The street lawyer.-John Grisham.-

Chapter 1-Mister.-







The old black man got into the elevator behind me. He smelled of smoke and cheap wine and life on the streets without soap. His beard and hair were half-gray and very dirty. He was wearing sunglasses and a long dirty coat hung down to is knees.








He loocked fat, probably because he had all his clothes on. In the Winter in Washington  the Street people wear all their clothes all the time. They can´t leave any of their clothes at home, because they don´t have a home.





The old man did not belong here. Everything here was expensive.The 400 lawyers in the building who all worked for Drake and Sweeney, were paid an unbelievable amount of money. I knew that because I was a Drake lawyer myself.






The elevator stopped at six. The man had not pushed an elevator buttom. When I stepped out and turned right, he followed me. I pushed teh heavy, wooden door of a big meeting room.







There were eight lawyers at the table inside and they all looked surprised. They were looking behind me, so I turned. My friend from the elevator was standing there. He was pointing a gun at me.








-Put that gun down, said one of the lawyers at the table. His name was Rafter.He was a hard man in a courtroom, maybe the hardest lawyer taht D and S had.







Suddenly a shot hit the ceiling, Rafter eyes opened wide and his mouth shut.






-Lock the door, the man said to me. I locked the door of the meeting room.







-Stand against the Wall. We all stood against the Wall.








The man took off his dirty coat and put it carefully on the large, expensive table in the centre of the room. He had five or six red sticks around his waist, tied there with string. I had never seen dynamite before, but they looked like dynamite to me.







I wanted to run and hope for a bad shot when he fired at me. But my legs were like wáter. Some of the lawyers were shaking with fear and making noises like scared animals.







-Please, be quiet.said the man, calmy. Then he took a long yellow rope and a knife from the pocket of his pants.-You. he said to me.Tie them up.





Rafter stepped forward.-Listen, friend.he said.what do you want?





The second shot went into the Wall, behind Rafter ear.







-Do not call me friend, said the man.






-what would you like us to call you? I asked him, quietly.






-call me Mister.




I tied the eight lawyers with the yellow rope. One of them Barry Nuzzo was my friend. We were the same age, thirty two and we had sarted at Drake on the same day.







Only our marriages were different. His was successful and mine was not. He had three kids. Claire and I did have any. I looked at Barry kids.






We could hear pólice cars outside and noises as the pólice entered the building. Mister pointed at the dynamite around his waist.







-I pull this-he said-and we die.





For a second we all looked at each other, nine White boys and Mister.





I thought of all those terrible shootings you read about in the newspapers.






A crazy worker returns to work after lunch with a gun and kills everybody in his office. There had been killings at fast food restaurants and playgrounds, too.






And those dead people were children or honest workers. Who would care about us ? We were lawyers.




Time passed.