“Why are you going to the weasel’s funeral, Billy?” my lawyer Wally Wing asked.
“I worked with the guy.”
“Hell, I worked with the guy, too. On your contracts. But you won’t catch me anywhere near Saint Pat’s. Too nice a day to tempt the fates.”
“Tempt what fates? It’s a Catholic funeral service.”
“You and I know, my brown brother, that as we speak, Gallagher’s getting his ass tanned by Satan’s furnace. Yet in less than an hour, people are going to be lying through their teeth about what a swell human being he was. In a house of God, no less. I don’t need to be soaking up that kind of bad karma.”
We were in Wally’s office on Mott Street in Chinatown, a few doors down from the Peking Duck House. It was an oddly comfortable room with dark, polished furnishings—black and red lacquered chairs, a black leather couch with legs like lion paws, and Wally’s sleek black desk, the size of a dining-room table.
Brightening things up was a large Oriental rug the color of pink rose petals mixed with sky blue. To our right was an altar hosting a foot-high statue of a Chinese god with a furious face, holding a hammer in his right hand. His name was Lei Kung, Wally had informed me on my first visit to the office. He was the god of retribution, who makes thunder with his hammer and punishes criminals who have escaped the legal system. At the moment, his hammer was quiet, which I took as a sign of affirmation of my innocence. A brass pot near the god’s sandaled feet filled the room with the soft scent of sandalwood.
With us was Wally’s clerk-assistant, a young woman of heartbreaking loveliness named Tina, who was a recent graduate of the Columbia Law School. Dressed in a dark business suit and pale-pink blouse, she sat nearby with an open steno pad, as if she fervently expected the noted contract attorney Wallace A. Wing to say something worth recording.
Wally, handsome, well-preserved in his early fifties, was garbed in a casual broad-shouldered black cashmere jacket, a black silk shirt with a Mandarin collar, floppy gray linen trousers, and gray silk socks with red clocks on them. His gray suede loafers, which rested just outside the office door, were probably twin brothers of the shoes I considered buying at Ferragamo until I saw the six-hundred-fifty-dollar price tag.
He wore small, round glasses tinted a pale blue and framed in silver. His hair was long, mainly black but with dramatic strands of gray, tied in a ponytail that didn’t quite hide the cue underneath. He was a little bit trad, a little bit rock and roll.
“I didn’t think you believed in stuff like karma,” I told him.
“I do, when I’ve got a client who can get a seven-figure advance for a book titled You Can Change Your Karma.”
“At the risk of bringing you down to earth with my petty problems,” I said, “why am I here?”
“When you told me what they’re trying to pull over at the Glass Tower, I had Tina dust off your contracts. Tell him the good news, hon.”
“Bottom line,” she said, “they don’t have to use you, but they do have to pay you. You’ve got another three years to run at WUA!, with a slight annual bump, and two years on your contract with Wine and Dine. The deal we made for the new series, Food School 101, appears to be moot, since they will not be proceeding with the pilot.”
“Nice of them to tell me about it.”
“I think they either have notified or are about to notify your partner in the project, Lily Conover,” Tina said. “In any case, there is a generous kill fee now due.”
“So I just sit out the other jobs?” I asked Wally.
“If you want,” Wally said. “But I gave Gretchen a jingle, and she says you can come back to work whenever you so desire.”
“Just like that?”
“I had to sell her, of course,” he said. “I told her how much the show sucked this morning without you. And she agreed.”
“You watched the show?”
“Billy, on the rare occasion I’m up at seven a.m., I watch the Today show. Or maybe, if I’m feeling just a little too upbeat, CNBC, to see how much loot I’m losing.”
“So you never watch my show?”
“Say the word and I’ll watch it every morning and just add the hours to your bill.”
“Stick with the Today show,” I said, standing. “Although I’m not so crazy about the weather guy, the rest of them are pretty good. I’ll be going to church now, where I will pray for your enlightenment. Tina, a pleasure seeing you, as always.”
“Hold on,” Wally said, hopping to his sock feet. He circled the desk and walked me to the door, saying, “There’s more good news. My source at the DA’s office says they’re letting you get back to business at the Bistro.”
“That is good news,” I said.
“In the words of my glorious ancestor, Charlie Chan, ‘Settle one difficulty, and you keep a hundred others away.’ Go forth, my brown brother, and remain difficulty-free.”