he said to her as if he had been waiting all evening for her appearance. He held her chair in readiness for her to sit, and when she did, he slipped it under her as if the chair were his hands.
"This is Miss Widmer, Michael, a client of mine."
"I am glad she is now a client of mine as well."
At that moment the attention of Michael's darting eyes was caught by a party of three couples coming in the door, and he was off, promising to return as soon as he attended to "his customers." We, of course, were guests.
I told Francine that Michael had named his place the Acropolis, he said, because he thought that even if Americans could never remember his name, they would remember the name of his restaurant. As it turned out, to Michael's dismay, most of his steadies called it the Annapolis.
I have always had curiosity about what draws people to certain occupations. Some restaurateurs, in private, will claim only an economic motivation; it is a depression-safe business, people have to eat. There is a fallacy there, of course, in that people do not have to eat in restaurants, and, in fact, when there is a downturn in the economy, restaurant business can fall off precipitously except for the fast-food chains that sell spicy garbage cheap. The real restaurateurs, the ones who develop a clientele, are like their cooks, comforted by the atmosphere of food, preparing it, serving it well, seeing that people enjoy it. These Greeks and Italians are the Jewish mothers of the food world: eat, eat, they remonstrate, I made it especially for you. Think what the Middle West would be if the immigrants had not descended upon it, a wasteland of slab steak, baked potato, and a crisp, sugared salad served as an appetizer!
When my attention returned from its ruminations, I observed Francine listening intently to the bouzouki music in the background. I studied her head, the grace of the way she held it.
After our waitress brought drinks, Michael's formidable roundness reappeared, his benign face beaming with a secret to be shared.
"All right, Michael," I asked, "what is today?"
"Today," said Michael, "is ambrosia of the sea."
"You sure it's not left over from last Friday?"
Mock-shocked, Michael said, "Would I ever offer the greatest lawyer in America five days leftover fish? Am I looking to go to jail, to lose my reputation?"
"Michael, has anyone ever sued you?"
"Never!"
"Has anyone ever complained that your food was not good?"
"They only complain that it is never enough!"
"Michael, tell us about your ambrosia."
"Yes, your honor."
"That is for a judge, Michael, not a lawyer."
"A great lawyer must become a great judge, right?"
"Wrong," I said, turning to Francine.
She looked past me and said, "Michael, isn't it better to be a baseball player than an umpire?"
"Aha!" said Michael.
"A judge," Francine continued, "never wins a game."
Our host, Michael Diachropoulis, sensed that there was more going on than even his dancing eyes could take in. He put his hands together as if in prayer. "I explain ambrosia of the sea. It is my own recipe pompano. The sauce is," he smacked his fingertips, "with little baby shrimp, abandoned by the sea, and given by Michael a proper home, next to king pompano."
Michael looked to Francine for her reaction. She nodded her assent to the ambrosia.
"One cannot refuse," Michael said. He scorned customers who ordered from the menu. "Tourists," he called them, even if he had served them a dozen times.
"Make that two," I said. "I hope your free chablis is good and cold."
"My chablis is six dollars fifty cents the full bottle, special tonight for all who have the good senses to order ambrosia. Would I spend hours preparing my special and not have some bottles of chablis on ice? What do you think I am, McDonald's?"
That remark was not without an edge of bitterness. Michael used to have a crowd of young people drop in early in the evening for cold draft beer and his blue cheese sirloinburgers ("You don't need me for hamburgers," he would say). He knew how to rap with the kids, and left them alone when they wanted to be. Then McDonald's opened down the block, and while it could not supply conversation like Michael's or food as good, the prices were unbeatable; two and three at a time, his regulars among the young people stopped coming except for special occasions. They ate less well in a poorer ambience for a lot less money, but there was a recession on. To Michael the defection of the young was a further notch in the unending decline of civilization since the first Acropolis.
"Anything to start?" Michael asked.
"First we'll talk a little over our drinks."
"Signal when ready."
Michael went home behind the bar.
