news day. A zoo baby would have bumped me off the lineup in a heartbeat.”
“How about the woman? Is she all right?”
“Scared and angry. But physically OK.”
“Any idea who they were?”
“No.”
“Any guesses?”
“Let’s see. Two redneck Americans looking to have a little fun at the expense of an immigrant who dresses funny to them. Other than that, no.”
“And you’re OK?”
“I’m out eighty dollars in groceries and my pride’s a touch wounded. I never should have let the kid get the drop on me like that.”
“What’s with the groceries?”
“I lost track of my cart afterward. Is there, ah, anything I can do for you?” I glanced at my book and my coffee.
“Just the opposite. I might have an assignment.”
“Now?”
“Something a bit more long term. If you’re interested. Are you available tomorrow morning? Perhaps we could discuss it then.”
“I’ll have to check my calendar. Why, yes, it turns out I’m free. Anything you can tell me beforehand?”
“Probably easiest if we talk in person. Nine o’clock work? My office?”
“See you then.”
I tried returning to my reading but made it only a page or two when I was interrupted by a sound at the back door. I turned and saw Joe, barefoot in red shorts and the Hogwarts T-shirt my parents bought him for his birthday.
“Morning.”
He nodded, wiping sleep from his eyes. I held out my arms. He stumped forward, hesitated a moment, and climbed onto my lap. I hugged him. I tried not to squeeze too tight. I had at best three or four nanoseconds of his childhood left before he was too old for this kind of thing.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Fine. Can I play on the Xbox?”
“In a little while. Is Mike up?”
He yawned and shook his head. He looked down at Hopalong. “Can I take him for a walk?”
“Maybe later. Once we’ve had breakfast.”
“He needs exercise. He’s lazy.”
“He’s an old Labrador. There’s a very slight difference.”
“Can we go swimming today?”
“Not a bad idea. If it doesn’t rain.”
“What’s it matter if it rains? We’re wet either way. It’s so hot. Why don’t you have air conditioning?”
“It’s a zoning code thing.”
“Sure it is, Dad.” He snuggled into me and I held my breath. He was a slight kid, just on the cusp of puberty, edges still soft here and there. Not like his half brother, already shooting up and bristling with muscles and testosterone and attitude. The window for lap sitting with Mike had been almost nonexistent, though most of that was on me. There’d been a scene with him the day before when I told him we couldn’t stop at a food truck on the way to the Clippers game and were making sandwiches instead. Typical stuff between us.
“Do you think you’ll ever get back together with Anne?”
“What?”
“You know, like get back with her. Like, romantically and stuff.”
I looked at him. He returned the look, face full of innocence.
“Why are you asking me this?”
“Just curious. So, will you?”
“Probably not,” I said, after a moment.
“How come? I thought you liked her.”
“I did. But things just didn’t work out.”
“How come?”
A man, his son, his dog, and a Sunday morning inquisition about his failed love life. Could it get any better than this?
“Sometimes my job makes it hard for me to pay attention to people the way I should. Not a lot of ladies like that. It’s hard to blame them.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Plus she’s got a new boyfriend.”
“She does?”
He nodded, reaching down to thump Hopalong.
My stomach shrank a little. “How do you know that?”
“I met him. I was playing with Amelia the other day. He was at her house.”
Against all odds, Joe and Anne’s daughter had stayed friends even after Anne broke up with me, tired of too many dropped balls and missed dates. An English professor at Columbus State, she’d been the first girlfriend in years I hadn’t treated like a doormat with boobs. But I hadn’t been there the times she needed me, either. Call it a draw, I guess.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Amelia says he’s not as funny as you.”
“Probably a good thing.”
We sat for a couple of minutes longer, listening to the sound of German Village waking up. Birds singing, cars juddering down the brick streets of the neighborhood south of downtown, the two Kevins having a just-shy-of-heated discussion across the alley about whose turn it was to clean the grill. A moment later Joe wiggled off my lap and planted himself atop Hopalong. The dog sighed in protest but didn’t move from his Labradorean repose. I shifted in my chair and realized my right leg was asleep. I picked up my cup and took a drink of lukewarm coffee and retrieved my book and read a chapter without absorbing a single word. I put it down, got up stiffly, and went inside, trailed by Joe and the dog. It was time to start mixing pancake batter and frying bacon and figuring out the best places to swim for free on a Sunday in Columbus.
3
CUNNINGHAM’S LAW OFFICE WAS A TWO-story brick building on Front in the Brewery District. A maple tree shaded the front yard, so tall and thick-limbed it might have been there when Cunningham’s grandfather was a bellboy in the long-gone Neil House hotel. “Offices of Burke Cunningham III, Attorney-at-Law,” said the weathered brass plaque set into the brick to the right of the door. At one minute to nine the next morning I rang the bell, looked up at the camera, and waited for his secretary to buzz me in. At the click of the lock I pushed open the door and walked
