Final Argument [antikvár]

I I I ¦ !' m A time came when my wife and my law partners were f convinced I was going crazy, and the best I could reply [y f was, 'I hope not.' That was a year ago. I was forty- ' f eight years old, I had worked hard, I had almost everything I wanted, and once the economy recovered I would achieve the rest. Or so I believed. In the late afternoon of a golden winter day, I gazed out my office window at the warm waters of Sarasota Bay and, beyond it, the Gulf of Mexico. The bay spread itself before me like an enormous billowing blue skirt . . . a skirt I would have loved to dive under. But the pink message slips were piling up. With the light waning, I turned on a brass lamp. I was reaching for a copy of Florida Rules of Court Service when the intercom buzzed with the call that would change my life. 'Ted' - the nasal voice belonged to my secretary, Ruby - 'a guy named Elroy Lee is on the line, collect. From the jail. He's in there on a possession charge. Says he met you up in Jacksonville years ago, but from the way he talks, it doesn't sound likely. Shall I pass him along to one of the associates?' I looked again at the bay, where a few homebound sailboats had spinnakers set before a light breeze. My vantage point was a fifth-floor office at the downtown firm of Royal, Kelly, Wellmet, Jaffe & Miller. (I was Jaffe.) The floor of the office was soft Spanish cork, the walls oatmeal-colored burlap. The teakwood desk was shaped like a boomerang. Azure light bled through