I swallowed.
“Maybe it won’t come to that,” I said. “Did Gary get what I needed?”
“Check the wall,” Bob said, and his eyelights flared brilliant white.
I winced and looked at the wall across from the skull. Projected on the castle’s stones was a white square. Then Bob made a chirping sound, and a text message as if from a phone appeared on it:
One more thing, Gary, it read. The Boss says he needs to know how to contact that one lawyer who actually beat Talvi Inverno in court—Bob
These are text messages, dude. You don’t have to sign them. Is everyone there a luddite like Dresden? read a reply message, this one in a green field with white letters.
The next message was a block address.
I leaned forward, peering. “Maximillian Valerious, Esquire,” I muttered. “What a corny name.”
Bob made a choking sound and I scowled back over my shoulder at him. Then I got out a pen and paper and wrote down the address of the man who’d beat a demigod of strife in a court of law.
“Boss,” Bob said, “I thought you couldn’t afford a powerful lawyer.”
“I can’t afford a pricey one,” I said. “But if this guy whipped the nameless son in open battle in a court of law once, maybe he’d be willing to do it again on the cheap.”
Bob snorted. “Sure.”
“Well,” I said. “We’ll see. I’ve got to try something.”
Chapter Eleven
Maximillian Valerious worked out of his home in a residential neighborhood in Park West.
I pulled up to the address, peered at the house, and double checked what I’d written down, because it wasn’t the kind of place where I expected a high-priced lawyer to settle.
Valerious’s place could best have been described as ‘quirky.’ For one, it was painted a bright canary yellow with sky blue trim. There was a large oak tree in the front yard, along with high, wire fencing and a chicken hutch. A dozen chickens in a dozen different shades and patterns of feathers clucked around the yard, under the sleepy watch of a droopy-eyed basset hound. The house didn’t have a driveway, but the car parked out in front of it was an old sedan from somewhere just after World War II, and its personalized license plate read ‘LAWYUR.’
I swung out of the Munstermobile into the sultry summer evening and squinted at the house for a moment. The windows were open, and I could see half a dozen fans whirling in front of them, taking in air on the shaded front side of the house and pushing it out the side still facing the sunset.
I walked up to the gate and squinted at a wood-burned sign that read, ‘No solicitors or proselytizers welcome, business clients and known personal friends only, everyone else is TRESPASSING, please leave packages in the box inside the gate, mind the chickens, beware of dog, this sign does not constitute an invitation of any kind.”
I squinted up at the basset hound and said, “Beware of dog. That’s you, huh?”
The dog gave me a look and yawned. Then he heaved himself to his stumpy legs and padded down the sidewalk, pausing to nose a chicken fondly, and sat down to regard me with the saddest eyes in the canine kingdom.
“Max!” called a woman’s voice from inside the house. “Max! There’s a weirdo at the gate!”
A man with a shock of grey hair stuck his head out one of the open windows, squinted at me, then quickly withdrew. He stuck his head out a second time, this time with a pair of thick gold spectacles perched on the end of his nose, and he gave me a thorough peering. “Huh!” he said after a moment. “I think I know who you are!”
“Do I call the police?” the woman called from deeper inside the house.