John Grisham

"It’s Buddy, okay? Dot and Buddy. None of this Mister business, okay? He’s sixty-two. Can I tell you something?"

I nod quickly. Buddy glances at Booker across the table.

"He ain’t right," she whispers with a slight nod in Buddy’s general direction. I look at him. He looks at us.

"War injury," she says. "Korea. You know those metal detectors at the airport?"

I nod again.

"Well, he could walk through one buck naked and the thing would go off."

Buddy’s shirt is stretched almost threadbare and its buttons are about to pop as it tries desperately to cover his protruding gut. He has at least three chins. I try to picture a naked Buddy walking through the Memphis International Airport with the alarms buzzing and security guards in a panic.

"Got a plate in his head," she adds in summation.

"That’s-that’s awful," I whisper back to her, then write on my pad that Mr. Buddy Black has a plate in his head. Mr. Black turns to his left and glares at Booker’s client three feet away.

Suddenly, she lurches forward. "Something else," she says.

I lean slightly toward her in anticipation. "Yes?"

"He has a problem with alkeehall."

"You don’t say."

"But it all goes back to the war injury," she adds helpfully. And just like that, this woman I met three minutes ago has reduced her husband to an alcoholic imbecile.

"Mind if I smoke?" she asks as she tugs at her purse.

"Is it allowed in here?" I ask, looking and hoping for a No Smoking sign. I don’t see one.

"Oh sure." She sticks a cigarette between her cracked lips and lights it, then yanks it out and blows a cloud of smoke directly at Buddy, who doesn’t move an inch.

"What can I do for you folks?" I ask, looking at the bundle of papers with wide rubber bands wrapped tightly around it. I slide Miss Birdie’s will under my legal pad. My first client is a multimillionaire, and my next clients are pensioners. My fledgling career has come crashing back to earth.

"We don’t have much money," she says quietly as if this is a big secret and she’s embarrassed to reveal it. I smile compassionately. Regardless of what they own, they’re much wealthier than I, and I doubt if they’re about to be sued.

"And we need a lawyer," she adds as she takes the papers and snaps off the rubber bands.

"What’s the problem?"

"Well, we’re gettin’ a royal screwin’ by an insurance company."

"What type of policy?" I ask. She shoves the paperwork toward me, then wipes her hands as if she’s rid of it and the burden has now been passed to a miracle worker. A smudged, creased and well-worn policy of some sort is on the top of the pile. Dot blows another cloud and for a moment I can barely see Buddy.

"It’s a medical policy," she says. "We bought it five years ago, Great Benefit Life, when our boys were seventeen. Now Donny Ray is dying of leukemia, and the crooks won’t pay for his treatment."

"Great Benefit?"

"Right."

"Never heard of them," I say confidently as I scan the declaration page of the policy, as if I’ve handled many of these lawsuits and personally know everything about every insurance company. Two dependents are listed, Donny

Ray and Ronny Ray Black. They have the same birth dates.

"Well, pardon my French, but they’re a bunch of sum-bitches."

"Most insurance companies are," I add thoughtfully, and Dot smiles at this. I have won her confidence. "So you purchased this policy five years ago?"

"Something like that. Never missed a premium, and never used the damned thing until Donny Ray got sick."

I’m a student, an uninsured one. There are no policies covering me or my life, health or auto. I can’t even afford a new tire for the left rear of my ragged little Toyota.

"And, uh, you say he’s dying?"

She nods with the cigarette between her lips. "Acute leukemia. Caught it eight months ago. Doctors gave him a year, but he won’t make it because he couldn’t get his bone marrow transplant. Now it’s probably too late."

She pronounces "marrow" in one syllable: "mare."

"A transplant?" I say, confused.

"Don’t you know nothin’ about leukemia?"

"Uh, not really."

She clicks her teeth and rolls her eyes around as if I’m a complete idiot, then inserts the cigarette for a painful drag. When the smoke is sufficiently exhaled, she says, "My boys are identical twins, you see. So Ron, we call him Ron because he don’t like Ronny Ray, is a perfect match for Donny Ray’s bone mare transplant. Doctors said so. Problem is, the transplant costs somewhere around a hundred-fifty thousand dollars. We ain’t got it, you see. The insurance company’s supposed to pay it because it’s covered in the policy right there. Sumbitches said no. So Donny Ray’s dying because of them."

She has an amazing way of getting to the core of this.

We have been ignoring Buddy, but he’s been listening. He slowly removes his thick glasses and dabs his eyes with the hairy back of his left hand. Great. Buddy’s crying. Bosco’s whimpering at the far end. And Booker’s client had been struck again with guilt or remorse or some sort of grief and is sobbing into his hands. Smoot is standing by a window watching us, no doubt wondering what manner of advice we’re dispensing to evoke such sorrow.

"Where does he live?" I ask, just searching for a question the answer to which will allow me to write for a few seconds on my pad and ignore the tears.

"He’s never left home. Lives with us. That’s another reason the insurance company turned us down, said since he’s an adult he’s no longer covered."

I pick through the papers and glance at letters to and from Great Benefit. "Does the policy terminate his coverage when he becomes an adult?"

She shakes her head and smiles tightly. "Nope. Ain’t in the policy, Rudy. I’ve read it a dozen times, and there’s no such thing. Even read all the fine print."

"Are you sure?" I ask, again glancing at the policy.

"I’m positive. I’ve been reading that damned thing for almost a year."

"Who sold it to you? Who’s the agent?"

"Some little goofy twerp who knocked on our door and talked us into it. Name was Ott or something like that, just a slick little crook who talked real fast. I’ve tried to find him, but evidently he’s skipped town."

I pick a letter from the pile and read it. It’s from a senior claims examiner in Cleveland, written several months after the first letter I looked at, and it rather abruptly denies coverage on the grounds that Donny’s leukemia was a preexisting condition, and therefore not covered. If Donny in fact has had leukemia for less than a year, then he was diagnosed four years after the policy was issued by Great Benefit. "Says here coverage was denied because of a preexisting condition."

"They’ve used every excuse in the book, Rudy. Just take all those papers there and read them carefully. Exclusions, exemptions, preexisting conditions, fine print, they’ve tried everything."

"Is there an exclusion for bone marrow transplants?"

"Hell no. Our doctor even looked at the policy and said Great Benefit ought to pay because bone mare transplants are just routine treatment now."

Booker’s client wipes his face with both hands, stands and excuses himself. He thanks Booker and Booker thanks him. The old man takes a chair near a heated contest of Chinese checkers. Miss Birdie finally frees N. Elizabeth Erickson of Bosco and his problems. Smoot paces behind us.