“You’re not going to take the three thousand dollars?” I said. I was only half joking.
She looked at me over her glasses.
“Young lady,” she said, “I have been insulted many times in my life. But that’s the first time anybody’s ever thought I could be bought for three thousand dollars.”
That afternoon, I called Russell Keane from Opal’s kitchen phone.
His office was near downtown Columbus. He agreed to see me the next day.
He wasn’t what I expected. I’d pictured some slick guy in an expensive suit. Russell Keane was about
forty, tall and a little rumpled, with reading glasses pushed up on his forehead and a cardigan sweater with a coffee stain on the sleeve. His office was small and full of filing cabinets. There was a dying plant on the windowsill.
He listened to my whole story without saying a word. He took notes on a yellow legal pad. When I finished, he put down his pen and looked at me for a long moment.
