“Indeed, M-Max,” he said. “There is s-something turned ugly that I b-believe we should p-pursue.”

“A whistle-blower?” I said, taking another hit of my beer.

“Yes, wh-whistle-blower.”

“So you’re doing this thing corporately?” I asked, again trying to get Billy to explain things to me in terms an old street cop could understand.

“Actually it is b-both corporate and governmental. The w-woman works for a private rehabilitation center, b-but wh-what she suspects is that fake orders for wheelchairs and prosthesis are b-being billed to M-Medicare.”

“So if it’s a government gig with the feds getting ripped off, why doesn’t she go to the state attorney’s office, or the GAO, or somebody who’s actually getting screwed here?” I said.

Billy looked at me. He had already folded the newspaper two more times in his hand. Then he sat down in the patio chair, crossed his legs at the knee, and took on that lawyerly look of his.

“You pay taxes, M-Max. I p-pay taxes. Medicare is funded by us and every other legitimate American,” Billy said. “The m-maid, the grocer, the sch-school teacher, the office manager-we are the ones getting ripped off. And if there isn’t anything left when we get old and need a wh-wheelchair, we’ll b-be the ones hurting.”

Though Billy could be ruthlessly efficient in his practice as a financial and corporate consultant, he maintained a true social conscience born of walking the walk as a child of poverty. His own belief that if you made it, you were bound by responsibility to help those trying to do the same, often led him to take on cases that paid nothing-not that he would admit to it.

I was used to his social rhetoric, but he recognized my flinch when he’d used the words need a wheelchair and stopped himself.

“I am s-sorry, Max. I did not mean for that to s-sound so p-personal.”

It was just the kind of thing Billy would say-an apology for being personal. He’s been my best friend for more than eight years. I’d walked into his office unannounced that first time, armed only with a description from my mother, knowing only that his own mother had been an accomplice in the death of my father. For that alone, I owed him a debt.