Free Ehrengraf for the Defense by Lawrence Block

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seventy-five dollars,” Ehrengraf said, “but I don’t know that I’m
eligible to receive it in this instance because of the disposition
of the case. The argument may be raised that I didn’t really
perform any actions on your behalf, that charges were simply
dropped.”
    “You mean you’ll get gypped out of your fee?
That’s a hell of a note, Mr. Ehrengraf.”
    “Oh, don’t worry about it,” said Ehrengraf.
“It’s not important in the overall scheme of things.”
    * * *
    Ehrengraf, his blue pinstripe suit setting
off his Caedmon Society striped necktie, sipped daintily at a
Calvados. It was Indian Summer this afternoon, far too balmy for
hot apple pie with cheddar cheese. He was eating instead a piece of
cold apple pie topped with vanilla ice cream, and had discovered
that Calvados went every bit as nicely with that dish.
    Across from him, Hudson Cutliffe sat with a
plate of lamb stew. When Cutliffe had ordered the dish, Ehrengraf
had refrained from commenting on the barbarity of slaughtering
lambs and stewing them. He had decided to ignore the contents of
Cutliffe’s plate. Whatever he’d ordered, Ehrengraf intended that
the man eat crow today.
    “You,” said Cutliffe, “are the most
astonishingly fortunate lawyer who ever passed the bar.”
    “‘Dame Fortune is a fickle gypsy, And always
blind, and often tipsy,’” Ehrengraf quoted. “Winthrop Mackworth
Praed, born eighteen-oh-two, died eighteen thirty-nine. But you
don’t care for poetry, do you? Perhaps you’d prefer the elder
Pliny’s observation upon the eruption of Vesuvius. He said that
Fortune favors the brave.”
    “A cliché, isn’t it?”
    “Perhaps it was rather less a cliché when
Pliny said it,” Ehrengraf said gently. “But that’s beside the
point. My client was innocent, just as I told you—”
    “How on earth could you have known it?”
    “I didn’t have to know it. I presumed it, Mr.
Cutliffe, as I always presume my clients to be innocent, and as in
time they are invariably proven to be. And, because you were so
incautious as to insist upon a wager—”
    “Insist!”
    “It was indeed your suggestion,” Ehrengraf
said. “ I did not seek you out, Mr. Cutliffe. I did not seat myself unbidden at your table.”
    “You came to this restaurant,” Cutliffe said
darkly. “You deliberately baited me, goaded me. You—”
    “Oh, come now,” Ehrengraf said. “You make me
sound like what priests would call an occasion of sin or lawyers an
attractive nuisance. I came here for apple pie with cheese, Mr.
Cutliffe, and you proposed a wager. Now my client has been released
and all charges dropped, and I believe you owe me money.”
    “It’s not as if you got him off. Fate got him
off.”
    Ehrengraf rolled his eyes. “Oh, please, Mr.
Cutliffe,” he said. “I’ve had clients take that stance, you know,
and they change their minds in the end. My agreement with them has
always been that my fee is due and payable upon their release,
whether the case comes to court or not, whether or not I have
played any evident part in their salvation. I specified precisely
those terms when we arranged our little wager.”
    “Of course gambling debts are not legally
collectible in this state.”
    “Of course they are not, Mr. Cutliffe. Yours
is purely a debt of honor, an attribute which you may or may not be
said to possess in accordance with your willingness to write out a
check. But I trust you are an honorable man, Mr. Cutliffe.”
    Their eyes met. After a long moment Cutliffe
drew a checkbook from his pocket. “I feel I’ve been manipulated in
some devious fashion,” he said, “but at the same time I can’t gloss
over the fact that I owe you money.” He opened the checkbook,
uncapped a pen, and filled out the check quickly, signing it with a
flourish. Ehrengraf smiled narrowly, placing the check in his own
wallet without noting the amount. It was, let it be said, an
impressive amount.
    “An astonishing case,” Cutliffe