Why was Todd Pichea of Crawford, Mead, Wilton, and Dunwhittie, so anxious to take over the legal affairs of Harriet Frizell that he rushed a probate court representative to her Cook County Hospital bedside? Why was his first action on becoming her legal guardian to put her dogs to sleep? Was his sole aim in making her his ward the power to kill her dogs? Or does he have designs on her property as well? Does the firm of Crawford, Mead support Pichea’s action? And if so, why? Enquiring minds want to know.

I signed my name and made five copies—my concession to modernity is a desktop copier. My own copy I stuck in a folder labeled FRIZELL, which I placed in my client files. I put another in an envelope to Murray. The other four I planned to deliver in person: three at Dick’s firm—one to Dick himself, one to Todd, and a third to Leigh Wilton, one of the senior partners whom I knew. The original was addressed to the Chicago Lawyer.

I drove over to the new building on LaSalle where Crawford, Mead had moved their offices last year. It was one of my favorites in the West Loop, with a curved amber facade that reflected the profile of the skyline at sunset. I wouldn’t have minded an office there. It was second on my list of purchases, after a new pair of Nikes.

The guard in the lobby was watching the last of the Sox game; he motioned me toward the sign-in sheet, but didn’t care much what I did as long as I didn’t interrupt the final out. Only one elevator was turned on, its interior upholstered in pale orange to match the building’s amber glass. It sucked me up to the thirtieth floor, where it decanted me in about twenty seconds.

Crawford, Mead had moved the carved wooden doors from their old headquarters. As soon as you saw those massive doors, inlaid into gray worsted walls, you knew you’d be paying three hundred dollars an hour for the privilege of whispering guilty secrets to the high priests beyond.

The doors were locked. I was tempted to pull out my picklocks and leave my messages on my targets’ desks personally, but I heard muffled voices on the far side of the doors. No doubt juniors hard at work, adding to the firm’s blood supply, its billable hours. The door didn’t have a mail slot. I moistened the tips of the envelopes and stuck them to the door, with Dick’s and Todd’s and Leigh Wilton’s names typed in black and underlined in red. I felt a bit like Martin Luther taking on the pope at Wittenberg.