I SUSPECT THE REASON BOOKER CHOSE this fancy restaurant is that he has good news. The table is covered with silver. The napkins are linen. He must have a client who's paying for this.

He arrives fifteen minutes late, very unlike him, but he's a busy man these days, and the first words out of his mouth are "I passed it." We sip our water while he goes through an animated history of his appeal to the Board of Law Examiners. His exam was regraded, his score was raised three points and he's now a full-fledged lawyer. I've never seen him smile so much. Only two others from our group had successful appeals. Sara Plankmore was not one of them. Booker's heard a rumor that her score was miserable, and that her job with the U.S. Attorney's office might be in jeopardy.

Against his wishes, I order a bottle of champagne, and I instruct the waiter to hand me the bill. You just can't hide money.

The food arrives, incredibly tiny slivers of salmon but beautifully presented, and we admire it for a while before

eating. Shankle's got Booker running in thirty directions, fifteen hours a day, but Charlene is a woman of great patience. She realizes he must make sacrifices in these early years to reap rewards later. For the moment, I'm thankful I have no wife and kids.

We talk about Kipler, who's talked a bit to Shankle ^nd word has leaked. Lawyers have great trouble keeping secrets. Shankle mentioned to Booker that Kipler mentioned to him that his buddy, me, has a case that could be worth millions. Evidently, Kipler has become convinced that I've got Great Benefit nailed to a rock, and it's simply a question of how much the jury will give us. Kipler is determined to get me to the jury in one piece.

This is splendid gossip.

Booker wants to know what else I'm doing. It sounds as though Kipler might have also mentioned something to the effect that I apparently have little else to do, or something like this.

Over cheesecake, Booker says he has some files that I might want to look at. He explains. The second-largest furniture store in Memphis is called Ruffin's, a black-owned company with stores all over town. Everybody knows Ruffin's, mainly because they saturate late night TV with ads screaming out all sorts of bargains for no money down. They do about eight million a year, Booker says, and Marvin Shankle is their lawyer. They extend their own credit, and they have lots of bad debts. It's the nature of their business. The Shankle firm has become burdened with hundreds of collection files for Ruffin's customers.

Would I like a few of these files?

Collection law is not the reason bright young students flock to law school. The defendants are past-due folks who bought cheap furniture to begin with. The client doesn't want the furniture back, just the money. In most cases, no

answer is filed, no appearance is made by the defendant, so the lawyer has to attach personal assets, or wages. This can be dangerous. Three years ago a Memphis lawyer was shot but not killed by an angry young man whose pay-check had just been garnished.

To make it work, a lawyer needs a bunch of files because each suit is worth but a few hundred dollars. The law allows the recovery of attorney fees and costs.

It's grimy work, but, and this is the reason Booker is offering, fees can be squeezed from these files. Modest fees, but volume can produce enough to pay overhead and buy groceries.

"I can send over fifty," he says, "along with the necessary forms. And I'll help you get the first batch filed. There's a system."

"What's the average fee?"

"It's hard to say, because on some files you won't collect a dime. They've either skipped town or they'll go bankrupt. But on the average, I'd say a hundred dollars a file."

A hundred times fifty is five thousand dollars.

"The average file takes four months," he explains, "and if you want, I can send over twenty or so a month. File them all at one time, same court, same judge, returnable the same day in the future, and you make only one court appearance. Take the defaults, go from there. It's ninety percent paperwork."

"I'll do it," I say. "Anything else you guys want to unload?"

"Maybe. I'm always looking."

The coffee arrives, and we backslide into what lawyers do best-talking about other lawyers. In our case, we gossip about our classmates and how they're faring in the real world.

Booker has been revived.

356 JOHNGRISHAM

DECK CAN SNEAK through the tiniest crack in an open door without making a sound. He does this to me all the time. I'll be at my desk, deep in thought or buried in one of the rare files I own, and, Presto!, here's Deck! I wish he would knock, but I hate to fuss at him.

Here he is, suddenly standing in front of my desk, holding an armload of mail. He notices the stack of shiny new collection files on the corner. "What's this?" he asks.

