of you? I bet your brother wouldn't run the other way.”
Seeley understood her frustration. But if his legal career wasn't headed in the direction of redemption, she would have to accept that.
“Harold and I are grateful for what you did for him.”
Mrs. Rosziak's cut-rate services were Seeley's reward for winning a modest settlement for her bachelor son who was beaten by three uniformed patrolmen in a downtown duplex where he had gone to meet a friend. A part-time housepainter with a rap sheet for getting into fights at the local 7-Eleven, Harold was white and overweight with a sour disposition, which meant there was nothing about him to win sympathy from the local press or political activists—or, Seeley feared, from a law-and-order jury. Seeley persuaded the city to settle the civil case when no one could explain how a handcuffed man managed to sustain a broken nose, six cracked teeth, and a gash across his forehead requiring twenty-four stitches without having his civil rights violated. The settlement was large enough to keep Harold in twelve-packs for years to come. Seeley also got the DA to drop the resisting charge.
“I'm sure all your clients are grateful to you for winning their cases. But if you started getting clients who could pay you what you're worth, would that violate your principles?”
As she spoke, Mrs. Rosziak smoothed more lotion onto her hands, one hand wringing the other. It occurred to Seeley how little he knew of women's habits.
“How many lawyers can say they're doing what they want to do?”
“Whatever dark cloud you have hanging over you, it's not going to go away by your hiding out here. Down at the cafeteria in the county building they say you're the mystery man. You lost a big case in California and someone died who shouldn't have.”
Buffalo, though a city of 300,000, was in many ways a small town.
“Tell your friends they watch too many crime shows.” He just wanted her to leave. “Thanks for sticking around,” Seeley said. “I'll keep an eye on Rudy.”
“You have a court date at two.” She started collecting the bottles from the desktop to drop into her oversized purse. “You know, to look at the two of you, you wouldn't think you were brothers.”
“Leonard takes after his mother.” Fair, soft Leonard, always the victim. And, Seeley thought, I take after my father. Large and coarseboned like him, but chased by my own demons.
“I wasn't just talking about your looks.”
“I wasn't either,” Seeley said.
“With the holidays coming, you want to be with your family.” That had been Leonard's unspoken plea: Come for Thanksgiving. Christmas.
“I'm sure that whatever happened between the two of you, he's forgiven you.” She was watching Seeley carefully to see if she had overstepped. When he didn't respond, she said, “Why else would he call? Why would he fly out here and beg you to take his case?”
To rescue me, Seeley remembered. Do the conditions of my life look so disastrous that I would need to be rescued? He put a laugh in his voice. “You should have been a trial lawyer.”
“And you're not going to find the answers hanging around here. You could use some sunshine. The one time Mr. Rosziak took me to San Francisco, everyone was smiling.”
Sure, Seeley thought, even when they throw themselves in front of commuter trains.
“Are you going to go?”
Seeley said, “You'll be the first to know.”
She gave him a resigned look and finished collecting her creams and lotions and keys from the desktop. Seeley had been married for eight years—and divorced for less than one—and he had been in relationships with women before and since, but the unfairness of the imbalance still galled him. As profound as his ignorance was of what they were thinking and of what drove them, women knew exactly where the buttons and levers were that could turn or twist him in any direction, giving him no choice but to resist. Not just Mrs. Rosziak; women.
He went into