Looking at Francine the Unexpected, I thought of Jane. This evening had been designed with a different plan for a different woman. I had been prepared for Jane's conversation about what was wrong with the world, her world consisting of cars and clothes, and all of it prologue to bedding the animals, hers and mine. That woman could have gotten a Ph.D. in lovemaking. Most women, I have found, know only half of what there is to know about what to do with a man once they've turned him on, which is probably a higher percentage than most men know about women. Jane had a hooker's skills without the liabilities. She didn't put on an act, she wasn't a man hater. She didn't even dislike her husband. It's just that he had to be on the road a lot, and Jane was greedy, a consumer of sex who didn't want to do without. I served a purpose for her and she served a purpose for me, like two immigrant checker players who knew only a few words of English in common but who met in the park on a regular schedule.
Francine the Unexpected wanted me for my alleged ability to win what I then thought truthfully to be her hopeless case. What use was she to me?
She was ready to talk back in a high-risk way, a convenience women like Jane would never dare. In fact, wasn't I having dinner with Francine because she, not I, had wanted it?
"I'm sorry about goofing the appointment," I said.
"Conciliation accepted," she said. "I'm sorry for goofing your evening this evening."
"You haven't yet."
"I've been thinking. How come a fellow like you isn't rich?"
"I do okay," I said.
"I don't mean okay, I mean real rich like F. Lee Bailey, lawyers like that. Wouldn't you like to have a fancy pad with an indoor-outdoor swimming pool, a wine cellar, a game room, a mirrored bedroom with a revolving circular bed, you know?"
"Does crap like that turn you on?"
"No."
"Why'd you think I'd want things like that?"
"You're a bachelor. You don't have a mess of kids to support."
"I have all these women."
That stopped her only for a second. "You ever buy them presents?"
"Not often. Sometimes they buy me presents."
"In gratitude?"
"I think I'm a respectable lover." Quickly I added, "I'll tell you why I'm not rich like some criminal lawyers. I have a few rules."
"Scruples?"
"I said rules. Those lawyers are like cruising Cadillacs. Anybody with a lot of dough and a highly publicizable case can flag them down. I pick my cases. I never make a final judgment based on the client's ability to pay or to draw the newspapers."
"You're a socialist."
"Fuck that. I do what I like to do. No corporation tells me what to do with my work. I don't have to compromise with a lot of law partners. And I'm not for hire to a mobster with a hundred grand in his pocket. Unless, of course, his case intrigues me beyond my capacity to resist."
"What kind of case do you find irresisti
ble?"
"This is going to sound egotistical."
"I'll bet you won't let that stop you."
"I like a case to depend more on me than on the evidence. The same way a specializing surgeon will take on even a charity case if it's the kind that scares off the other surgeons. Showing off."
"Not money?"
"I never knew an interesting professional who'd choose mere money over a chance to display his tail feathers."
"I'm not convinced. You know how men love to test out women — would you screw so-and-so for a thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars, a million? And when he finally names a number you say yes to, he says 'I knew you were a whore, I just wanted to establish the price.' What's your price, Mr. Thomassy? Would you take a six-week case in Las Vegas for six hundred thousand dollars?"
"You offering?"
"Just testing."
"I don't take tests."
"How about one week's work for a Howard Hughes or an Onassis for a million even?"
"What's the case?"
"Mr. Virtue. Would they pay a million if the case didn't stink?"
"I'll tell you something, Francine. Those guys didn't get rich overpaying lawyers or accountants. They know where to find footmen with accounting and law degrees. The world is full of ass kissers. I thought you'd have noticed in that zoo where you work."
"I am not an ass kisser."
"I didn't think you were. Neither am I. I take what I want. I make what I make."
She seemed embarrassed.
"Can you say the same?" I asked.
"Not yet."
"Take your time. You're still growing up."
"I'm twenty-seven."
"That's what I mean, a very bright kid. I'll give you a piece of nonlegal advice. Don't ask a middle-aged man why he's not rich. He's either rich by then or doing something different."
"F. Lee Bailey and Edward Bennett Williams are famous. Doesn't that attract you?"
"I've got enough clients."
"You don't want to be well known."
"To headwaiters? To people in the street? The judges know who I am. I know who I am."
"Thomassy the Unshakable. Don't you ever get thrown by events?"
"Sure."
"Like what?"
"Like now."