Falls the Shadow Read Online Free PDF

slathered three times the recommended dosage onto my throbbing tooth, hoping for just a moment of relief, but the pain was getting worse. It was as if a mole were burrowing into my gum, digging and chewing. But the goop, all it did was numb my tongue, leaving me to talk as if sky high on paint thinner.
    So I was sprawled on the couch, a towel full of ice on my jaw, drooling from my numb tongue, looking every inch the suave man-about-town, when the phone rang.
    “He likes you,” said Beth from the other end.
    “Who likes me?”
    “François. He called me from the prison today while you were out at Whit’s. He said he’s very grateful you agreed to take the case and that he likes you.”
    “That makes my day.”
    “What’s wrong with your voice? What are you, drunk?”
    “Hardly. I’m having a situation. Remember when that thug socked me with his gun on that old boat? My teeth have never quite been right since.”
    “You should have them looked at. I know a dentist—”
    “Yes, it seems everyone knows a dentist.” I took out of my pocket the card Whit Robinson had given me and thumbed over the name. “If it gets any worse, I have someone to see. I hear he’s a miracle worker. But I’m sure it will take care of itself.”
    “A bit of dentophobia, Victor?”
    “Hey, nothing wrong with a healthy fear of men with hairy forearms who want to stick sharp metal implements into your gums. What did Shakespeare say, ‘First thing let’s kill all the dentists’?”
    “I don’t think that’s quite it. Anyway, I called to remind you that you have that hearing in family court tomorrow.”
    “I know. I talked to the boy’s mother on the phone and arranged to meet up with her before we go to the judge.”
    “Good. You’ll be in and out. Judge Sistine told me the case shouldn’t take much time.”
    “And it pays so well, too. Pro bono, Latin for ‘no cable.’ ”
    “Doing a little good in the world will do wonders for your soul.”
    “My soul’s fine, it’s my wallet that’s a little thin. Since you spoke to your boyfriend—”
    “Stop it.”
    “Did he say when he was going to get us our retainer?”
    “He said soon.”
    “Because the word is, he couldn’t pay for his appeals. The word is, François Dubé doesn’t have a cent to his name.”
    “Where did you hear that?”
    “Whit.”
    “Did he say anything else of interest?”
    “Not really, though our meeting ended a little strangely. But he did mention that François ran out of money at the end of the trial. So I’m naturally wondering how the jerk is going to pay us.”
    “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”
    “Be a dear and find out next time he calls, won’t you? It would be nice if we got paid for something some time this month. The landlord has been leaving notes.”
    I hung up the phone and looked again at Whit’s card. Dr. Pfeffer, miracle worker. Just then things weren’t going so well in my life. My business was precariously perched on the brink of bankruptcy, my anemic love life was the stuff of a Sartre treatise— Being with Nothingness —my car could use a tune-up, my apartment could use a scrubbing, my body could use some exercise, though who would give it that was a mystery to me. I was too young to feel old, and yet there it was, the despair of middle age, hanging around my neck like a noose. And now I had a client who couldn’t pay me but who was calling my partner from prison to say how much he liked me. Let me tell you, hearing from a convicted murderer serving a life sentence in an all-male prison that he likes you doesn’t exactly make your day. And on top of it all, there was a mole digging a burrow into my jaw. My life could sure use a miracle. If my tooth didn’t get any better soon, I was going to have to give that Dr. Pfeffer a call.
    But first, lucky me, I had an appointment in family court.

6
    Philadelphia Family Court sits in an old neoclassical building on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, just next to the