WIZARD AT LARGE. Terry Brooks

If it was possible that anything could be fresh in his mind at this point, he thought dismally.

He leaned back in his leather desk chair, his heavy frame sagging. He was a big man with thick dark hair and a mustache that seemed to have been tacked on as an afterthought to a face that in happier times was almost cherubic. Eyes perpetually lidded at half-mast peered out with a mix of weary resignation and sardonic humor on a world that viewed even hardworking, conscientious lawyers such as himself with unrelenting suspicion. Still, that was all right with him. It was just part of the price you paid to do something you really loved.

His sudden smile was ironic. Of course, sometimes you loved it more than others.

That made him think unexpectedly of Ben Holiday, formerly of Holiday & Bennett, Ltd., their old law partnership, of when it was Ben and him against the world. His smile tightened. Ben Holiday had loved the law—knew how to practice it, too. Doc Holiday, courtroom gunfighter, He shook his head. Now Doc was God-knew-where, off fighting dragons and rescuing damsels in some make-believe world that probably existed only in his own mind…

Or maybe for real. Miles wrinkled his brow thoughtfully. He had never been quite sure. Maybe never would be.

He brushed the extraneous thoughts from his mind and bent back over the law books and yellow pads. He blinked his eyes wearily. His notes were beginning to blur. He needed to get this done and get to bed.

The phone rang. He glanced over at it, sitting on the end table next to his reading chair. He let it ring a second time. Marge was at bridge and the kids were up the block at the Wilson house. No one home but him. The phone rang a third time.

“Damnit all, anyway!” he swore, lifting himself heavily out of the desk chair. Phone was never for him, always for the kids or Marge; even if it was for him, it was always some ditsy client who didn’t have sense enough not to bother him at home with questions that could just as easily wait until morning.

The phone rang a final time as he lifted the receiver. “Hello, Bennett’s,” he rumbled.

“Miles, it’s Ben Holiday.”

Miles stiffened in surprise. “Doc? Is that you? I was just thinking about you, for God’s sake! How are you? Where are you?”

“Las Vegas.”

“Las Vegas?”

“I tried to reach you at the office, but they said you were out for the day.”

“Yeah, tramping all over hell and gone.”

“Listen, Miles, I need a big favor.” Ben’s voice crackled on the connection. “You’ll probably have to drop everything you’re doing for the rest of the week, but it’s important or I wouldn’t ask.”

Miles found himself grinning. Same old Doc. “Yeah, yeah, butter me up so you can toss me into the frying pan. What do you need?”

“Money, to begin with. I’m staying at the Shangri-La with a friend, but I don’t have any money to pay for it.”

Miles was laughing openly now. “For Christ’s sake, Doc, you’re a millionaire! What do you mean you don’t have any money?”

“I mean I don’t have any here! So you have to wire me several thousand first thing in the morning. But listen, you have to send it to yourself, to Miles Bennett. That’s how I’m registered.”

“What? You’re using my name?”

“I couldn’t think of another on the spur of the moment, and I didn’t want to use my own. Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble.”

“Not yet, anyway, you mean.”

“Just send it to the hotel directly to my account—your account, that is. Can you do it?”

“Yeah, sure, no problem.” Miles shook his head in amusement, settling down comfortably now into the reading chair. “Is that the big favor you needed, money?”

“Partly.” Ben sounded subdued and distant. “Miles, you remember how you always wanted to know something about what happened to me when I left the practice? Well, you’re going to get your chance. A friend of mine, another friend, not the one with me now, is in trouble here, somewhere in the United States, I think—maybe not, though, we have to find out. I want you to call up one of our investigating agencies and have them find out anything they can about a man named Michel Ard Rhi.” He spelled it out and Miles hastily wrote the name down. “I think he lives in the U.S., but, again, I can’t be certain. He should be pretty wealthy, probably somewhat reclusive. Likes to use his money, though. Have you got all that?”