It was a soft jab, and I was not in the mood to spar. "Do you know if he had aids?"

He cocked his head back, looked at the ceiling, and rattled that around for a few seconds.

"Why?"

"I was standing behind him. The back of his head was blown off. I got a face full of blood.

That's all."

With that, I crossed the line from a bad guy to just an average white guy.

"I don't think he had AIDS."

"Do they check them when they die?"

"The homeless?"

"Yes."

"Most of the time, yes. DeVon, though, died by other means."

"Can you find out?"

He shrugged and thawed some more. "Sure," he said reluctantly, and took his pen from

his pocket. "Is that why you're here? Worried about AIDS?"

"I guess it's one reason. Wouldn't you be?"

"Sure."

Abraham stepped in, a small hyper man of about forty who had public interest lawyer

stamped all over him. Jewish, dark beard, horn-rimmed glasses, rumpled blazer, wrinkled

khakis, dirty sneakers, and the weighty aura of one trying to save the world.

He did not acknowledge me, and Green was not one for social graces. "They're predicting

a ton of snow," Green said to him. "We need to make sure every possible shelter is open."

"I'm working on it," Abraham snapped, then abruptly left.

"I know you're busy," I said.

"Is that all you wanted? A blood check."

"Yeah, I guess. Any idea why he did it?"

He removed his red glasses, wiped them with a tissue, then rubbed his eyes. "He was

mentally ill, like a lot of these people. You spend years on the streets, soaked with booze,

stoned on crack, sleeping in the cold, getting kicked around by cops and punks, it makes

you crazy. Plus, he had a bone to pick."

"The eviction."

"Yep. A few months ago, he moved into an abandoned warehouse at the corner of New

York and Florida. Somebody threw up some plywood, chopped up the place, and made

little apartments. Wasn't a bad place as far as homeless folk go--a roof, some toilets,

water. A hundred bucks a month, payable to an ex-pimp who fixed it up and claimed he

owned it."

"Did he?"

"I think so." He pulled a thin file from one of the stacks on his desk, and, miraculously, it

happened to be the one he wanted. He studied its contents for a moment. "This is where it

gets complicated. The property was purchased last month by a company called

RiverOaks, some big real estate outfit."

"And RiverOaks evicted everyone?"

"Yep."

"Odds are, then, that RiverOaks would be represented by my firm."

"Good odds, yes."

"Why is it complicated?"

"I've heard it secondhand that they got no notice before the eviction. The people claim

they were paying rent to the pimp, and if so, then they were more than squatters. They

were tenants, thus entitled to due process."

"Squatters get no notice?"

"None. And it happens all the time. Street folk will move into an abandoned building, and

most of the time nothing happens. So they thrink they own it. The owner, if he's inclined

to show up, can toss 'em without notice. They have no rights at all."

"How did DeVon Hardy track down our firm?"

"Who knows? He wasn't stupid, though. Crazy, but not stupid."

"Do you know the pimp?"

"Yeah. Completely unreliable."

"Where did you say the warehouse was?"

"It's gone now. They leveled it last week."

I had taken enough of his time. He glanced at his watch, I glanced at mine. We swapped

phone numbers and promised to keep in touch.

Mordecai Green was a warm, caring man who labored on the streets protecting hordes of

nameless clients. His view of the law required more soul than I could ever muster.

On my way out, I ignored Sofia because she certainly ignored me. My Lexus was still

parked at the curb, already covered with an inch of snow.

________________________________________________________________

Five

I drifted through the city as the snow fell. I couldn't recall the last time I had driven the

streets of D.C. without being late for a meeting. I was warm and dry in my heavy luxury

car, and I simply moved with the traffic. There was no place to go.

The office would be off-limits for a while, what with Arthur mad at me; and I'd have to

suffer through a hundred random drop-ins, all of which would start with the phony "How

you doin'?"

My car phone rang. It was Polly, panicky. "Where are you?" she asked.

"Who wants to know?"

"A lot of people. Arthur for one. Rudolph. Another reporter called. There are some

clients in need of advice. And Claire called from the hospital." "What does she want?"

"She's worried, like everybody else."

