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.I could still see the process server at the north end of the block, waiting for the light to change.He turned and looked at me and got the stinkeye.“You dick,” I yelled.30Lainie bailed on work early to introduce me to a lawyer friend of hers, a guy named Larry Largeman.He operated out of a little rat nest of an office in midtown, in a strip mall that had gone up in the mid-’60s and had been permanently detached from its better days.We walked into a labyrinthine office.No receptionist.No waiting room.A desk stacked high with papers.A hallway with a low ceiling jutted off to the left and terminated in a room with another desk, also groaning under the weight of paper and absent any sentient being.“Larry?” Lainie called.A muffled voice emerged from behind a closed door at our backs.“In the can, honey.Hold on a sec.”I leaned into her and whispered, “What is this?”“Don’t worry,” she said.“He’s good.Different.But good.”We heard the whoosh of a flushed toilet and the running faucet, and then Larry Largeman opened the door and sidled into the hallway.Largeman was not a large man—shorter than Lainie, in fact, who stood about five seven.He wore a business-issue short-sleeved white dress shirt, good-for-any-era brown trousers, and a pair of loafers that had worked the corners.I could see the ruins of a handsome man among the burst nose capillaries and bagged-out eyes.He walked up to Lainie as if I weren’t there and wrapped her in a hug.He nuzzled his mug against her neck and growled.Lainie laughed, and firmly pushed him away.A good move, that, so I didn’t have to do it.“You’re Mark, then,” he said, turning to me and offering a handshake.“Don’t worry.I washed it.”I gave him a cursory shake and let go.He clapped a hand against my shoulder and said, “Come on in.Let’s let the legal healing begin.”I gave Largeman the summons and hoped he’d make himself a copy before the original washed away in the sea of paper already swamping his desk.“You’ll have to excuse the mess,” he said.“Secretary has been out since 2004.”He laughed.Lainie did, too.I ground my hands into little skin meatballs while Largeman read the paper.“It’s a sham,” he said.I blew out a blast of breath.“Well, that’s good news.”“Of course, it’s going to cost you a hell of a lot to identify it as such.” At this, he laughed again, sounding like a strangling horse.“How much?” Lainie said.“You want me to handle this?” he said.I started to say no, but Lainie said, “Yes.”“OK,” Largeman said, “if I figure in the prettiest-girl-in-Billings discount, the getting-to-know-you-Mark offset, and the fact that not too much work is coming through that door, I’ll do it for two thousand to start, which I’ll need today.Cash is preferred, but I’ll take a check, since I know where you live.” The horse laugh again.“That should do it, unless Schronert really hates you, in which case it might be more.”“Unbelievable,” I said.“I know,” Largeman said.“Lawyers are scum.”I dug in my pocket for my checkbook.As I wrote the check out, Largeman leaned across the desk.“That’s L-A-R-G-E-M-A-N.Largeman.Think thickness, not length.”Jesus.I tore off the check and handed it to him.I’m a frugal guy, a function of my modest wages and my upbringing, and I’d managed over the years to tuck a fair amount away.I hated to see the money flowing the other direction, and for something so damnably stupid.“OK, now, let me tell you what’s up,” Largeman said.“Schronert’s going to have a hard time making the case for injury against you when he’s been made right by the paper.They expunged this article, right? Probably gave him some ad space to sweeten the deal.That’s what I’d do.”“Yeah.”“OK.I suspect this lawsuit was filed because he knew you’d be down here, or somewhere, today writing this check.I’ll make a motion to dismiss
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