TWENTY-THREE

IT WAS SURPRISINGLY quiet in the claustrophobic waiting room outside the U.S. Trustee’s hearing room in Federal Bankruptcy Court. Everyone spoke in whispers, as if they were attending a funeral—everyone except a lawyer dressed in a two-thousand-dollar Armani who moved from one group to another, asking questions and collecting money. “Do you have a check for me?” he asked a woman who was unable or unwilling to make eye contact. She handed him a check and he gave her a receipt, writing something on the corner of her file envelope and tearing it off. “How about you? You have any money for me?” he asked the next man, who was sitting ramrod straight.

“I’ve already paid in full,” the man informed him.

“Let me shake your hand,” the Armani said and he did. The man grinned; he wasn’t like the others, he wasn’t a deadbeat.

All the chairs lining the walls had been taken and knots of people stood nervously, filling the remainder of the available space. It took a while before I spotted Cynthia Grey sitting in the corner and holding the hand of a woman who looked like a corpse. I caught her eye and she nodded. I juked and jived through the crowd toward her, brushing the shoulder of the Armani.

“You looking for Sam Halvorson?” he asked.

“No, is he lost?” I said in reply and he turned back to a file he was reading.

“Livestock?” I heard him asking a couple fidgeting in their chairs before him.

“Three cows, eight hens and a goat,” the husband answered.

“Well, you’ll be able to keep the animals,” Halvorson told them. “Also, Wards and the bank are willing to let you keep your credit cards if you agree to pay off your debts. I recommend against it. Do you have a check for me?”

Cynthia patted the hand of the corpse, then stood and crossed the room, meeting me halfway. “Who is this guy?” I nodded toward Halvorson.

“Samuel A. Halvorson, attorney at law. When it comes to bankruptcy in Minnesota, he’s the best,” Cynthia said.

“Best or biggest?”

“Is there a difference?”

“Hell, yes.”

“The court is running late,” Cynthia told me. “We’ll be up in ten minutes and then we can go to lunch. Will you wait?”

“Forever,” I said.

“Oh, cut it out,” she told me and went back to the corpse. Cynthia was grinning.

I moved back to the door and waited. Halvorson was arguing with a client, an older woman who insisted on paying off her VCR. “Why do it? We’re here to eliminate your debts, that’s why we filed for bankruptcy.” When the woman kept insisting, Halvorson offered a solution. “If you don’t want to give it back, you could offer to pay for it at ten cents on the dollar,” he said with a wink. “Believe me, they’ll take it.” The woman agreed.

Cynthia’s client was named Mary Thomas. When the bailiff called her name she jumped three feet. Cynthia led her into the hearing room. The U.S. Trustee started asking questions even before she reached the debtor’s table.

“Have you ever filed bankruptcy before?”

“Oh, no,” Mary answered in a pitiful voice that nearly cracked. “I was raised in a family where you always paid your debts, always. You don’t know how I suffered over this.”

The judge nodded without looking up. He said something but I couldn’t hear him. Halvorson was standing behind me, counseling a client.

“You’re going to get a formal notice saying your case has been discharged,” Halvorson advised. “It’ll come in the mail in about sixty days. That’s your diploma. It means you can use a checking account, a savings account. Only don’t go back to your old bank, they’re liable to be nasty. And don’t fret about any telephone calls. Just tell them that you’ve filed and that Sam Halvorson is your lawyer. If you get an unpaid notice in the mail, just write them a note saying the same thing. If you get another, toss it. If you’ve forgotten any creditors, just mail the name to me along with twenty dollars and I’ll take care of it. Okay?”

“Okay,” the client said.

“Be sure to tell your friends about me,” Halvorson reminded him. The client said he would.

Mary Thomas’s hearing took five minutes. She was crying when Cynthia led her past Halvorson and out of the hearing room. Halvorson chose not to notice.

“I hate bankruptcies,” Cynthia told me as we walked down Marquette.

