Wrist-deep in Somerset Ojack minutiae, Sam was conscious of Lew Knight’s stares and Tina’s puzzled glances. If they only knew, he exulted! But Tina would probably just think it “marr-vell-ouss!” and Lew Knight might make some crack like “Hey! Kid Frankenstein himself.” Come to think of it, though, Lew would probably have worked out some method of duplicating, to a limited extent, the contents of the Bild-A-Man set and marketing it commercially. Whereas he—well, there were other things you could do with the gadget. Plenty of other things.
“Hey, counselor,” Lew Knight was perched on the corner of his desk, “what are these long weekends we’re taking? You might not make as much money in the law, but does it look right for an associate of mine to sell magazine subscriptions on the side?”
Sam stuffed his ears mentally against the emery-wheel voice. “I’ve been writing a book.”
“A law book? Weber On Bankruptcy?”
“No, a juvenile. Lew Knight, The Neanderthal Nitwit”
“Won’t sell. The title lacks punch. Something like Knights, Knaves and Knobheads is what the public goes for these days. By the way, Tina tells me you two had some sort of understanding about New Year’s Eve and she doesn’t think you’d mind if I took her out instead. I don’t think you’d mind either, but I may be prejudiced. Especially since I have a table reservation at Cigale’s where there’s usually less of a crowd of a New Year’s Eve than at the Automat.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Good,” said Knight approvingly as he moved away. “By the way, I won that case. Nice juicy fee, too. Thanks for asking.”
Tina also wanted to know if he objected to the new arrangements when she brought the mail. Again, he didn’t. Where had he been for over two days? He had been busy, very busy. Something entirely new. Something important.
She stared down at him as he separated offers of used cars guaranteed not to have been driven over a quarter of a million miles from caressing reminders that he still owed half the tuition for the last year of law school and when was he going to pay it?