Suzy's Case: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

confused look on his face. A look that says, Why did you startle the crap out of me like that? So I accommodate. In my most excited of utterances.
    “You missed your hearing before the committee!” I yell out, causing alarm to infiltrate his nervous system. He turns white. He struggles to swallow the lump that just gathered in his throat. “They disbarred you!” I shout. “Summarily! For nonappearance!”
    “What! What!” he responds, in disbelief. “What did you just say, Wyler?” Called by my last name again. I hate that.
    “You heard me, man,” I state, taking a moment to bend down and flash the dogs at the hottie in the back so as to ask, Want one? Her brow rises with interest. Cool. She wants to bite my wiener. I stand to finish what I started. “You’ve been disbarred, man! Get in there!” I say, pointing to the courthouse. He takes off like a sprinter up the steps, falling three times and leaving a shoe behind before disappearing into the structure. I give a shrug, then casually slip into the backseat of the limo next to the hottie. I shut the door and lean forward.
    “James,” I say, talking to the limo driver, “I’m a friend of Adam’s. Could you run me downtown to the Village, please? I think he’ll be a while.” The driver puts the stretch into gear and pulls away from the curb. I turn to my left and undertake a quick profile. Blonde, light blue eyes, twentysomething, boobs out and about—she must be Eastern European. “Ivonka?” I ask.
    “No. My name is not Ivonka,” she responds, with a hard Russian accent. “It’s Ivonna.”
    “My bad, Ivonna. Are you Adam’s new girlfriend?”
    “Maybe,” she answers, holding her hand out in front of her, looking at the jewels on her flared fingers, then adjusts one of her very expensive rings.
    “Listen,” I say, with the rusty reflexes of a married man and the joy of having just stuck one to Adam, “if things don’t turn out too good back in there, I’m around town, honey. I don’t got a full head of hair like your boy, but skin is in, baby girl.” She looks at me like I’m some kind of idiot. I definitely make better opening statements in front of a jury where I’m given a fact pattern to work with.
    Five seconds later, after telling her my first name and then making an offering where something was lost in translation, I find myself stepping out of the limo, evicted. Before shutting the door I plead my case, as lawyers do.
    “I was talking about a hot dog, that wiener, and my name is Tug. I wasn’t asking you to—”
    “Shut door! Pig!”
The Money, the Whole Money, and Nothing But the Money, So Help Me God
    I hop a cab. “Boca Coca Java Mundo Coffee Expressions, please, on Bleecker Street.” The cabbie gives me an inspecting look through his rearview. “Yeah, I know, buddy, I’m not hip enough to be hanging outthere, but I got business to do and the guy I’m meeting is completing the second decade of his midlife crisis.” He ignores me, assuming he understood, starts the meter, and slowly pulls away from the curb, which I greatly appreciate, hating herky-jerky takeoffs.
    Boca Coca Java Mundo is a supercool downtown coffeehouse. It’s a social networking mecca and subculture to itself. The most beautiful and free-spirited young people in the city gather to peck on their laptops and socialize while sipping five-dollar coffees with eight-word descriptions. It’s the ultimate of trendy daytime environments, and I’m sure the old fellas will stick out more than I’d like. I’ll be arriving early so I’ll grab us a table in the corner.
    I enter Boca Coca, which I haven’t been to in fifteen years. I stopped coming to this Boca when I started going to the other, in Florida, where my in-laws live.
    On first glance, everything looks the same. The extralarge purple couches with orange and gold throw pillows are randomly scattered about just as I remember. The rich-looking, purple-stained, floor-to-ceiling wood shelving still