Opening paragraphs.............................

The day that Harry Mapes selected to win fame for his new dog was the same one designated by the Commonwealth for the trial of David Mackin.  It was also a day on which Channel 8's remote broadcast crew decided to park the news van so that it blocked the crosswalk in front of the Norfolk Superior Courthouse in Dedham.  David Mackin and I knew nothing about Harry Mapes and his new dog when we met there that morning, and that was just as well - I might not have showed up to defend David in court if I had known Harry Mapes would be there too, and David was all upset anyway.  He stood there with the shoulders of his Burberry raincoat all hunched up around his ears and with his hands jammed down deep into the pockets, and he pressed his chin down against his neck so that his jowls bloomed out around his jaws - the position made him gargle slightly when he talked, and since he was shaking his head while he was doing that he sounded as thought he had been partly underwater.  "I don't like it," he said, "just the same.  I don't like it at all.  Can't you do something about this?"  His horn-rimmed glasses skidded slightly on the bridge of his nose, from all the head fakes he was putting in the conversation, and he had to fish a gloved hand out to nudge them back in place.
-George V. Higgins,  Penance for Jerry Kennedy