The only good Lawyer

hands.”
    “How did it end?”
    “Frank came out of his office and bellowed at the guy to shut up. You ever hear Frank’s voice when he’s angry, ‘bellow’ doesn’t quite describe it. More like a mortar round detonating. And it did shut Spaeth up.”
    “Then what happened?”
    “Frank ordered Spaeth to leave, and he did. Good thing, too.”
    “Why?”
    “I could barely hold Grover back.”
    “Grover?”
    “Woodrow’s brother.”
    I remembered Steve Rothenberg mentioning that Gant had “a real questionable” brother.
    Herman said, “Grover was in the reception area when all this erupted. I don’t think Spaeth could have seen him, backing out the conference room like he was. But I sure did.”
    “See the brother.”
    “Yeah. As soon as I heard the ‘N’-word, I rushed up to Grover and put a bear hug around his arms, to keep him away. Not the easiest mission in the world, either.”
    “Because?”
    “The brother isn’t as strong-looking as Woodrow was, but he’s big, too. And he was four-plus mad.”
    I toned it over. “Did Grover Gant threaten Alan Spaeth at all?”
    A shrug. “He might have. I wasn’t paying attention to what he said. I was just going, ‘Hey, easy now. Take it easy.’ ”
    “Was there anybody else there?”
    “Just about everybody, I think. Deborah—Deborah Ling, another associate?—she was in the hall by her office. Stayed out of it, though. And poor Imogene was covering at the reception desk. Looked scared to death.”
    I tried to picture it. “Ms. Burbage was Woodrow Gant’s secretary, right?”
    “Right.”
    “And she kept her boss’s brother waiting in the reception area?”
    Herman seemed uncomfortable with the question. “I don’t know for how long, though.”
    Meaning it seemed odd to Herman as well that Imogene Burbage wouldn’t have Grover Gant wait for his brother in the lawyer’s own office.
    I said, “And from the conference room, Woodrow Gant at the far side of the table could see through the glass to where his brother was waiting?”
    Herman got very casual. “I suppose.” He glanced across the next street, his voice changing back to curt. “My meeting’s in that building.”
    “Just a few more questions, please.”
    Another check of his watch. “Hurry up and ask them.”
    “It seems Mr. Gant was having dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant the night he was killed. With a woman. Do you have any idea who she might be?”
    “Negative.”
    “None at all?”
    “Woodrow fancied himself a real stud. But whenever he’d say something about seeing a show or going to a restaurant, and you’d ask him with who, he’d always just say, ‘Hey, man, a lady,’ and smile. All right?”
    “All right. Just—”
    “Last question.” More clock-watching. “I’m pitching a new client here, try to make up some of what we’re going to lose by having to refer out a lot of Woodrow’s cases. And my wife’s coming all the way in from Weston Hills by train to meet me for dinner and Phantom over in the theater district.”
    Weston Hills, the town where Nguyen Trinh and Oscar Huong pulled the home invasion. But no time for that now. “How did Woodrow Gant react to the deposition incident with Mr. Spaeth?”
    “React?”
    “To what Mr. Spaeth was yelling at him.”
    “Woodrow just grinned.”
    “Just grinned?”
    “Yeah. Why not?”
    “I don’t understand you.”
    Herman shook his head. “Woodrow knew he had him. Cold.”
    “Mr. Gant said that?”
    “He didn’t have to. As a lawyer you drive an opposing client batshit-crazy, you’ve really done your job.”
    At which point Elliot Herman turned on his heel and went through a revolving door hard enough to keep it turning after I’d lost sight of him.

    “Ms. Ling?”
    “Yes, Mr. Cuddy. Please, come in and sit down.”
    When I’d gotten back to the law firm, the new receptionist had told me that Deborah Ling also had returned and asked that I see her as soon as possible. By the time I reached Ling’s office door, she was looking up at me from her high-backed judge’s chair behind a black, lacquered desk, a nondescript credenza holding a computer behind her.
    About five-three when she stood to shake hands, T ing had black hair that framed her face in what we once would have called a pixie cut. Her eyes were solemn over a businesslike smile, three diamond studs in the lobe of each ear. She wore a pale green suit with faint pinstriping and a birthday-gift bow under the collar of her white