"Work."

He picks up a file. "Ruffin's?"

"Yes sir. We're now counsel for the second-largest furniture store in Memphis."

"It's a collection file," he says in disgust, as if he's dirtied his hands. This from a man who dreams of more paddle wheel disasters.

"It's honest work, Deck."

"It's beating your head against a wall."

"Go chase an ambulance."

He drops my mail on the desk and vanishes as silently as he appeared. I take a deep breath and tear open a heavy envelope from Trent & Brent. It's a stack of legal-sized papers, at least two inches thick.

Drummond has answered my interrogatories, denied my requests for admissions and produced some of the documents I requested. It'll take hours to plow through this, and even more time to figure out what he hasn't produced.

Of particular importance are his answers to my interrogatories. I have to depose a corporate spokesman, and he designates a gentleman by the name of Jack Underhall at the corporate headquarters in Cleveland. I also asked for the official titles and addresses of several Great Benefit employees, names I found repeatedly in Dot's paperwork.

Using a form Judge Kipler gave me, I prepare a notice to depose six people. I pick a date a week away, knowing full well that Drummond will have a conflict. This is what he did to rne with Dot's depo, and this is how the game is played. He'll run to Kipler, who'll have little sympathy.

I'm about to spend a couple of days in Cleveland at the corporate headquarters of Great Benefit. This is not something I want to do, but I have no choice. It will be an expensive trip-travel, lodgings, food, court reporters. Deck and I have not discussed it yet. Frankly, I've been waiting for him to reel in a quickie car wreck.

The Black case has now moved into the third expandable file. I keep it in a cardboard box on the floor next to my desk. I look at it many times each day and ask myself if I know what I'm doing. Who am I to dream of a huge courtroom victory? Of handing the great Leo F. Drummond a humbling defeat?

I've never said a word to a jury.

DONNY RAY was too weak to talk on the phone an hour ago, so I drive to their house in Granger. It's late September, and I don't remember the exact date, but Donny Ray was first diagnosed over a year ago. Dot's eyes are red when she comes to the door. "I think he's about gone," she says through sniffles. I didn't think it was possible for him to look worse, but his face is even paler and more fragile. He's asleep in the unlighted room. The sun is low to the west, and the shadows fall in perfect rectangles across the white sheets on his narrow bed. The TV is off. The room is silent.

"He hasn't eaten a bite today," she whispers as we stare down at him.

"How much pain?"

"Not too bad. I've given him two shots."

"I'll sit for a while," I whisper as I ease into a folding chair. She leaves the room. I hear her sniffling in the hallway.

He could be dead for all I know. I concentrate on his chest, wait for it to move up and down slightly, but I can't detect anything. The room gets darker. I turn on a small lamp on a table near the door, and he moves slightly. His eyes open, then close.

So this is how the uninsured die. In a society filled with wealthy doctors and gleaming hospitals and state-of-the-art medical gadgetry and the bulk of the world's Nobel winners, it seems outrageous to allow Donny Ray Black to wither away and die without proper medical care.

He could've been saved. By law, he was solidly under the umbrella, leaky as it was, of Great Benefit when his body became afflicted with this terrible disease. At the moment he was diagnosed, he was covered by a policy which his parents paid good money for. By law, Great Benefit had a contractual obligation to provide medical treatment.

One day very soon I hope to meet the person responsible for this death. He or she might be a lowly claims handler who was simply following orders. He or she might be a vice president who gave the orders. I wish I could take a picture of Donny Ray right now, then hand it to this pathetic person when we finally meet.

He coughs, moves again, and I think he's trying to tell me that he's still alive. I turn off the light and sit in darkness.

I'm alone and outgunned, scared and inexperienced, but I'm right. If the Blacks do not prevail in this lawsuit, then there is nothing fair with the system.

A streetlight comes on somewhere in the distance, and a stray ray flickers through the window and across Donny

Ray's chest. It's moving now, up and down slightly. I think he's trying to wake.

There will not be many more moments sitting in this room. I stare at his bony frame barely visible under the sheets, and I vow revenge.