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schools.”
    He took another sip and walked to the table for a refill.
    “Are you going to drink that whole bottle?” Mark asked.
    “Only if I want to.”
    “Maybe you should slow down.”
    “And maybe you should worry about yourself. I’m not drunk, just sufficiently buzzed. And who are you to monitor my drinking?”
    Mark took a deep breath and let it go. Gordy’s speech was clear enough. His mind was certainly clicking right along. In spite of his disheveled appearance, he seemed to be under control, at least for the moment. He stepped back to the wall and pointed at the photos. “The guy in the middle here is Walter Baldwin, runs a Chicago law firm called Spann & Tatta, three hundred lawyers in seven cities, coast to coast. Same type of work, same fondness for graduates of lesser law schools.” He pointed to the third face under Rackley. “And rounding out the gang is Mr. Marvin Jockety, senior partner of a Brooklyn law firm called Ratliff & Cosgrove. Same setup, same business model.”
    Gordy took another sip and admired his work. He turned and looked at the three. “Not to belabor what should be obvious, but Rackley has under his thumb four law firms with eleven hundred lawyers in twenty-seven offices. Between them, they hire enough of his graduates to give his law schools plenty to crow about, so that suckers like us rush in with piles of cash provided by Congress.” His voice was suddenly loud and shaky. “It’s perfect! It’s beautiful! It’s one great big fat law school scam that’s risk-free. If we default the taxpayers pick up the tab. Rackley gets to privatize the profits and socialize the losses.”
    He suddenly threw his coffee cup at the wall. It bounced off the thin Sheetrock unbroken and rolled across the floor. He sat hard against the wall, facing them, and stretched out his legs. The soles of his feet were black with dirt and grime.
    The crash echoed for a few seconds as they watched him. Nothing was said for a long time. Mark gazed at the wall and absorbed the plot. There was no reason to doubt Gordy’s research. Todd gazed at the wall as if enthralled by the conspiracy. Zola stared at Gordy and wondered what they were supposed to do with him.
    Finally, Gordy, almost in a whisper, said, “My number is 276,000 in loans, including this semester. What’s yours, Mark?”
    There were no secrets. The four knew each other well enough.
    “Including this semester, 266,” Mark said.
    “Todd?”
    “One-ninety-five.”
    “Zola?”
    “One-ninety-one.”
    Gordy shook his head and laughed, not from humor, but from disbelief. “Almost a million. Who in their right mind would loan the four of us a million dollars?” At the moment, it did seem absurd, even laughable.
    After another long pause, Gordy said, “There’s no way out. We’ve been lied to, misled, scammed, and suckered into this miserable place. There’s no way out.”
    Todd slowly got to his feet and stepped to the wall. He pointed to the center of it and asked, “What is Sorvann Lenders?”
    Gordy snorted another fake laugh and said, “The rest of the story. Rackley, through another company, and this guy has more fronts than a low-rent strip mall, owns Sorvann, which is now the fourth-largest private student lender. If you can’t get enough cash from the government, then you go private, where, surprise, surprise, the interest rates are higher and the debt collectors make the Mafia look like Cub Scouts. Sorvann lends to undergrads as well and has about ninety million in its portfolio. It’s a growing company. Evidently, Rackley smells blood on the private side as well.”
    Todd asked, “And what is Passant?”
    Another pained laugh. Gordy slowly climbed to his feet and walked to the table, where he grabbed the bottle and took a long swig. He grimaced, swallowed hard, wiped his mouth with his forearm, and finally said, “Passant is Piss Ant, third-largest student loan collecting racket in the country. It’s under contract to