Past Due by William Lashner Read Free Book Online

you’re avoiding.”
    “Of course I’m avoiding. What sane person wouldn’t avoid what I’m avoiding. I don’t have enough money. I’m not getting laid. I have a glove compartment full of traffic tickets and a date in Traffic Court, where I’ll most likely be stripped of my license. I’m stuck every night or so visiting my father in the hospital and watching him die. And did I mention they shut off my cable? How is it possible to lead a meaningful life, I ask you, without the Golf Channel?”
    She looked at me with almost pity in her eyes.
    “Yes, it’s true,” I said. “No Golf Channel.”
    “How is he?”
    “Who?”
    “Your father.”
    “They want to slice him open and chop up his lungs. But I’d rather talk about business. What about our accounts receivable?”
    “The accounts receivable, I’m happy to say, grow by the hour. But receivables don’t pay the rent. Guy Forrest still owes us for his murder trial. Why don’t you give him another call?”
    “He can’t be reached. Whatever he had he sold and put in a trust for his kids. He says he’ll pay us when he can, but who knows when that will be. Now he’s hit the road. Bali. Tibet. Off to find himself.”
    “Wow,” said Beth, spinning in her chair. “That sounds nice.” She took a moment to imagine herself walking through an exotic marketplace, bargaining over batik, or hiking high into the Himalayas.
    Beth was more than my partner, she was my best friend, and I loved practicing law with her, but our long-term goals were quite dissimilar. I had a fierce ambition to succeed and prosper and rise, which made our struggles all the more despairing for me. But Beth, Beth always had the attitude that she was just passing through. She didn’t seem to have long-term goals. She saw the legal profession as a helping profession, God help her, and was pleased to be of some use. But she could also see herself trying something else, going somewhere new, dedicating herself to some other life. She sometimes mused about the Peace Corps. Really, she did, which, like, boggled my mind. I mean, my life had turned bleak because my cable had been cut off. Cold showers, long hours, no golf on TV, porridgy gluck masquerading as dinner? Philadelphia was too toughfor me, how would I handle the Peace Corps? But she was right, I was avoiding, avoiding the whole precarious perch of our practice. For her, bankruptcy would have meant a new beginning, which I think she secretly found attractive. For me, the idea of bankruptcy was too brutal to even contemplate. If I wasn’t a lawyer, what was I? It would take some deep soul searching to figure that out and, frankly, I firmly believed my soul, like certain biohazard properties, was better left unsearched.
    “Are you ever tempted,” she said, “just to go off and find yourself?”
    “God no. I might succeed.”
    “Yes, that would be frightening. And isn’t it weird to think that you might be somewhere out there to be found. Can you imagine the poor sap who goes off on a walkabout to find himself, climbs the highest peaks, the widest valleys, and when he gets to the final spot what he finds, instead of himself, is you?”
    “We were talking about accounts receivable,” I said drily.
    “I suppose we should cross Joseph Parma and his thirty-five hundred dollars off the list.”
    “He was never good for it anyway.”
    “So why’d you take the case?”
    “He needed someone. But don’t put it all on me,” I said. “You brought in Rashard Porter.”
    “Yes, that,” she said, nodding her head. “I know his mother, she’s a wonder, and he’s basically a good kid. But I got a retainer for that.”
    “Three hundred dollars, which didn’t cover the arraignment.”
    “She’s a single mother paying half her salary in rent. The three hundred itself was a struggle for her.”
    “His suppression hearing is day after tomorrow.”
    “How’s it look?”
    “Not good. The joint they found lying next to him on the front