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Gabriel had just settled at his desk when a man walked in. Mid-forties. Average height. Above-average weight. Balding. Dressed in a department store suit. Strikingly ordinary.
Seeing Gabriel, the man stepped back out the still-open door and checked the sign.
"Uh, you're . . . waiting for Mr. Walsh?" he asked Gabriel.
"I am Mr. Walsh."
Gabriel rose and the man's gaze rose with him. Then the man stepped back again. At six-four, Gabriel wasn't simply tall--he was big. Not overweight, though it was easy to slide in that direction if he paid too little attention to his diet and exercise.
"Ben said you were, uh, young. Just caught me off guard there." A slightly nervous laugh. "He's the one who recommended you. Benjamin Hall. You helped him out with a problem last year."
By helped out with a problem, he meant got him off on a DUI charge that put a woman in a wheelchair. It'd been one of Gabriel's finer moments. Not setting free a drunk who'd permanently disabled a mother of four--that was nothing to be proud of. But the case had been turned down by Quinlan himself, who'd deemed it unwinnable. Yet Gabriel had won, which got him his first front-page story, his first hate mail and his first full roster of clients.
"Yes, of course," Gabriel said. Then added, a little belatedly, "How is he?"
He didn't listen to the answer. He didn't care, but this was the expected response, so he made it.
"Now I have a problem," the man continued. "And I'm hoping you can help."
Gabriel waved him to a chair. He did not offer refreshments. There was a difference between civility and servitude.
"It's about a cat," the man said. "I think I might need to kill it."
"I would advise against that." That'll be one hundred dollars, please, and the door is behind you.
"Strongly advise against it?"
Gabriel considered. While he understood that he shouldn't need to, what he thought was very different, because emotion had no place here. He was a lawyer, not a priest.
"Is the cat a nuisance?"
The man shifted in his seat. "Kind of."
In other words, not really.
"That is the crux of the matter," Gabriel said. "If the animal is a danger to you or your children or your own pets, then you could argue it
is a nuisance animal. The first step, however, would be to contact animal control. I presume it's a stray?"
"No, it's mine."
"Oh. That, I'm afraid, is a whole different matter, falling under the animal cruelty laws. In that case, I would even more strongly suggest animal control."
"I've taken him to the shelter twice. He comes back."
"Ah." Gabriel tapped his pen against his legal pad. "I'm going to need more information then. Why do you wish to get rid of the cat? Is it a health issue? Allergies? Or a financial one, such as medical needs you cannot fulfill?"
"I . . . just want to get rid of it."
Gabriel waited for a better answer. The man squirmed, then said, "It's bothering me."
"Attacking you? Being abnormally noisy?"
"No, it just . . . stares at me. I know that sounds . . ." The man pushed to his feet, and began to pace. "It sounds crazy. But you don't understand. It just sits there and it stares and it stares. One yellow eye, staring at me all the time."
"One?"
The man ran a hand through his hair, upsetting the fine balance of his comb over. "It was a mistake."