"I'm fine, Polly. Tell everybody I'm at the doctor's office."

"Are you?"

"No, but I could be. What did Arthur say?"

"He didn't call. Rudolph did. They were waiting for you."

"Let 'em wait."

A pause, then a very slow "Okay. When might you be dropping by?"

"Don't know. I guess whenever the doctor releases me. Why don't you go home; we're in

the middle of a storm. I'll call you tomorrow." I hung up on her.

The apartment was a place I had rarely seen in the light of day, and I couldn't stand the

thought of sitting by the fire and watching it snow. If I went to a bar, I'd probably never

leave.

So I drove. I flowed with the traffic as the commuters began a hasty retreat into the

Maryland and Virginia suburbs, and I breezed along near-empty streets coming back into the city. I found the cemetery near RFK where they buffed the unclaimed, and I passed

the Methodist Mission on Seventeenth where last night's uneaten dinner originated. I

drove through sections of the city I had never been near and probably would never see

again.

By four, the city was empty. The skies were darkening, the snow was quite heavy.

Several inches already covered the ground, and they were predicting a lot more.

* * *

Of course, not even a snowstorm could shut down Drake & Sweeney. I knew lawyers

there who loved midnights and Sundays because the phones didn't ting. A heavy snow

was a delightful respite from the grueling drudgery of nonstop meetings and conference

calls.

I was informed by a security guard in the lobby that the secretaries and most of the staff

had been sent home at three. I took Mister's elevator again.

In a neat row in the center of my desk were a dozen pink phone messages, none of which

interested me. I went to my computer and began searching our client index.

RiverOaks was a Delaware corporation, organized in 1977, headquartered in Hagerstown,

Maryland. It was privately held, thus little financial information was available. The

attorney was N. Braden Chance, a name unknown to me.

I looked him up in our vast database. Chance was a partner in our real estate division,

somewhere down on the fourth floor. Age forty-four, married, law school at Duke,

undergrad at Gettysburg, an impressive but thoroughly predictable resumŽ

With eight hundred lawyers threatening and suing daily, our firm had over thirty-six

thousand active files. To make sure our office in New York didn't sue one of our clients

in Chicago, each new file was entered immediately into our data system. Every lawyer,

secretary, and paralegal at Drake & Sweeney had a PC, and thus instant access to general

information about all fles. If one of our probate attorneys in Palm Beach handled the

estate of a rich client, I could, if I were so inclined, punch a few keys and learn the basics

of our representation.

There were forty-two files for RiverOaks, almost all of them real estate transactions in

which the company had purchased property. Chance was the attorney of record on every

file. Four were eviction actions, three of which took place last year. The first phase of the

search was easy.

On January 31, RiverOaks purchased property on Florida Avenue. The seller was TAG,

Inc. On February 4, our client evicted a number of squatters from an abandoned

warehouse on the property--one of whom, I now knew, was Mister DeVon Hardy, who

took the eviction personally and somehow tracked down the lawyers.

I copied the file name and number, and strolled to the fourth floor.

No one joined a large firm with the goal of becoming a real estate lawyer. There were far

more glamorous arenas in which to establish reputations. Litigation was the all-time

favorite, and the litigators were still the most revered of all God's lawyers, at least within

the firm. A few of the corporate fields attracted top talent--mergers and acquisitions was

still hot, securities was an old favorite. My field, antitrust, was highly regarded. Tax law

was horribly complex, but its practitioners were greatly admired. Governmental relations

(lobbying) was repulsive but paid so well that every D.C. firm had entire wings of

lawyers greasing the skids.

But no one set out to be a real estate lawyer. I didn't know how it happened. They kept to

themselves, no doubt reading fine print in mortgage documents, and were treated as

slightly inferior lawyers by the rest of the firm.

* * *

At Drake & Sweeney, each lawyer kept his current files in his office, often under lock

and key. Only the retired files were accessible by the rest of the firm. No lawyer could be

compelled to show a file to another lawyer, unless requested by a senior partner or a

member of the firm's executive committee.

The eviction file I wanted was still listed as current, and after the Mister episode I was

certain it was well protected.