Big Easy Bonanza

until Tubby would break them up so he could get some work done.
    “Sure it sounds funny for a patient to ask his doctor to suggest a malpractice lawyer,” Dr. Feingold continued, “but Sandy has this unshakable conviction, formed years ago when I adjusted his nose, that I’m the most intelligent person he knows. He still relies on me, even if the skin-darkening treatments were less than totally successful.”
    “He should have been satisfied with the way he was,” Tubby said philosophically as he tried with little success to spear a pod of snowpeas.
    “If everybody felt that way, Tubby, plastic surgeons would be out of a job. We exist because it is a human instinct to want to change. We aspire. Sandy’s hero, for example, is a television show cop, some guy—I can’t think of his name—with a real Caribbean, coffee-and-cream look. But Sandy’s natural pigment is paler than mine. He didn’t just want to look tan, mind you. I could have handled that easy. He wanted to look like a Creole gambler. Those were his words to me. That enchanting picture inspired me, and it’s what got me into this mess.”
    “He’s kind of splotchy now,” Tubby observed.
    “I told him the treatments were experimental,” Dr. Feingold said defensively. “I told him there was very little literature in the area. I told him there was a chance this could happen. God knows, I feel sorry about it.”
    Tubby patted his lips with his napkin. “Look out, Marty. Sandy has got a good case. My first job is to do right by him. You and I have been friends for a long time, but I’ve got to represent Sandy to the best of my ability, just like I do every other client.”
    “I understand that, and I wouldn’t expect anything less, knowing you as I do. But surely Sandy Shandell does not have a three-million-dollar case.”
    Marty Feingold had sad puppy eyes below bushy eyebrows, and Tubby felt them probing his, looking for pity.
    “Who knows. More than a hundred grand, probably. Juries are unpredictable. If Sandy can keep it together on the stand, those twelve noble citizens in the jury box could do you some real damage.”
    “My insurance rates will skyrocket.” Now it looked like the doctor was close to tears. He was even forgetting to eat.
    “It’s just the price of doing business,” Tubby consoled him. “You’ll just raise your fees, right?”
    The thought seemed to comfort Dr. Feingold. He picked up an almond slice with his fingers and nibbled it. “I suppose that’s true,” he said.
    Tubby pressed ahead. “There will always be tummies to tuck.” A waiter passing with a fudge-drenched piece of chocolate cake caught his attention. “Hey, would you look at that dessert.”
    “Help yourself.”
    “No, I’ve got too much work to do this afternoon. I think that would put me out of commission for at least a couple of hours.”
    “Then I’ll get the check.”
    “No. This one is on me, Marty. You sent me a good client.”
    “I have this feeling I’m going to end up paying for it.”
    “I can’t argue with that.”
    “Hmmm.”
    * * *
    Tubby and Marty Feingold strolled together across Lafayette Square in the direction of Tubby’s office and Marty’s car. A crew of gardeners, mostly Asian women wearing pointed hats, squatted around a fountain, pulling weeds from a bed of vividly colored pansies. A family of pigeons, like toy soldiers, waddled over to them hopefully, then fluttered excitedly out of the way.
    “They’re doing a great job keeping the place up,” Dr. Feingold said, nodding at the industrious laborers and the neatly trimmed border around the concrete fountain.
    “Yes, they are. Most of them don’t speak any English, you know. It’s hard to imagine going to a strange country halfway around the world and ending up tending flowers in the parks of a city where you don’t even speak the language. They sure can understand the flowers, though, can’t they?”
    “In ten years they’ll own this town.”
    “Everybody else has taken a turn at running New Orleans, why not them?”
    “They couldn’t do much worse than we’ve done, could they?”
    “Wake up, Marty. We’re not in charge here anymore.”
    “We’re just allowed to show up for work, right?”
    “Work and play,” said Tubby. “And that’s not too shabby.”
    They shook hands and parted underneath the Whitney Bank clock on the street corner. A delivery kid, riding a bicycle the wrong way down the street, almost collided with Dr. Feingold