The only good Lawyer

him. Pretty soon I was standing for drinks, and soon after that he started opening up about this friend of his having such a terrible time with his divorce. So terrible that poor old Mick was afraid poor old Alan might do something really stupid with his gun.”
    Christ. “You persuaded Mantle to steal Spaeth’s gun to protect his friend from himself.”
    “Very good, John. Can you work out the rest, now?”
    I thought about Dufresne recounting the payment of the room tab. “You told Mantle he could save his friend and pick up a little money on the side by taking the gun and selling it to you.”
    “Go on,” said Neely.
    “That gets you the right gun, but you also have to make sure Spaeth doesn’t have an alibi for the night in question.”
    “What night?” said Burbage.
    Neely glanced at her. “Please, Imogene. Don’t interrupt the man.”
    I thought about it some more. “So you tell Mantle that you’re going to use the gun a week ago Wednesday, the night Gant was killed.”
    “Actually I told the little drunk that the guy I sold it to was going to carry the thing into a liquor store, maybe even fire it, because he was another hotheaded Irishman.”
    “So Mantle decided he’d better baby-sit his friend Spaeth.”
    “I decided for him. Even made sure he had enough cash to get Spaeth good and drunk.”
    “Before Mantle left him to meet you.”
    “Excellent, John.” Neely went inside himself again. “I told him, ‘Mick, you meet me late Wednesday night, over in this derelict shell by some warehouses. I’ll let you know then if your friend has anything to worry about.’ ”
    “But once you got Mantle in that shell, you strangled him.”
    Burbage said, “No.”
    Neely glanced at her again. “I’m afraid so, Imogene. After all my careful planning, I couldn’t very well leave Spaeth with a real alibi, now could I?”
    I said, “You left Mantle’s body instead, to be eaten by the rats.”
    Burbage gagged.
    Neely looked away from her. “Sweet Jesus, John. I hadn’t expected it would take so long before he was found.”
    “Only when I came around last Wednesday, rattling your cage with my doubts on Spaeth’s guilt, you decided his ‘alibi’ might need a little help in exploding.”
    “I called a hospital the next night, late.”
    “Why did you wait a day and a half?”
    “So as not to have the ‘news’ seem obviously triggered by your visit to us.”
    “And the hospital number was one you knew wouldn’t record your voice for later comparison purposes.”
    “Correct. I faked a ‘street-black’ accent to report Mantle’s body, and Woodrow’s a week earlier.” Neely smiled some more. “Careful planning always pays off, John. I learned that from my trusts and estates practice.”
    I wanted to change the focus a little. “You said you followed Mantle and Spaeth. You must have followed Gant, too.”
    “I did. And he deserved what he got for just that reason.”
    “Fooling around with one of his clients.”
    “One of the firm’s clients, the rutting pig. Woodrow was a fine-looking man. And, divorced as he was, he could have had his pick of the litter.”
    I felt Burbage’s hand start to tremble inside mine.
    “But no,” said Neely. “He couldn’t keep away from the forbidden fruit.”
    “And so you followed Gant, too. Enough to establish that he liked to take Nicole Spaeth to Viet Mam.”
    “A certain restaurant five miles from his love nest, one that was most conveniently accessed by a very dark and lonely road.”
    Squeezing my hand now, Burbage said to him, “You killed Mr. Gant?”
    “Imogene, Imogene.” Neely shook his head some more. “For such a bright woman, you are indeed a slow learner in some ways.”
    Burbage began to let go of my hand, me now holding hers more tightly.
    I said, “Everybody has blind spots, Frank.”
    He came back to me. “Yes. Yes, I suppose they do. Woodrow’s was that he thought he’d gone well past anyone from his prosecutor past who might want to kill him. I could tell by the way he left his car that night, after I’d shot out the tire.”
    I tried to picture the scene. “Gant thought he had just a flat?”
    “Yes. My ricochet must have punctured the fuel tank, though, because I could see him get down on his bad knee to inspect under the rear bumper. And, once I was near enough to Woodrow, I could smell the gasoline myself.”
    “At which point, you shot him, too.”
    “Not immediately, John. No, first I had a little talk