Chapter Seven

I DROVE in the general direction of Georgetown, but to no place in particular. The clouds were dark; people scurried along the sidewalks; snow crews were getting ready. I passed a beggar on M Street, and wondered if he knew Thomas Bukowsky. Where do the street people go in a snowstorm?

I called the hospital and was informed that my wife would be in emergency surgery for several hours. So much for our romantic lunch in the hospital cafeteria.

I turned and went northeast, past Logan Circle, into the rougher sections of the city until I found the 14th Street Legal Clinic. Fourteenth at Q, NW. I parked at the curb, certain I would never again see my Lexus.

The clinic occupied half of a three-story red-brick Victorian mansion that had seen better days. The windows on the top floor were boarded with aging plywood. Next door was a grungy Laundromat. The crack houses couldn't be far away.

The entrance was covered by a bright yellow canopy, and I didn't know whether to knock or to just barge in. The door wasn't locked, and I slowly turned the knob and stepped into another world.

It was a law office of sorts, but a very different one from the marble and mahogany of Will & Trust. In the large room before me there were four metal desks, each covered with a suffocating collection of files stacked a foot high. More files were placed haphazardly on the worn carpet around the desks. The wastebaskets were filled, and wadded sheets of legal paper had rolled off and onto the floor. One wall was covered with file cabinets in a variety of colors. The word processors and phones were ten years old. The wooden bookshelves were sagging. A large fading photograph of Martin Luther King hung crookedly on the back wall. Several smaller offices branched off the front room.

It was busy and dusty and I was fascinated with the place.

A fierce Hispanic woman stopped typing after watching me for a moment. "You looking for somebody?" she asked. It was more of a challenge than a request. A receptionist at Will & Trust would be fired on the spot for such a greeting.

She was Sofia Mendoza, according to a nameplate tacked to the side of her desk, and I would soon learn that she was more than a receptionist. A loud roar came from one of the side rooms, and startled me without fazing Sofia.

"I'm looking for Luis Kattsoff," I said politely, and at that moment he followed his roar and stomped out of his side office and into the main room. The floor shook with each step. tie was yelling across the room for someone named Abraham.

Sofia nodded at him, then dismissed me and returned to her typing. Kattsoff was a huge black man, at least six five with a wide frame that carried a lot of weight. He was in his early fifties, with a gray beard and round eyeglasses that were framed in red. He took a look at me, said nothing, yelled again for Abraham while sauntering across the creaking floor. He disappeared into an office, then emerged seconds later without Abraham. Another look at me, then, "Can I help you?"

I walked forward and introduced myself.

"Nice to meet you," he said, but only because he had to. "What's on your mind?"

"Thomas Bukowsky," I said.

He looked at me for a few seconds, then glanced at Sofia, who was lost in her work. He nodded toward his office, and I followed him into a twelve-by-twelve room with no windows and every square inch of available floor space covered with manila files and battered law books.

I handed him my gold-embossed Will & Trust card, which he studied with a deep frown. Then he gave it back to me, and said, "Slumming, aren't you?"

"No," I said, taking the card.

"What do you want?"

"I come in peace. Mr. Bukowsky's bullet almost got me."

"You were in the room with him?"

"Yep."

He took a deep breath and lost the frown. He pointed to the only chair on my side. "Have a seat. But you might get dirty."

We both sat, my knees touching his desk, my hands thrust deep into the pockets of my overcoat. A radiator rattled behind him. We looked at each other, then looked away. It was my visit, I had to say something. But he spoke first.

"Guess you had a bad day, huh?" he said, his raspy voice lower and almost compassionate.

"Not as bad as Bukowsky's. I saw your name in the paper, that's why I came."

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do."

"Do you think the family will sue? If so, then maybe I should leave."

"There's no family, not much of a lawsuit. I could make some noise with it. I figure the cop who shot him is white, so I could squeeze a few bucks out of the city, probably get a nuisance settlement. But that's not my idea of fun." He waved his hand over the desk. "God knows I got enough to do."

"I never saw the cop," I said, realizing it for the first time. "Forget about a lawsuit. Is that why you're here?"

