The man who sat behind the massive mahogany desk was somewhere in the sixties, with florid complexion, a face which was inclined to jowls, a cold lackluster eye, and thin white hair.
Mason smiled coldly. “I told you over the phone I wouldn’t wait,” he said.
Loftus said, in a rasping, authoritative voice, which was evidently more accustomed to giving orders than asking favors, “Sit down. My attorney is on his way over here.”
“If you’d told me that earlier,” Mason said, “I’d have made an appointment which would have suited his convenience.”
Loftus clenched his right fist, extended it in front of him, and gently lowered it to the desk. There was something more impressive in the gesture than would have been the case had he banged the top of the desk with explosive violence. “I don’t like criminal lawyers,” he said.
“Neither do I,” Mason admitted, seating himself in what appeared to be the most comfortable chair in the office.
“But you’re a criminal lawyer.”
“It depends upon what you mean,” Mason observed. “I’m a lawyer. I’m not a criminal.”
“You defend criminals.”
“What is your definition of a criminal?” Mason asked.