Ignored.

Fortunately, our table could not be seen from Umstead's. I glanced around to make sure

no other bad guys were in the restaurant. Warner ordered a martini for both of us, but I

quickly begged off. Just water for me.

With Warner, everything was at full throttle. Work, play, food, drink, women, even books

and old movies. He had almost frozen to death in a blizzard on a Peruvian mountain, and

he'd been bitten by a deadly water snake while scuba diving in Australia. His post-

divorce adjustment phase had been remarkably easy, primarily because Warner loved to

travel and hang-glide and climb mountains and wrestle sharks and chase women on a

global scale.

As a partner in a large Atlanta firm, he made plenty of money. And he spent a lot of it.

The dinner was about money.

"Water?" he said in disgust. "Come on. Have a drink."

"No," I protested. Warner would go from martinis to wine. We would leave the restaurant

late, and he would be up at four fiddling with his laptop, shaking off the slight hangover

as just another part of the day.

"Candy ass," he mumbled. I browsed the menu. He examined every skirt.

His drink arrived and we ordered. "Tell me about your work," he said, trying desperately

to give the impression that he was interested. "Why?"

"Because it must be fascinating."

"Why do you say that?"

"You walked away from a fortune. There must be a damned good reason."

"There are reasons, and they're good enough for me."

Warner had planned the meeting. There was a purpose, a goal, a destination, and an

outline of what he would say to get him there. I wasn't sure where he was headed.

"I was arrested last week," I said, diverting him. It was enough of a shock to be

successful.

"You what?"

I told him the story, stretching it out with every detail because I was in control of the

conversation. He was critical of my thievery, but I didn't try to defend it. The file itself

was another complicated issue, one neither of us wanted to explore.

"So the Drake & Sweeney bridge has been burned?" he asked as we ate. "Permanently."

"How long do you plan to be a public interest lawyer?"

"I've just started. I really hadn't thought about the end. Why?"

"How long can you work for nothing?"

"As long as I can survive."

"So survival is the standard?"

"For now. What's your standard?" It was a ridiculous question.

"Money. How much I make; how much I spend; how much I can stash away somewhere

and watch it grow so that one day I'll have a shitpot full of it and not have to worry about

anything."

I had heard this before. Unabashed greed was to be admired. It was a slightly cruder

version of what we'd been taught as children. Work hard and make plenty., and somehow

society as a whole would benefit.

He was daring me to be critical, and it was not a fight I wanted. It was a fight with no

winners; only an ugly draw.

"How much do you have?" I asked. As a greedy bastard, Warner was proud of his wealth.

"When I'm forty I'll have a million bucks buried in mutual funds. When I'm forty-five,

it'll be three million. when I'm fifty, it'll be ten. And that's when I'm walking out the

door."

We knew those figures by heart. Big law firms were the same everywhere.

"what about you?" he asked as he whittled on freerange chicken.

"Well, let's see. I'm thirty-two, got a net worth of five thousand bucks, give or take. when

I'm thirty-five, if I work hard and save money, it should be around ten thousand. By the

time I'm fifty, I should have about twenty thousand buried in mutual funds."

"That's something to look forward to. Eighteen years of living in poverty."

"You know nothing about poverty."

"Maybe I do. For people like us, poverty is a cheap apartment, a used car with dents and

dings, bad clothing, no money to travel and play and see the world, no money to save or

invest, no retirement, no safety net, nothing."

"Perfect. You just proved my point. You don't know a damned thing about poverty. How

much will you make this year?"

"Nine hundred thousand."

"I'll make thirty. what would you do if someone forced you to work for thirty thousand

bucks?"

"Kill myself."

"I believe that. I truly believe you would take a gun and blow your brains out before you

would work for thirty thousand bucks."

"You're wrong. I'd take pills."

"Coward."

"There's no way I could work that cheap."

"Oh, you could work that cheap, but you couldn't live that cheap."

"Same thing."

"That's where you and I are different," I said. "Damned right we're different. But how did

we become different, Michael? A month ago you were like me. Now look at you--silly

whiskers and faded clothes, all this bullshit about serving people and saving humanity.

Where'd you go wrong?"