"I don't know why I'm here. I went back to my desk this morning like nothing happened, but I couldn't think straight. I took a drive. Here I am."

He shook his head slowly, as if he was trying to understand this. "You want some coffee?"

"No thanks. You knew Mr. t tardy pretty well."

"Yeah, Thomas was a regular."

"Where is he now?"

"Probably in the city morgue at D.C. General."

"If there's no family, what happens to him?"

"The city buries the unclaimed. On the books it's called a pauper's funeral. There's a cemetery near RFK Stadium where they pack 'em in. You'd be amazed at the number of people who die unclaimed."

"I'm sure I would."

"In fact, you'd be amazed at every aspect of homeless life."

It was a soft jab, and I was not in the mood to spar. "Do you know if he had AIDS?"

He cocked his head back, looked at the ceiling, and rattled that around for a few seconds. "Why?"

"I was standing behind him. The back of his head was blown off. I got a face full of blood. That's all."

With that, I crossed the line from a bad guy to just an average white guy.

"I don't think he had AIDS."

"Do they check them when they die?"

"The homeless?"

"Yes."

"Most of the time, yes. Thomas, though, died by other means."

"Can you find out?"

He shrugged and thawed some more. "Sure," he said reluctantly, and took his pen from his pocket. "Is that why you're here? Worried about AIDS?"

"I guess it's one reason. Wouldn't you be?"

"Sure."

Abraham stepped in, a small hyper man of about forty who had public interest lawyer stamped all over him. Jewish, dark beard, horn-rimmed glasses, rumpled blazer, wrinkled khakis, dirty sneakers, and the weighty aura of one trying to save the world.

He did not acknowledge me, and Kattsoff was not one for social graces. "They're predicting a ton of snow," Kattsoff said to him. "We need to make sure every possible shelter is open."

"I'm working on it," Abraham snapped, then abruptly left.

"I know you're busy," I said.

"Is that all you wanted? A blood check."

"Yeah, I guess. Any idea why he did it?"

He removed his red glasses, wiped them with a tissue, then rubbed his eyes. "He was mentally ill, like a lot of these people. You spend years on the streets, soaked with booze, stoned on crack, sleeping in the cold, getting kicked around by cops and punks, it makes you crazy. Plus, he had a bone to pick."

"The eviction."

"Yep. A few months ago, he moved into an abandoned warehouse at the corner of New York and Florida. Somebody threw up some plywood, chopped up the place, and made little apartments. Wasn't a bad place as far as homeless folk go—a roof, some toilets, water. A hundred bucks a month, payable to an expimp who fixed it up and claimed he owned it."

"Did he?"

"I think so." He pulled a thin file from one of the stacks on his desk, and, miraculously, it happened to be the one he wanted. He studied its contents for a moment. "This is where it gets complicated. The property was purchased last month by a company called RiverOaks, some big real estate outfit."

"And River Oaks evicted everyone?"

"Yep."

"Odds are, then, that RiverOaks would be represented by my firm."

"Good odds, yes."

"Why is it complicated?"

"I've heard it secondhand that they got no notice before the eviction. The people claim they were paying rent to the pimp, and if so, then they were more than squatters. They were tenants, thus entitled to due process."

"Squatters get no notice?"

"None. And it happens all the time. Street folk will move into an abandoned building, and most of the time nothing happens. So they drink they own it. The owner, if he's inclined to show up, can toss 'em without notice. They have no rights at all."

"How did Thomas Bukowsky track down our firm?"

"Who knows? He wasn't stupid, though. Crazy, but not stupid."

"Do you know the pimp?"

"Yeah. Completely unreliable."

"Where did you say the warehouse was?"

"It's gone now. They leveled it last week."

I had taken enough of his time. He glanced at his watch, I glanced at mine.

We swapped phone numbers and promised to keep in touch.

Luis Kattsoff was a warm, caring man who labored on the streets protecting hordes of nameless clients. His view of the law required more soul than I could ever muster.

On my way out, I ignored Sofia because she certainly ignored me. My Lexus was still parked at the curb, already covered with an inch of snow.