“Not a bad case for an opener.”
I got up to go.
“Well, Mr. Devlin, the day’s running out, and I’ve got three things to do.”
“Such as?”
“The first thing I’m going to do is call a friend of mine in immigration. I’m going to start the process to get Mei-Li citizenship. Then I’m going to hand in my resignation at Bilson, Dawes.”
“Sounds like a good start. What’s three?”
“That’s the best part. I’m going to pick up a certain gal who’s been in this hospital for the last few days because she was crazy enough to go on a date with me. She’s ready to go home. I’m going to see if I can make it up to her. Maybe for the rest of our lives. Who knows?”
His head was back on the pillow and he nodded. He had a sort of a smile that I don’t think was for me. I think it was for someone who had filled his life and then left it ten years earlier.
I started to leave, and then turned around.
“Could I ask my new senior partner a favor?”
“Ask.”
“Do you suppose you could call me ‘Michael,’ or maybe ‘Mike’?”
He hunched up on his elbows.
“I’ll never call you ‘Mike.’ It’s too small. A name is something you earn. Nobody gives it to you. You’ve earned a proud name. You’ll be ‘Michael’ to me from now on.”
I started to say, “Thank you, Mr. Devlin,” but something crawled up in my throat. I just held up a hand to him on the way out the door.
When I got to the corridor, I looked back. Some things you get to keep forever. I’ll take to my grave the look on his face. He was rereading Mike Loftus’s column.