I vowed to get a bed. I was losing too much sleep floundering on the floor, trying to

prove a point to no one but myself. In the darkness long before dawn, I sat in my sleeping

bag and promised myself I'd find something softer to sleep on. I also wondered for the

thousandth time how people survived sleeping on sidewalks.

The Pylon Grill was warm and stuffy, a layer of cigarette smoke not far above the tables,

the aroma of coffee beans from around the world waiting just inside the door. As usual it

was filled with news junkies at 4:30 A.M.

Burkholder was the man of the hour. His face was on the front page of the Post, and there

were several stories about the man, the shooting, the police investigation. Nothing about

the sweep. Mordecai would give me those details later.

A pleasant surprise was waiting in Metro. Tim Claussen was evidently a man on a

mission. Our lawsuit had inspired him.

In a lengthy article, he examined each of the three defendants, beginning with RiverOaks.

The company was twenty years old, privately held by a group of investors, one of whom

was Clayton Bender, an East Coast real estate swinger rumored to be worth two hundred

million. Bender's picture was in the story, along with a photo of the corporate

headquarters in Hagerstown, Maryland. The company had built eleven office buildings in

the D.C. area in twenty years, along with numerous shopping centers in the suburbs of

Baltimore and Washington. The value of its holdings was estimated at three hundred fifty

million. There was also a lot of bank debt, the level of which could not be estimated.

The history of the proposed bulk-mailing facility in Northeast was recounted in

excruciating detail. Then, on to Drake & Sweeney.

Not surprisingly, there was no source of information from within the firm. Phone calls

had not been returned. Claussen gave the basics--size, history, a few famous alumni.

There were two charts, both taken from U.S. Law magazine, one listing the top ten law

firms in the country by size, and the other ranking the firms by how much the partners averaged last year in compensation. With eight hundred lawyers, Drake & Sweeney was

fifth in size, and at $910,500, the partners were number three. Had I really walked away

from that much money? The last member of the unlikely trio was Tillman Gantry, and his

colorful life made for easy investigative journalism. Cops talked about him. A former

cellmate from prison sang his praises. A Reverend of some stripe in Northeast told how

Gantry had built basketball hoops for poor kids. A former prostitute remembered the

beatings. He operated behind two corporations--TAG and Gantry Group--and through

them he owned three used-car lots, two small shopping centers, an apartment building

where two people had been shot to death, six rental duplexes, a bar where a woman had

been raped, a video store, and numerous vacant lots he'd purchased for almost nothing

from the city.

Of the three defendants, Gantry was the only one willing to talk. He admitted paying

eleven thousand dollars for the Florida Avenue warehouse in July of the previous year,

and selling it for two hundred thousand to RiverOaks on January 31. He got lucky, he

said. The building was useless, but the land under it was worth a lot more than eleven

thousand. That was why he bought it.

The warehouse had always attracted squatters, he said. In fact, he had been forced to run

them off. He had never charged rent, and had no idea where that rumor originated. He

had plenty of lawyers, and he would mount a vigorous defense.

The story did not mention me. Nothing was said about DeVon Hardy and the hostage

drama. Very little about Lontae Burton and the allegations of the lawsuit

For the second day in a row, the venerable old firm of Drake & Sweeney was maligned as

a conspirator with a former pimp. Indeed, the tone of the story portrayed the lawyers as

worse criminals than Tillman Gantry.

Tomorrow, it promised, there would be another installment--a look at the sad life of

Lontae Burton.

How long would Arthur Jacobs allow his beloved firm to be dragged through the mud? It

was such an easy target. The Post could be tenacious. The reporter was obviously

working around the clock. One story would lead to another.

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