His eyes looked at me from behind the distorting negative lenses. "I've
been wondering, counselor--why are you so interested in this? I mean, I
offered you a pretty good fee, and all that, but it seems to me you're
taking an unusual interest in the case."
I grinned at him. "Mr. Howley, my profession is Law--with a capital L.
The study of the Law isn't like the study of physics or whatever; these
are manmade laws--commands, not descriptions. They don't necessarily
have anything to do with facts at all. Take the word 'insanity,' for
instance; the word isn't even used by head-shrinkers any more because
it's a legal definition that has nothing whatever to do with the
condition of the human mind.
"Now, any such set of laws as that can't possibly be self-consistent and
still have some use on an action level. A lawyer's job is to find the
little inconsistencies in the structure, the places where the pieces
have been jammed together in an effort to make them look like a
structured whole. To find, in other words, the loopholes and use them.
"And when I find a loophole, I like to wring everything I can out of it.
I'm enjoying this."