The only good Lawyer

wine wore off.
    And besides, it’s only money, and once “Ms. Barber” gets back to you, Woodrow Wilson Gant, Esquire, will be keeping a lot more—
    The sharp bang of the blowout made him jump, the shoulder strap of his seat belt yanking his torso short like a parachute harness. Through the open driver’s window, Woodrow’s left ear registered what seemed a crumping echo of his tire’s sound coming off the hillside across the road. Wrestling the steering wheel against the skid, he was able to bring the BMW to a shuddering, humping stop against the grass sloping down at the right of the pavement.
    Woodrow drew in a breath, realized he needed a couple more. Taking his hands off the wheel, he could see them shaking in silhouette against the dull glow from the dashboard gauges. Woodrow glanced past the woman and out her window.
    Thanks be to God you weren’t doing sixty. Even this fine machine would’ve sent your ass into the gully down there.
    Woodrow nudged the woman’s left arm. “Hey?” He nudged her again. “Hey, man, you awake?”
    Just a ragged snore.
    Under his breath, Woodrow said, “You got to wonder, is a little sexual healing worth all this?”
    Then, remembering how her body accommodated him, he decided it was.
    Woodrow opened the driver’s side door, the BMW’s courtesy lights wrecking his night vision. As he stepped onto the pavement, he could feel the twinge from his bad left knee and a breeze blowing across his face from the front of the car. Except for the courtesy and running lights, everything was midnight dark. Raising his head and blinking, Woodrow could make out stars and a little sliver of moon, like somebody had clipped a toenail and hung it up in the sky. Reflexively, he reached back into the Beemer and activated the emergency flashers, then tried to remember if he’d ever seen any other cars, all the times he’d driven this road at night.
    No, too desolate. People’d be afraid of breaking down and getting stranded.
    Slamming the driver’s side door, Woodrow walked back to his left rear tire. The pulsating glow from the flank lights was enough to see the bad news. Flat as a pancake, must have gone over one motherfucking piece of rubber-tearing shit.
    Across the dark road, he heard a rustling sound, some kind of creature working its way down the hillside through the brush. Woodrow looked to the left, blinking some more, but couldn’t see anything beyond thirty feet from his lighted car. Probably just a raccoon. People wouldn’t think you’d have raccoons in a city like Boston , but with the Charles River and other water running through it, they could survive, even thrive. In fact, Woodrow knew personally of a lady woke up during the night with a raccoon on her fire escape, those demon-red eyes staring in through the bedroom window, scaring the hell out of her.
    The memory of that lady’s experience made Woodrow laugh, and that calmed his mind some. Momma always counseled her sons to look on the bright side of things. Well, it wasn’t a front tire, so he hadn’t pivoted and maybe rolled into a vehicular homicide. And Woodrow knew the spare in the trunk was solid because he’d had the dealer check it the last time they’d rotated the tires.
    Be good not to have anybody else see you with this woman, but you sure as shit are not about to get down on your hands and knees in this fancy suit to change a flat. And besides, what’s a guy in a towtruck gonna know about who she is? Nada, right?
    So, pick up your cell phone, and call the Triple-A.
    The rustling sound from across the road was getting louder, which meant the raccoon or whatever was getting closer. Woodrow suddenly remembered another story, one he’d read in the newspaper. About how a lot of raccoons were carrying rabies.
    Maybe it was time to get back in the Beemer, make your call from the safety of a strong metal box.
    Woodrow turned to step toward the driver’s side door. Then the breeze shifted from the front of the car to the rear, and he got his first whiff of gasoline.
    Mother- fuck -er.
    Forgetting about raccoons and rabies, Woodrow moved quickly around to the back bumper, the smell growing stronger. He bent down, his bad knee protesting, and looked through the strobing of his hazard lights. Something was dribbling out from near the right wheel.
    Woodrow touched a finger to the pool of liquid on the ground, but his nose confirmed what it was before he’d brought the finger halfway to his face.
    Which made