The Ditto List Read Online Free Page B

the major Perry Masonish mystery in his practice soon came to be whether he would be able to pay Confederated Properties the exorbitant rent for the suite of offices that, he insisted as a point of pride, be at least one storey above the street and occupy at least one more room than the nearest branch of Legal Aid. So, twenty years after his dreams of glory and eminence had vanished as steadily as a salt lick in a stockyard, here he was, not quite envious of others, yet not quite satisfied with himself, pursuing a profession whose moral component was detectable only with the aid of a microscope or a philosopher.
    D.T. swore at the law and at Judge Hoskins, made a resolution to change his life in some respect as yet unspecified, and took a sip of Bailey’s. While his cheeks swelled with liquid candy, the bell above the door to the hallway tinkled briefly and a few seconds later the bell on Bobby E. Lee’s desk chimed to match it. D.T. walked to the file cabinet and extracted the form headed Petition for Dissolution of Marriage and the accompanying Confidential Counseling Statement and Property Declarations and laid them on his desk. Then he picked up the phone and called a number he had called once a week or more for the past three years.
    â€œConway residence.”
    â€œMay I speak to Mrs. Jones, please?”
    â€œMrs. Jones ain’t Mrs. Jones no more, she Miz Conway back again, and besides, she out.” The voice paused and experienced metamorphosis. “Whom shall I say is calling?”
    â€œThe one still stuck with the name of Jones. How are you, Mirabelle?”
    â€œI’s fine, D.T. Didn’t recognize you voice. Been drinking lunch again?”
    â€œNot a drop,” he lied. “Where’s her loveliness?”
    â€œJazzercise, she call it.”
    â€œShe turned hip in her old age?”
    â€œNot so’s you’d notice, D.T. She still buying them tunes like they play in the supermarket. She be back by four, I expect. Take her another hour to recover, you got anything strenuous in mind.”
    Her laugh made D.T. laugh. “Jazzercise. Is that dancing, or what?”
    â€œJumping like a toad on a hot rock is what it look like. She all the time practicing with a nappy-headed man on the TV sounds like my niece Lucille.”
    â€œHave her call me, will you, Mirabelle? I’m at the office. My picture still on the piano?”
    â€œThe day it ain’t, I let you know.”
    â€œHow’s Heather?”
    â€œSweet as a sugar lump, like always.”
    â€œGive her a squeeze for me. Tell her I’ll see her tomorrow.”
    â€œYou bet I will.”
    â€œTake it easy, Mirabelle.”
    â€œYou, too, D.T. Wish you’d come around here more. You an amusing man, especially when you had a few belts.”
    â€œSee you soon,” D.T. said, and thought for a mostly pleasant minute about his ex-wife and for a wholly pleasant minute about his daughter, then hung up and pulled out of his In Box the small stack of freshly typed statements that Bobby E. Lee had left for him.
    They were the bills about to be sent to clients whose obligations had not been entirely satisfied in advance of D.T.’s services, despite his sworn policy to the contrary. D.T. reduced the amount due on the ones whose recipients either could not pay or for whom he had done less than either of them expected, and increased the amount due on others for whom both the results and the ability to pay were exalted. He went through them quickly, abashed as always at having to make his living by dunning women. When he had finished, he ran a quick total on his calculator, multiplied the result by 45 percent, which was roughly the coefficient of collectability in his practice, and applied the product to the outstanding balance on his note at the Citizens Bank and Trust. A drop in the proverbial and gargantuan bucket of his debt.
    When the lady in the next room had been waiting long enough