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I worked with, gave a damn about him.
    I finally left. The traffic was getting worse, and I was getting chatted up by people I couldn’t stand. Two reporters called. I told Polly I had some errands to run, and she reminded me of the meeting with Arthur. I went to my car, started it and turned on the heater, and sat for a long time debating whether to participate in the reenactment. If I missed it, Arthur would be upset. No one misses a meeting with Arthur.
    I drove away. It was a rare opportunity to do something stupid. I’d been traumatized. I had to leave. Arthur and the rest of the firm would just have to give me a break.
    I DROVE in the general direction of Georgetown, but to no place in particular. The clouds were dark; people scurried along the sidewalks; snow crews were getting ready. I passed a beggar on M Street, and wondered if he knew DeVon Hardy. Where do the street people go in a snowstorm?
    I called the hospital and was informed that my wife would be in emergency surgery for several hours. So much for our romantic lunch in the hospital cafeteria.
    I turned and went northeast, past Logan Circle, into the rougher sections of the city until I found the 14thStreet Legal Clinic. Fourteenth at Q, NW. I parked at the curb, certain I would never again see my Lexus.
    The clinic occupied half of a three-story red-brick Victorian mansion that had seen better days. The windows on the top floor were boarded with aging plywood. Next door was a grungy Laundromat. The crack houses couldn’t be far away.
    The entrance was covered by a bright yellow canopy, and I didn’t know whether to knock or to just barge in. The door wasn’t locked, and I slowly turned the knob and stepped into another world.
    It was a law office of sorts, but a very different one from the marble and mahogany of Drake & Sweeney. In the large room before me there were four metal desks, each covered with a suffocating collection of files stacked a foot high. More files were placed haphazardly on the worn carpet around the desks. The wastebaskets were filled, and wadded sheets of legal paper had rolled off and onto the floor. One wall was covered with file cabinets in a variety of colors. The word processors and phones were ten years old. The wooden bookshelves were sagging. A large fading photograph of Martin Luther King hung crookedly on the back wall. Several smaller offices branched off the front room.
    It was busy and dusty and I was fascinated with the place.
    A fierce Hispanic woman stopped typing after watching me for a moment. “You looking for somebody?” she asked. It was more of a challenge than a request. Areceptionist at Drake & Sweeney would be fired on the spot for such a greeting.
    She was Sofia Mendoza, according to a nameplate tacked to the side of her desk, and I would soon learn that she was more than a receptionist. A loud roar came from one of the side rooms, and startled me without fazing Sofia.
    “I’m looking for Mordecai Green,” I said politely, and at that moment he followed his roar and stomped out of his side office and into the main room. The floor shook with each step. He was yelling across the room for someone named Abraham.
    Sofia nodded at him, then dismissed me and returned to her typing. Green was a huge black man, at least six five with a wide frame that carried a lot of weight. He was in his early fifties, with a gray beard and round eyeglasses that were framed in red. He took a look at me, said nothing, yelled again for Abraham while sauntering across the creaking floor. He disappeared into an office, then emerged seconds later without Abraham.
    Another look at me, then, “Can I help you?”
    I walked forward and introduced myself.
    “Nice to meet you,” he said, but only because he had to. “What’s on your mind?”
    “DeVon Hardy,” I said.
    He looked at me for a few seconds, then glanced at Sofia, who was lost in her work. He nodded toward his office, and I followed him into a twelve-by-twelve room