The girl got up from behind one of the battered desks. Mannish. No lipstick, cropped hair, green slacks, a loose plaid shirt. She gripped his hand crunchingly.
“I’m Norma Lavin,” she said. “Mr. Mundin?”
“Yes.” Mannish. Now, why was good old Del passing this screwball on to him?
“This is my brother Don.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Don Lavin had something weird and something familiar about him. Kis eyes drew attention. Mundin had often read of “shining eyes” and accepted it as one of those things you read that don’t mean anything. Now he was disconcerted to find that he was looking into a pair of eyes that did shine.
“Please sit down,” he said to them, clearing a chair for himself. He decided it was simply Lavin’s habit to blink infrequently. It made his eyes look varnished, gave the youngster • peering, fanatic look.
The girl said, “Mr. Dworcas tells us you’re a lawyer, Mr. Mundin, as well as a valuable political associate.”
“Yes,” he said. He automatically handed her one of the fmcy penny-each cards from his right breast pocket. Don Lavin looked somewhat as if he had been conditioned. That was it. Like a court clerk or one of the participants hi a Field Day—or, he guessed, a criminal after the compulsory third-rep treatment.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m a lawyer. I wouldn’t swear to that other part”
“Umph,” she said. “You’re the best we can do. We got nowhere in Washington, we got nowhere in Chicago, we got nowhere in New York. We’ll try local courts here. Dworcas passed us on to you. Well, we have to start somewhere.”
“Somewhere,” her brother dreamily agreed.
“Look, Miss Lavin,” Mundin began.
“Just Lavin.”
“Okay. Lavin, or Spike, or Butch, or whatever you want me to call you. If you’re through with the insults, will you tell me what you want?”
Del Dworcas stuck his head in the door. “You people getting along okay? Fine!” He vanished again.
The girl said, “We want to retain you as attorney for a stockholders’ committee. The G.M.L. Homes thing.”
G.M.L. Homes, Mundin thought, irritated. That’s silly. G.M.L.—why, that means the bubble-houses. Not just the houses, of course—the bubble-cities, too; the real estate in practically continental lots; the private roads, the belt lines, the power reactors. . . .
“Nonsense.” It wasn’t a very funny joke.
The shiny-eyed boy said abruptly, “The ‘L’ stands for Lavin. Did you know that?”
Something kicked Mundin in the stomach. He grunted. Suppose—just suppose, now—that maybe it isn’t a joke, he thought detachedly. Ridiculous, of course, but just suppose——
G.M.L. Homes.
Such things didn’t happen to Charles Mundin, LL.D. To squash it once and for all, he said, flat out, “I’m not licensed to practice corporate law, you know. Try William Choate the Fourth; he was——”
“We just did. He said no.”
They make it sound real, Mundin thought admiringly. Of course, it couldn’t be. Somewhere in the rules it was written down inexpungibly: Charles Mundin will never get a fat case. Therefore this thing would piffle out, of course.
“Well?” demanded the girl.
“I said I’m not licensed to practice corporate law.”
“That’s all right,” the girl said contemptuously. “Did you think we didn’t know that? We have an old banger we dug up who still has his license. He can’t work, but we can use his name as attorney of record.”
Well. He began hazily. “It’s naturally interesting——”
She interrupted. “Naturally, Mundin, naturally. Will you get the hell off the dime? Yes or no. Tell us.”
Dworcas stuck his head in again. “Mundin. I’m awfully
sorry, but I’ve got to have the office for a while. Why don’t you and your friends go over for a cup of coffee?”
Hussein’s place across the street was pretty full, but they found a low table on the aisle.
The old-timers stared with dull, insulting curiosity at the strange face of Don Lavin. The kids in zoot hats with five-inch brims looked once and then looked away quickly. You didn’t stare at a man who had obviously been conditioned: Not any more than in the old days you stared at the cropped ears of a convicted robber or asked a eunuch what it was like.