Free The Philadelphia Quarry by Howard Owen

we’re parked in different directions.
    I ask her how things are going with Mr. Ellis, her present husband.
    “His name’s Greg. Everything’s fine. But thanks for asking. Headed in to work?”
    I tell her I’m on my way to see Marcus Green.
    Green’s office is on Franklin Street, close enough to the paper that I can use the company parking deck and walk there.
    He is a lone wolf, no partners, just a couple of assistants, one of whom tells me that she will check and see if Mr. Green is in.
    Soon, the door to his office opens and he comes bursting out like the place is on fire.
    “Willie! How’s my favorite muckraker? Come on in!”
    He slaps my back and gives me a man-hug.
    Even if Marcus Green was going to shoot you, he’d treat you like you were his long lost brother. Even if you wanted to shoot him, he’d probably be able to jolly you out of it, if he was trying. The night-and-day aspect of his personality works well in the courtroom and elsewhere. He can make you want to be his best friend and, in the blink of an eye, cop that menacing, fuck-with-me attitude he uses on witnesses and others he wishes to bend to his will.
    “Still got your penthouse apartment?”
    I tell him that Kate is still my landlady.
    He laughs. He has the kind of booming laugh that makes people want to tell him their funniest joke.
    “I don’t think I’d like giving either one of my exes the option of kicking me to the curb. Although I do write them each a check every month.” He laughs again, then turns down the volume, goes all solemn on me.
    “So, what’s this about?”
    I tell him, like he doesn’t know already.
    “Do you think there’s a chance I might be able to talk with your client? His mother said I’d need to check with you.”
    “You got Philomena to talk to you? Damn, Willie. You are a helluva reporter.”
    I don’t tell him, just yet, about my trump card.
    “Thanks, by the way, for letting her put my ass out in the middle of the East End the other day.”
    Green shrugs.
    “It was her call. She was somewhat upset with that racist rag you work for. I don’t blame her, actually.”
    I wonder to myself what our editorial department has cooked up in the aftermath of Richard Slade’s arrest. I’m surprised there wasn’t something in this morning’s paper.
    I ask him again about meeting with Slade.
    He frowns and says he’ll consider it.
    “Well,” I tell him, “you might as well have the whole family working with you. Me, you and Kate. The Mod Squad.”
    “Ah. So you know about that. Well, I know she’s on the side of the angels. I’m not so sure about you. You’re more like the guy with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other one, both whispering in your ears.”
    There doesn’t seem to be any way around it.
    “My father and Philomena were first cousins.”
    He absorbs this, never showing any sign of surprise. I would hate to play poker with Marcus Green. Actually, the thought of him at one of our Oregon Hill sessions with Custalow, McGonnigal, Andy Peroni and the rest is amusing.
    “I always thought you were one of us,” Green says. “Something about the way you carry yourself, your hair, something.”
    I doubt it, but if I can win the hand with this particular hole card, so be it.
    “Let me see if my client is amenable to your request.”
    I look him in the eye.
    “He’ll be amenable if you tell him to be.”
    Marcus Green gives me a look that could cut diamonds. Then he nods.
    “Could be,” he says. “Could be. We’ll have to pray over that one.”
    I put up with this bullshit because, for all his grandstanding and playacting, he has walked the walk, a burr in the power structure’s ass since he got out of law school. No name causes more consternation at the Commonwealth Club, where the white-haired great-grandsons of the Confederacy have their bourbon and water with a shot of bile.
    He walks me to the door, then stops. He pins me with the look he usually saves for his final