Brush Back

“You can’t tell a judge your client is uncontrollable,” I agreed. “How did you handle it?”

“I talked it over with Mr. Mandel and Mr. McClelland, and Mr. McClelland got the priest at Saint Eloy’s to talk to her. Old man, mean guy, but Stella thought he walked on water. I guess that did the trick.”

“Why did you agree to represent her?”

“You had to be there. The partners decided. Probably because they knew it was a losing case and they wanted the biggest loser in the practice to have it on his record, not one of the go-getters.”

“Who were the go-getters?” I asked, more to move him away from his bout of self-flagellation than because I cared.

“Co

“Spike Hurlihey?” I said, my eyes widening.

“Yeah. He was one of the East Side boys, he was a pet of old Mr. McClelland. He rode up, I rode down.”

Co

“You and Hurlihey get along?”

Joel gulped down his drink and held up his glass to the bartender. “Hurlihey was three years older than me. When I was in fifth grade and he was in eighth, he used to give me wedgies in the hallway. The teachers looked the other way, the other kids laughed because he was a popular bully, and I was a mixed-race kid in a neighborhood with a low tolerance for difference. I begged my parents to send me to a different school and they finally did for ninth grade, but neither of us forgot the other.

“When I joined Mandel & McClelland, he started saying things to A

It’s depressing how often school bullies become successful CEOs or politicians. “A

“Ardent. That describes her. She was ambitious, she wanted to leave South Chicago, but she was sweet. She was the smartest girl in her school, probably the smartest person in the firm, but she never complained if one of the lawyers dumped a stack of photocopying on her at the end of the day. She’d stand at the Xerox machine with her history book propped up on the shelf, reading while she fed documents in. In those days I thought I was ambitious, too.”

“Did you believe Stella when she said A

He fidgeted with his glass. “I went over there one night, on the spur of the moment, I wanted to see if A

“It was a family that fought and shouted a lot,” I said. “When Stella’s brothers would come over with their wives and kids, my dad couldn’t even hear the game on the radio and there was an alley between us. When old Mrs. Jokich—Stella’s neighbor—was dying, the family had to call the cops to shut up the braying at the Guzzo place.”

Stella was sure it was my dad who’d called the district station, and nothing could convince her otherwise. That was probably why she was squawking now that Tony had suppressed evidence during her trial—she could carry a grudge until the grudge took on a life of its own and carried on without her.

I put my card on the bar next to Joel. “Even if you’re fifty, you can make other choices, change directions. Your parents don’t own you.”

“Spare me the pep talk. I’ve had plenty and they make my head hurt.”

“Maybe, but I’m betting it’s all that vodka before lunch.”

I walked back to my car, which had a sporty orange envelope under the windshield wiper. My second in a week, and I couldn’t expense Frank, not without crossing the line Freeman had warned me against.

I hadn’t noticed the pay-to-park sign. The cash-strapped city was handing out sixty-five-dollar fines even on the city’s more derelict streets. I guess it meant someone had a job in this dismal economy, but somehow that thought didn’t cheer me.

I couldn’t understand why Mandel & McClelland had agreed to assign someone from the firm to represent A

It occurred to me that if Stella had drawn a PD, it might have been me being cautioned by Judge Grigsby. I laughed, picturing Stella’s horror if I’d been assigned to her defense.

The other side of the question was the client side—why had Stella let Joel represent her? She didn’t suffer ordinary people gladly; she’d have eviscerated an inexperienced young man. Or maybe the shock of A

None of the story made any sense. Maybe Mandel or McClelland was still alive and could recall what had gone through their heads at the time.

I remembered Mr. Mandel. When I was in middle school, he used to give our graduation speeches. Every year we heard the same rambling reminiscence about his arriving as a poor immigrant and making his way through law school while working the swing shift for Wisconsin Steel. Only in America. My mother sat next to me, making sure I at least looked at the stage, even if I wasn’t paying attention to the words.

I pulled out my iPad and looked up Mandel & McClelland. Their office had been in the Navral Building, which wasn’t standing any longer. There’d been an obituary for Mr. Mandel some seven years back. He was survived by one daughter, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. If any of them were lawyers, they did it someplace else—the firm of Mandel & McClelland had also vanished, although I didn’t see any stories about McClelland’s retirement or death. Where would the client files be if both building and practice were gone?

I made a face at myself and went back to Ira Previn’s office. Eunice and Ira were huddled over a document when she buzzed me in, but they put it down and looked at me expectantly. When I asked if Mandel had sold the practice they seemed disappointed—they must have watched me follow Joel to the Pot of Gold and hoped I would perform a miracle of some kind.

“I don’t know why you want to dig around in this, Ms. Warshawski,” Ira rumbled at me. “The Guzzo woman can’t harm your cousin, she can’t prove anything. And I don’t think she can harm Joel, either.”

“But you know who bought the firm?”

Eunice said, “Please, if you’re determined to get involved in this, promise me you won’t drag Joel in with you. He— Stella Guzzo’s trial destroyed him.”

I looked at her helplessly. “If something about Stella and the trial destroyed him, he’s already involved. I can only promise not to drag him in unless there’s a truly compelling reason for it.”

Eunice looked at Ira. He nodded slowly, his pouchy cheeks quivering with the movement.

“Very well, but—”

“Neesie, she can learn another way. Just tell her.”

“Nina Quarles.” The words were almost unintelligible, Eunice’s lips were so tightly compressed.

BALK

Nina Quarles, Attorney, had her office on Commercial Avenue, just a couple of miles from Ira’s. The building was a converted three-flat at the corner of Eighty-ninth Street, and looked like one of the few on the street to be fully occupied. The top story was home to the South Side Youth Empowerment Foundation: Say, Yes! while the ground level held the insurance office of Rory Scanlon, Auto, Homeowners, Life, Health, Pension. Sandwiched between was the office of Nina Quarles, Attorney, boasting three lawyers and a bail bondsman.