“Then why do them?” I asked.

“People need help,” Cynthia said. “This economy, over a million people will file this year.”

“That’s discouraging.”

“It’ll probably get worse,” she said, then added, “I’m not hungry. Is it okay if we just walk?”

“Sure.”

She took my hand. Yeah, walking was fine. We strolled down the avenue hand-in-hand, looking in the windows, not speaking, comfortable in our silence. Eventually we reached Orchestra Hall and then crossed over to Peavy Plaza, where we sat on the stone steps and watched tourists tossing pennies into the fountain. There were maybe three dozen people gathered around the fountain, most of them brown-bagging it. Cynthia leaned back against the stone, her eyes closed, her chin pointed up at the noon sky. After a few moments she said, almost sadly, “Did you know I made eighty thousand dollars last year?”

“Really?” I asked.

“I’ll probably gross even more this year,” she said. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Then why do it?”

“It’s an identity thing, it’s being able to say, ‘I’m a successful attorney.’ That can mean a lot. Especially to a woman.”

“I understand,” I said.

“No insult intended, Taylor, but I doubt it. I really do.”

She was probably right.

After a while, she said, “I wonder where Joseph Sherman is.”

“Someone is hiding him,” I speculated. “If he’s still in the state, most likely someone is hiding him. But he’ll turn up. After a few days he’ll become bored with the hole he crawled into and come up for air; he’ll try to make a life for himself. When he does, the cops will take him. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Can you find him?”

“Probably. Give me enough time. Only I doubt that it’s worth the effort. If he wants your help, if he wants mine, he’ll find us. That’s the only way it’s going to work.”

“Do you think he killed John Brown?”

“He had opportunity. Motive? Hell, I’ve busted guys who killed people because their radios were too loud. The important question is, did Sherman also kill Amy Lamb? My gut tells me no, but my gut has been wrong before. There’s also Dennis Thoreau to consider. I’m conducting a computer search even as we speak to see if there’s something, anything—a name, an address—that links the two men. You can bet the ranch the cops are doing the same thing.”

“I know why the police care. Why do you?” Cynthia asked.

“About Brown and Thoreau? I don’t. But whoever killed them probably killed Amy Lamb and I do care about that.”

“Why?”

“I feel partly responsible.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly.”

“You’re not one of those macho guys who keep all their emotions inside, are you?”

“I show my emotions,” I reminded her. “I showed them just the other night outside Le Chateau. If I recall, you weren’t too happy about it.”

“Don’t remind me,” she said.

We did not speak for a long time after that, not until Cynthia asked, “Are you really a strong, silent, hard-boiled character, or are you just posing for me?”

“Posing?”

“Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum.”

“Robert Mitchum? I don’t think so.”

“Time will tell,” she said.

I reached out my hand and Cynthia took it. We retraced our steps, walking back to the office tower that housed the Federal Bankruptcy Court. This time the silence was awkward; we were both waiting for the other to speak.

Finally, Cynthia said, “Will I see you tonight?”

I thought she’d never ask. “That can be arranged,” I answered.

She nodded. “We are going to get involved, then.”

“We already are involved.”

“One night isn’t involvement,” Cynthia said. “It’s exercise.”

“You’re very cynical, you know that?”

“If a woman doesn’t want to see a man, she has to tell him not to call and usually that’s not enough; she also has to give reasons. It’s easier for a man. You don’t want to see a woman, you just stop seeing her, stop calling, no explanations. After a few weeks the woman realizes she’s been discarded. That happens to a woman often enough, yeah, she becomes cynical.”

“I understand,” I told her and she shook her head—there I went again, saying I understood when I probably didn’t. Only this time, I did. Absolutely.

I let go of her hand when we reached the office building. We stood outside the revolving door and kissed each other and pressed our foreheads together and I asked, “Do you really make eighty thousand dollars a year?”

“See, now that’s the kind of sweet talk a woman likes to hear.”