Seventh Enemy Read Free Page A

again, I don’t know, but I lay awake for a long time. It all must have affected Wally the same way, because even as I finally drifted off to sleep I could still hear him pacing around in my living room mumbling to himself.

3
    W HEN I STUMBLED INTO the kitchen the next morning, Wally was slouched in the same chair at the table, scratching on his yellow legal pad. I poured two mugfuls of coffee and slid one beside his elbow. “You been sitting there all night?” I said.
    He took off his reading glasses, laid them on the table, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he reached for his coffee and took a sip. “I slept for a while.”
    “This must be important,” I persisted, gesturing at what looked like an entire pad’s worth of balled-up sheets of yellow paper scattered on the floor behind him.
    Wally leaned back and rolled his shoulders. “Actually it’s just a little subcommittee hearing, one of those deals where you slip in and slip out and nobody listens to what you say because they’ve already got their minds made up, but the law requires a public hearing. So they set it up for Monday morning before the press rolls out of bed and everybody just wants to get it over with.”
    “Then why…?” I gestured at the litter of paper balls on the floor.
    “I just like to do things right,” said Willy with a shrug. “It’s a character flaw.”
    I waited until nine to call Julie. “Brady L. Coyne, Attorney,” she said. “Good morning.”
    “It’s me.”
    “Where are you?”
    “Home. I’m gonna be late.”
    “How late?”
    “Couple, three hours.”
    “No, you’re not. Mrs. Mudgett has a ten o’clock.”
    “Call her. Reschedule.”
    “Aha.” I could visualize Julie squinting suspiciously. “Who is it? The Hungarian or the Italian?”
    “I’m not with a woman, Julie. I’m with a client, and we should be done sometime before noon.”
    “Don’t try to bullshit me, Brady Coyne,” said Julie.
    “No. Listen—”
    “I know you,” she said. “You don’t set up meetings with clients. Especially on Monday mornings. You avoid meeting with clients. You hate meeting with clients. I’m the one who sets up meetings. Then I have to keep kicking your butt to make you show up for them. Look. If you’re hung over, or if you’re calling from some fishing place in New Hampshire, or if you’ve got your legs all tangled up with some woman and just can’t summon up the strength of character to kick off the blankets, okay, fine. I mean, not fine, but at least I know you’re telling the truth.”
    “It’s Wally Kinnick. He flew in unexpectedly last night. He’s got a problem. I’m his lawyer. My job is to help my clients with their problems. So—”
    “Ha!” she said. “I know the kinds of problems you and Mr. Kinnick discuss. Like how to catch big trout on those little bitty flies you use.”
    “No, listen,” I said. “This is lawyer stuff. We’re here at my place, and we’ve been conferring, and we’ve got more work to do, and I’ll be there by noon. And don’t give me any more shit about it or I’ll fire you.”
    “Ha!” she said, “You’d go broke in a week.”
    “I know. I won’t fire you. I’ll give you a raise. Call Mrs. Mudgett and reschedule her. Oh, and, um, you better clear my calendar for Thursday and Friday.”
    “Fishing, right?”
    “Well, yeah, but—”
    “Boy,” sighed Julie. “To think, I could’ve been an emergency room nurse, run the control tower at O’Hare, something easy on the nerves.”
    “Thanks, kiddo,” I said. “Love ya.” I made kissing noises into the phone.
    After I hung up, Wally said, “From this end it sounded like you were taking a bunch of shit from a wife.”
    “Worse. A secretary.”
    Wally grinned, “That Julie’s a piece of work.”
    His testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Public Safety was scheduled for ten. It was a gorgeous May morning, so we decided to walk over from my apartment on the harbor. I carried my briefcase