Lloyd pursed his lips. “That was it, I think. Nevertheless, I welcomed the suggestion that my prognosis should be reinforced by Rentner’s. Apparently it would be a major factor in the decision about the amount to be paid in damages, and I didn’t want the sole responsibility.”
“Rentner? Who was he?” Wolfe asked.
“Dr. Abraham Rentner of Mount Sinai,” Lloyd replied, in the tone I would use if someone asked me who Jackie Robinson was. “I phoned him and made an appointment for the following morning.”
“I insisted on it,” Rupert the Fat said importantly. “Mion had a right to collect not sometime in the distant future, but then and there. They wouldn’t pay unless a total was agreed on, and if we had to name a total I wanted to be damn sure it was enough. Don’t forget that that day Mion couldn’t sing a note.”
“He wouldn’t have been able even to let out a pianissimo for at least two months,” Lloyd bore him out. “I gave that as the minimum.”
“There seems,” Judge Arnold interposed, “to be an implication that we opposed the suggestion that a second professional opinion be secured. I must protest—”
“You did!” Grove squeaked.
“We did not!” Gifford James barked. “We merely—”
The three of them went at it, snapping and snarling. It seemed to me that they might have saved their energy for the big issue, was anything coming to Mrs. Mion and if so how much, but not those babies. Their main concern was to avoid the slightest risk of agreeing on anything at all. Wolfe patiently let them get where they were headed for — nowhere — and then invited a new voice in. He turned to Adele and spoke.
“Miss Bosley, we haven’t heard from you. Which side were you on?”