— That's enough! Giant bird plumes, my God.
— The confusion of tongues was the way Harry put it, simply another language, art theory referring only to itself 'stripping the forms of art to the bone, shaking off the emotional excesses of abstract expressionism' reducing art itself to theory with no more substance than that swarm of flies the Judge stepped on in his Szyrk opinion while Szyrk himself is out there somewhere right now hearing it exalted in terms of death and transfiguration, of the sacred seizing the profane in an embrace seething with sexual ferment saying it all 'makes him puke' with these 'hints of Christian sacrifice and suffering, its suggestions of journeys without end as the sculptor seems to turn away, smitten to the point where its beams buckle in shyness yet remain as firm and vigilant as a dog who has cornered his prey' —to coin a phrase, as Christina broke off with the front page picture of the thing itself, towering over the new dining area at Mel's Kandy Kitchen like the one at Babel rising toward heaven till the Old Testament Sculptor up there was smitten to the point of sending down a confusion of tongues so that nobody knew what anyone else was talking about where the judge below explicated the Village defense resting on an act of God in his charge to the jury while assorted Baptists sang Amazing Grace and the high school band played America the Beautiful and Tubby the Tuba on the courthouse steps as policemen ticketed cars with out of state plates and one of them smashed the camera of a newsman from the liberal northern press out to make trouble playing up the race angle on the piebald jury's black and a few poor white faces from the Possum Hollow end of town where long smouldering resentment over lacking streetlights, neglected garbage collection, road repair and ruptured sewer lines threatened to surface in a verdict against the Village already crippled by its foreign foulmouthed red atheist cross-claimant under the local headline STRANGE BEDFELLOWS IN CYCLONE SEVEN CASE and a vexatious God strangling in the bedclothes, the pied jury as finders of fact decided parti pris for plaintiff little James B with a judgment for damages, — talk about stepping on a swarm of flies said Harry, here was Judge Crease himself reported as saying some of these jurors had lied during jury selection when they declared they could hear the case objectively, reading what they told the newspapers after the trial their minds were made up before they walked into the courtroom, — all God fearing men and look, that reminds me. Your friend Trish.
— What in God's name has Trish got to do with it.
— That nice looking young man who threw catsup on her chinchilla coat, he…
— It wasn't the chinchilla Harry, it was an old sable, I was with her wasn't I?
— At any rate, the…
— She only took the chinchilla because she thought her mother was going to give it to Mary, this old housekeeper companion Mary who's causing such a problem with the will. It's "worth thousands.
— At any rate…
— She never wears it.
— So she poured catsup on it to bring into court suing this poor guy for assault and the price of a chinchilla coat?
— What if she did! This poor guy, the insurance company pays for it what do you mean, this poor guy.
— He's in there claiming the court lacks jurisdiction, says he was acting under the guidance of a higher authority that's what reminded me of it, God in the courtroom like that Cyclone Seven jury down there, look. Just tell her to pay her retainer will you? You retain a firm like Swyne & Dour you pay their retainer. It's putting me in a hell of a spot.
— I thought they were delighted. You bring in a client with deep pockets, isn't that what you told me? that that's how you get made a senior partner?
— I didn't know a damn thing about it Christina! She gets in there and corners a senior partner about breaking her mother's will, waltzes right into Bill Peyton's office using my name when I was away I didn't know anything about it till he stopped me in the hall to congratulate me. She's already got them handling her pretrial hearing on this assault case, even had the firm representing her in small claims court over a hundred seventy two dollars she owes some shoe repair place. Swyne & Dour in small claims court? Our billing will run her three or four times that, they sent Mudpye down there to keep her happy and she still hasn't put up a dime, that snappy dresser who handled Oscar's deposition with Basic, will you…
— Yes and where is he Harry. Mister Basic, where is he. Oscar's been in a frenzy trying to reach him.
— Basic? He's, I don't know he's, how would I know, nothing he can do now anyhow but wait for…
— No it's something Oscar saw on television, I couldn't make out what it was all about on the phone he was in such a state, he just kept saying he thinks something's terribly wrong. That black actor who played the house slave in the movie, Button somebody? He says he's got to talk to Basic, he can't even reach Sam, your friend Sam, they don't return his calls and he's in a state anyway over his accident case with Lily back in the picture, God knows where she's been. That seventy five hundred dollar bill from that ambulance chaser she found for him filed court papers that have him suing himself, he can't even…
— Look he can't sue himself, can't be plaintiff and defendant in the same suit. He said he had some new lawyers on it didn't he?
— And do you know where he got them? He got them off a matchbook cover, he finally blurted it out, specialists in negligence and personal injury because they offered a free telephone consultation now he's up to his neck with them pressing him for a retainer like Trish, like you're pressing Trish for some miserable payment for…
— Look Christina you don't get Swyne & Dour off a matchbook cover! We don't even bother to litigate anything under a million, three quarters of a million, you retain Swyne & Dour you pay them a retainer nothing miserable about it either, probably asking her twenty five, fifty thousand it's putting me in a hell of a spot.
— If you're just trying to protect yourself Harry, I…
— Not protecting myself I'm protecting the firm! What do you want me to do, walk into Bill Peyton's office and tell him she's a…
— Well my God I mean can't they look out for themselves? They've been around haven't they? They've heard of her, haven't they? All over the papers with her diamond jubilees and that front page robbery?
— Of course they've heard of her, that she's litigious and difficult that's why they're giving me these gentle hints about this retainer because they think I brought her in and she wants the firm to handle that too, that insurance settlement she got on those diamonds they bought back for her? What do you want me to do, tell Bill Peyton she's a friend of my wife's who thinks everybody from the shoe repair man to her mother's old housekeeper and the Catholic Church are out to get her? and this cousin, some cousin who's suing her over some diamond bracelets?