The only good Lawyer

at least eighteen. Construction workers would mob the bar after they left the job sites, buying a round of “dimeys”—a six-ounce glass of beer that cost a dime—for any kids in the place.
    Dufresne shook his head. “Only thing is, I know a lot of guys say they had their first beer at the Quencher; but not all of them became boozers.”
    “This Mantle really likes the stuff?”
    “Likes it too much. Half-lit, funniest guy you ever been around. Anybody’ll talk to him, even women. And the things he comes out with. You know there’s this new Irish cable channel?”
    “I’ve caught it a couple of times.”
    “Well, the Mick, he sees some kind of music show on the screen at a bar, then hears about this Portuguese guy over in Somerville who’s on a hunger strike till they carry a Portuguese channel, too. The Mick says to me, ‘Hey, Vinnie, you got to have a rent strike till they give you a French channel.’ ” The honking laugh. “See what I mean?”
    “Funny,” I said, guessing you had to be there. “Yeah, but that’s only when he’s half-lit.” Dufresne shook his head again. “All the way drunk, the Mick’s a fucking mess, days at a time.”
    “Could we check his room, too?”
    A cocking of the head I thought I recognized. “Viewing fee’s double when somebody’s still living there.”
    I gave Dufresne the forty, and he moved diagonally across to the front room on the other side of the staircase. He fished around for a while in his side pocket, coming out with a key that turned in the lock right away.
    I said, “Handy you had that with you.”
    “This?” He held it up. “This isn’t the Mick’s key. I had the locksmith come in, make me a real master.” Dufresne twisted the glass knob, and we entered a bay-windowed front room that was bigger than Spaeth’s, maybe fifteen feet square. The walls were painted instead of papered, but similar furniture and floor. However, the sheets on the bed lay filthy and unmade, the air smelling like the Quencher in high August. I wasn’t surprised that nobody was there.
    Dufresne frowned. “Fuck, it’s no better than last week.”
    “Last week?”
    “Yeah. I had to help him up the stairs one night. The Mick’s a carpenter, makes good money when he works. But he’s been on and off the benders for over a month.”
    The only towel I saw in the room was heaped on the floor by the bureau. I walked over to it and bent down. Bone dry. “You remember which day last week?”
    Dufresne cocked his head a new way. “That I helped him? Monday or Tuesday, maybe?”
    Woodrow Gant had been shot on Wednesday night. “Can’t you just throw Mantle out?”
    A confused look now. “I don’t get you.”
    “He keeps his room like this, and him not working means he’s not paying rent. Is the—”
    “Oh, the Mick’s all paid up.”
    I stopped. “What?”
    “Yeah. A month ago maybe, I caught him coming in drunk again, only this time just the half-lit, eh?”
    “Go on.”
    “Well, he wasn’t working, like I told you, so I said to him, ‘You’ve already missed two Fridays now. What’s the story, you got money for the brew and not the weekly?’ And the Mick says, ‘Hey, Vinnie, I’m sorry, really.’ And he reaches into his pants, pulls out this wad of cash, and pays the two Fridays he owes and the next four as well.”
    “Wait a minute. He paid you the whole arrearage”
    “Right.”
    “—and a month’s advance?”
    “Right, right.”
    “All at once?”
    “Like I just said.”
    I thought about it. “Do you remember when this was, too?”
    The same canting of the head. “A Monday. I remember thinking, ‘He didn’t have two weeklies three days ago, and he’s got six for me now?’ “
    “So, a Monday, a month ago.”
    “Right.”
    About the time that... “Mr. Dufresne, was this before or after Alan Spaeth moved out?”
    Dufresne got angry. “Right before. I remember thinking about what my mother used to say, eh?”
    “Your mother?”
    “Yeah, she’d tell me, ‘Remember, Vincennes , God gives with one hand and takes away with the other.’ “ “Meaning?”
    Dufresne looked disappointed in me. “Meaning I get money I’m owed plus upfront from the Mick, but this asshole Spaeth is in my face about me stealing his gun and says he’s leaving. Which also means I got five empty rooms, and the mortgage bank don’t care about—”
    “Please, Mr. Dufresne, this could be very important.”
    He stared at me.
    I said, “A month ago,