The street lawyer.-

-What did you eat fur lunch today? Mister asked me, breaking a long silence.


He spoke clearly and from the sound of his voice, he had had a good education. He had not always been on the streets.






-I had chicken and salad, I said surprised.





-Alone?





-No, I met a friend.





-How much did it cost, for both of you?






-Thirty dollars.







Mister did not like that. Thirty dollars, he repeated.For two people.You know what I had for lunch?




-No.



I had soup free soup from a shelter and I was glad to get it. You could feed a hundred of my Friends for thirty dollars, you know that?







-Yes, Mister.




-Call your boss.




There was a phone on the table. I called Arthur Jacobs. Eight hundred lawyers worked for Drake and Sweeney around the world, but at seventy-nine Jacobs was the oldest of the partners here in Washington. He answered at the first ring of the pone.





-Mr Jacobs?






-Michaell...Are you ok?






-Wonderful-I said.







-What does he want from us?






I spoke to the man ...What do you want Mister?






-Soap and bread, said the man. Get it from the shelter at L Street and 17 th. They put a lot of vegetables in the soup there.



-One soup with bread, I said into the pone.






-No, said the man Get soup and bread for all of us.






-Mr Jacobs, I said.





-I Heard. I can hear him. A shelter for Street people does carryouts?






-Mr Jacobs, please just do it. He has a gun and dynamite.





I put the pone down.





-You, said the man. He was talking to me.What is your name?Michael Brock.






-How much money did you earn last year ?Dont lie.






I thought quikly. I did not lie. A hundred and twenty thousand.





He did not like that. How much did you give to poor people?





-I don t remember, My wife does that.






-Thank you, Mr Brock.






Mister pointed the gun at the other lawyers. He asked all of them the same questions. Nate Malamud, the only partner in the room, earned more then a million dollars.






-More tan a million? Mister said to him. I know you-You walk past me when I sit on the sidewalk every morning. You never give me any money. Why cant you help poor people, homeless people?







Nate was a big man whit White hair. He had been with Drake for thirty years. He was red in the face with embarrasment now.Im sorry, he said.







-Who did the eviction? said Mister suddenly.And again who did teh eviction?







Nobody spoke.None of us understood him. But Mister was not looking for an answer.He looked out of window. Maybe he was thinking. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he was watching the pólice out there.









Our soup and bread arrived half an hour later. There was a knock on the door and somebody outside shouted trough the door...your food.







Mister shouted back...-If I see a policeman out there, I will kill these men-




Then he pointed the gun at my head. The two of us walked slowly to the door.





-Unlock the door and open it very slowly, Mister said.





There was nobody outside. The food was on the floor, near the door.





As I stepped outside and bent down to pick it up, I Heard a shout.






.Stay down. a policeman stepped quikly out of teh office opposite and shot Mister through the head.






Mister fell without a sound, and my face was covered in blood.






Whose blood?Mister was lying on the floor. Half his dead had gone, but the sunglasses still covered one eye. His hands were nowwhere near the dynamite.







Policeman came running from all the offices. -Are you hurt? one of them asked me.






I did not Know. I could not see. There was blood on my face and shirt and a liquid that, I discovered later, was part of Mister brain.