Read The Litigators for Free Online Page B

with my senior partner, do some research, chat with the boys down at Zell & Potter, do my homework. Mass tort work is very complicated.”
    And it could also be insanely lucrative, which was Wally’s primary thought at the moment.
    “Thank you, Mr. Figg.”
    A t five minutes before eleven, Abner became somewhat animated. He began watching the door as he continued shining martini glasses with his white towel. Eddie was awake again, sipping coffee but still in another world. Finally, Abner said, “Say, David, could you do me a favor?”
    “Anything.”
    “Could you move two stools over? The one you got now is reserved at eleven each morning.”
    David looked to his right—there were eight empty stools between him and Eddie. And to his left there were seven empty stools between him and the other end of the bar. “Are you kidding?” David asked.
    “Come on.” Abner grabbed his pint of beer, which was almost empty, replaced it with a full one, and situated everything two stools to the left. David slowly lifted himself up and followed his beer. “What’s the deal?” he asked.
    “You’ll see,” Abner said, nodding at the door. There was no one else in the pub, other than, of course, Eddie.
    Minutes later, the door opened, and an elderly Asian man appeared. He wore a dapper uniform, a bow tie, and a little driver’s cap. He was helping a lady much older than himself. She walked with a cane, unassisted but with the driver hovering, and the two of them shuffled across the floor toward the bar. David watched with fascination—washe finally seeing things, or was this for real? Abner was mixing a drink and watching too. Eddie was mumbling to himself.
    “Good morning, Miss Spence,” Abner said politely, almost with a bow.
    “Good morning, Abner,” she said as she slowly lifted herself up and delicately mounted the stool. Her driver followed her movements with both hands but didn’t touch her. Once she was properly seated, she said, “I’ll have the usual.”
    The driver nodded at Abner, then backed away and quietly left the bar.
    Miss Spence was wearing a full-length mink coat, thick pearls around her tiny neck, and layers of thick rouge and mascara that did little to hide the fact that she was at least ninety years old. David admired her immediately. His own grandmother was ninety-two and strapped to a bed in a nursing home, absent from this world, and here was this grand old dame boozing it up before lunch.
    She ignored him. Abner finished mixing her drink, a baffling combination of ingredients. “One Pearl Harbor,” he said as he presented it to her. She slowly lifted it to her mouth, took a small sip with her eyes closed, swirled the booze around her mouth, then offered Abner the slightest of heavily wrinkled grins. He seemed to breathe again.
    David, not quite plastered but well on his way, leaned over and said, “Come here often?”
    Abner gulped and showed both palms to David. “Miss Spence is a regular, and she prefers to drink in silence,” he said, panicky. Miss Spence was taking another sip, again with her eyes closed.
    “She wants to drink in silence in a bar?” David asked in disbelief.
    “Yes!” Abner snapped.
    “Well, I guess she picked the right bar,” David said, flopping an arm around and taking in the emptiness of the pub. “This place is deserted. Do you ever have a crowd around here?”
    “Quiet,” Abner urged. His face said, “Just be cool for a while.”
    But David kept on. “I mean, you’ve had just two customers allmorning, me and old Eddie down there, and we all know that he doesn’t pay his tab.”
    At the moment, Eddie was lifting his coffee cup in the general direction of his face but was having trouble finding his mouth. Evidently, he did not hear David’s comment.
    “Knock it off,” Abner growled. “Or I’ll ask you to leave.”
    “Sorry,” David said and went silent. He had no desire to leave because he had no idea where to go.
    The third sip did the trick and