"What is that odd odor?" asked Hill, his long nose wrinkling and sniffing.
The collective noses of Greenglass, Korngold, and Bluestone began sniffing the air too. Finally a junior lawyer ventured an opinion.
"Pot," he said.
"What is that in English?" Hill asked Sol Greenglass.
"Marijuana."
"My Lord! Isn't that illegal?"
"Last I heard."
They discovered that the odor was coming from behind a section marked "PHARMACEUTICALS."
"How odd," murmured Walter Weld Hill. "One would think that physicians would not indulge in such distasteful medications. Remind me to report LCN to the AMA."
"Yes, Mr. Hill."
They passed to the end of a long white corridor from which emanated an even more disagreeable odor.
"What is that pungent smell?" asked Hill.
"Garlic. "
"Ugh," said Hill, holding his nostrils closed with finger and thumb. "Detestable."
Walter Weld Hill was still holding his nostrils against the offending ethnic odor when they came to a black door at the end of along corridor, before which two large men stood guard.
At first Walter Weld Hill mistook them for LCN lawyers because they wore pinstripes. On second glance he noticed that the stripes were rather broad even for the lax standards of the day.
And the men jammed into the suits looked rather on the order of dockworkers, Hill thought.
Sol Greenglass stepped up to one of the sentries.
"I am Mr. Greenglass of Greenglass, Korngold, and Bluestone, representing Mr. Walter Weld Hill," he announced.
One of the men stepped aside to reveal the block letters "CRIME MINISTER" on the blank white door. The other opened the door and stuck his head inside.
"Boss. Company. I think it's the lawyers."
"Great," boomed a gruff voice. "Wonderful. I love lawyers. Show 'em in. Show 'em right in."
The brute at the door signaled with the point of his jaw for them to enter.
Walter Weld Hill allowed the senior partners to precede him. It would make his own entrance all the more impressive. And he wished to get this ordeal over with as soon as possible. In all the generations of Hills, he had never heard of this happening before. Squatters in this day and age. What was the world coming to?
When Walter Weld Hill finally crossed the threshold, he found himself in a long conference room.
There were some odd appointments, such as the rather Catholic portraits on the walls, and over in one corner, a large black stove that belonged in the back of a low-class restaurant. On one wall was a sign that said:
WE MAKE MONEY THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY. WE STEAL IT.
"That's not correct," muttered Walter Weld Hill, his eyes going to the man rising at the far end of the table, just under the sign. He wore a sharkskin suit over a black shirt. His tie was white. A hopeless combination. Obviously unsophisticated.
"Come in, come in," said the man, gesturing broadly. "I'm Cadillac. Welcome to La Cosa Nostra, Incorporated."
Dead silence followed that statement. Every member of Greenglass, Korngold, and Bluestone froze in midaction.
The man in the sharkskin suit began chortling. "What?" he said. "You think I'm serious? It's a joke. I was just kiddin'. Honest. Just a little joke to break the tension. Don't be so serious all the time. Its bad for the digestion."
No one laughed, but everyone resumed normal breathing.
Sol Greenglass slammed his leather briefcase onto the conference table, saying, "Mr. Cadillac, I have here a summons to appear before the honorable judge John Joseph Markham of Dedham Superior Court."
"Hold your horses," said the man in the sharkskin suit. "Which one of yous is Hill?"
"I am Walter Weld Hill," said Walter Weld Hill disdainfullv.
The man bustled out from behind the conference table. "Glad to meetcha," he said, taking Hill's right hand and levering it like a water pump. "These your lawyers?"
"Of course," said Hill, attempting to disengage.
"Great. I never saw so many lawyers before in my life. They look like Jews. Are they Jews?"
"I believe they are. What of it?"
"Hey, I didn't mean nothin' by that. A lawyer is a lawyer, right? And Jews make great lawyers. They understand business. Know what I mean? That's good when you're having a sit-down. "
"I imagine their contribution will be profound. Are you now ready to comply with my wishes?"
The short brute of a man scrunched up his face, leaving a single eye to peep from the fleshy knot. "You gonna try to evict me?"
"No, I am absolutely going to evict you, you squatter. "
"Hey, I just happen to stand five-eleven. I'm not squat. Who you callin' squat? I resent that remark."
The man was flouncing around the room like a dancing bear, throwing up his blunt-fingered hands and gesticulating with every word. He reminded Walter Weld Hill of the maitre d' at Polcari's, an acceptable restaurant of the ethnic sort.
"Resent it all you want," he returned coldly, "but you are vacating these premises."
"Hey, don't use that language on me. I'm from fuggin' Brooklyn. You think I don't now what them words mean? You think I don't know what all these lawyers mean?"
" I am sure that you do," retorted Walter Weld Hill. He snapped his fingers. "Sol, the summons."
Sol Greenglass whipped out the legal document and presented it to the man who called himself Cadillac.
"This is a summons to appear-"
"Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you very much," said the man called Cadilliac impatiently, stuffing the summons into his suit coat. He beckoned toward Sol Greenglass. "You, come with me."
"What?"
"Here," said Cadillac, "lemme help you."
Sol Greenglass found himself being led out into the open side of the room. "The rest of yous, come on. I'm gonna show you all a little trick."
"We are not interested in your tricks," said Walter Weld Hill in his sternest voice.
"You'll be interested in this. You, stand there. The rest of yous form a line. Yeah, like that."
Under the prodding and pushing of the boss of LCN, the entire legal staff of Greenglass, Korngold, and Bluestone was made to stand along one side of the long conference table. At the far end, Walter Weld Hill stood frowning. What was the man up to? he wondered.
"Okay, okay, okay," said Cadillac. "Now, I want every one of yous to turn and face me. Humor me, okay? I like bein' humored. "
Reluctantly, grumbling, the lawyers turned.
Cadillac clapped his hands together. "Yeah. That's good. Hill, you still back there?"
Walter Weld Hill had turned as well. He stuck his head out from the twenty-deep phalanx of lawyers. "What is it?" he asked tightly.
"I told you I'm from Brooklyn, right?"
"Repeatedly. "
"Down in Brooklyn, we got a riddle that covers situations like this."
"I doubt that."
The man called Cadillac reached down under the end of the conference table. He did not take his tiny eyes off Hill.
"It goes like this," said the man, withdrawing a forty-five-caliber machine gun so old it sported a drum magazine. With both hands he shouldered the weapon level to the exposed chest of the first man in line, the junior litigator, Weederman.
Walter Weld Hill's heart skipped a beat. Then he realized he was protected by no fewer than the bodies of twelve of the finest litigators this side of Worcester.
" I am not afraid of you," he said primly.
"I ain't told you the riddle yet."
"If you must."
Cadillac beamed a smile as broad as his namesake. "It goes, 'How many lawyers does it take to stop a bullet?'" And then Cadillac cocked the old weapon.
At the sound of the charging bolt being pulled back, the sturdy phalanx that was Greenglass, Korngold, and Bluestone gave out a collective gasp and broke for every exit. They stumbled over one another in their mad rush to leave the room, in some cases stepping out of their own expensive shoes.