Free Bitter Truth by William Lashner Page A

back again. “I thought you had to have more hair on your forearms to be a dentist.”
    He didn’t laugh, he just took a sip from his scotch and swirled it around his mouth.
    “I was that close today, dammit,” I said. “And then it happened like it always happens. It was a car accident, right? A pretty ugly one, too, some old lady in her Beemer just runs the red and bam, slams into my guy’s van. Lacerations from the flying glass, multiple contusions, a neck thing, you know, the works. I send him to my doctor and it’s all set, he can’t work, can’t walk or exercise, he’s stuck in a chair on his porch, wracked with pain, his life tragically ruined. Beautiful, no?”
    “You’re a lawyer,” said the man as flatly as if he were telling me my fly was unzipped.
    “And it set up so sweet,” I said. “Workman’s comp from the employer and then, wham, big bucks compensatory from the old lady and her insurance company. The insurance was maxed out at three hundred thou but we were going for more, much more, punitives because the old lady was half blind and should never have been out on the road, was a collision waiting to happen. She’s a widow, some Wayne witch, rich as sin, so collection’s a breeze. And I got a thirty-three-and-a-third percent contingency fee agreement in my bank vault, if you know what I mean. I had picked out my Mercedes already, maroon with tan leather seats. SL class.”
    “The convertible,” said the man, nodding.
    “Absolutely. Oh, so beautiful that car, just thinking about it gives me a hard-on.”
    I finished my beer and pushed the mug to the edge of the bar and let my head drop. When the bartender came I asked for a shot to go with my refill. I waited till the drinks came and then sucked the top off my beer and waited some more.
    “So what happened?” said the man, finally.
    I sat there quietly for a moment and then with a quick snatch downed the shot and chased it. “We show up at mandatory arbitration and I give our case, right? Fault’s not even at issue. And my guy’s sitting there, shaking with palsy in a wheelchair, his neck chafed to bleeding from the brace, most pathetic thing you ever saw. I figured they’d offer at least a mil before we even got to telling our story. Then the old lady’s fancy lawyer brings out the videotape.”
    I took another swallow of beer and shook my head.
    “My guy playing golf over at Valley Forge, neck brace and all. Schmuck couldn’t keep off the links. He gave up work, sex with the wife, playing with the kids, everything, but he couldn’t keep off the links. They brought in his scorecard too. Broke ninety, neck brace and all. I took forty thou and ran. So close to the big score and then, as quick as a two-foot putt, it’s gone.”
    “You don’t need to tell me,” said the man next to me.
    “Don’t even try. What do you know about it, a dentist. You got it made. Everyone’s got teeth.”
    He took a long swallow from his scotch and then another, draining it. “You’re such a loser, you don’t even know.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    “You want to hear something? You want to hear the saddest story in the world?”
    “Not really,” I said. “I got my own problems.”
    “Shut up and buy me a drink and I’ll tell you something that will make your skin crawl.”
    I turned to look at him and he was staring at me with a ferocity that was frightening. I shrugged and waved for the bartender and ordered two scotch on the rocks for him and two beers for me. Then I let Grimes tell me his story.

9

    H E FIRST SAW her at a place on Sixteenth Street, a dark, aggressively hip bar with a depressed jukebox and serious drinkers. She was sitting alone, dressed in black, not like an artiste, more like a mourner. She was sort of pretty, but not really thin enough, not really young enough, and he wouldn’t have given her a second look except that there was about this woman in black an aura of sadness that bespoke need. Need was about right, he