Lucky Leonardo by Jonathan D. Canter Page A

of her friends, never talking about anything, never opening up, and it became sort of vacant and airless, and she thought it was time to get a second opinion.
    Or a third opinion if Helen’s counted, but the problem with Helen’s was that she was good at criticizing Leonardo behind his back but flirted with him when he showed up for coffee. “I want to wash your car with my tongue,” Helen liked to say to Leonardo, waggling her tongue to demonstrate her technique.
    Helen was dark in her looks and demeanor, always fighting with her bouffant of steel wool hair, and trying to patch the acne pocks on her cheeks which caught one’s eye and kept her from being pretty. The other thing was that sometimes her eyes glowed too brightly, which made some customers uncomfortable. And she liked to ask Chrissie nosy little questions about Leonardo, especially about sex with Leonardo.
    â€œMom,” Chrissie told Helen between frappuccinos on the afternoon of, “might be pissed if she thinks he’s just using me for a rocks-off machine. But she usually looks for the good and lets the bad slide. She excuses a lot in men. She’s known some real shits. She knows I’ve known some real shits.”
    Aside from the “Mom, what do you think?” part of it, Chrissie also thought it would be good for Mom to have a night on the town. Because Mom had let her life get very quiet. The thought even crossed Chrissie’s mind, skittered across like a squirrel chased by a dog, that when Chrissie had enough of Leonardo maybe Mom, who was two years younger than Leonardo, and not unattractive for her age group, might be interested in filling in. Chrissie liked to make the people around her happy.
    So Chrissie and Mom sat in the restaurant bar for three hours, without word from Leonardo, and got stiff on cosmopolitans. “Unless he’s dead, Chrissie, he should have called,” Mom said. “You can do better.”
    â€”——
    Leonardo felt the chill from that night. He sent Chrissie’s mom, whom he didn’t meet because it was after midnight before the blood was mopped up at DeltaTek, a nice bag from Bloomingdale’s, and he bought Chrissie a half-day of beauty at a downtown spa, to try to warm things over. But in his heart, and speaking as a professional, he knew.

Chapter 13
    Abigail Stern was no spring chicken. Because brother-in-law Hal called her a “girl attorney” Leonardo expected doe eyes and a slim figure, something along the lines of Chrissie, but apparently Hal used the phrase in the traditional way to include all persons with a skirt in their closet.
    Abigail was at least fifty, and wearing pants. Not fat, but filling space. Size twelve, maybe fourteen. Blond-toned hair, cut short, some lipstick, a brush of mascara, but pretty much what you see is what you get. Candace Bergen, if she bulked up, and added crow’s feet and wear and tear, would still be prettier than Abigail, but that’s the general idea. The differences between the young Candace Bergen and the young Abigail Stern were much more profound and systemic, so you could say that Abigail was weathering well.
    Her office was low budget, two rooms off a corridor of dentists and accountants, with the first room an unmanned reception area, and the second a plain Jane office replete with work table, client chairs, lonely potted plant, and enough files and papers strewn around to make her look busy, with a view out the window of Starbucks and of the traffic intersection beyond the parking lot. She was the only lawyer. A solo practitioner. In the suburbs.
    Whatever that meant.
    â€œWould you mind telling me about yourself?” Leonardo asked as he sat down in one of the client chairs, like he was shopping around, not just a desperate man with no choice.
    â€œI would be happy to. How did you find my name?”
    â€œI…my understanding is that everything I say is confidential?”
    â€œYes, of