“Mick, when are you going to learn with this woman?” Lorna said about Gloria Dayton.

“Learn what?” I asked, although I knew exactly what Lorna would say.

“She drags you down every time you have to deal with her. She’s never going to get out of the life, and now you can bet she’s never going to be anything less than a twofer every time she calls. That would be fine, except you never charge her.”

What she meant by twofer was that Gloria Dayton’s cases would from now on be more complicated and time-consuming because it was likely that drug charges would always accompany solicitation or prostitution charges. What bothered Lorna was that this meant more work for me but no more income in the process.

“Well, the bar requires that all lawyers practice some pro bono work, Lorna. You know -”

“You don’t listen to me, Mick,” she said dismissively. “That’s exactly why we couldn’t stay married.”

I closed my eyes. What a day. I had managed to get both my ex-wives angry with me.

“What does this woman have on you?” she asked. “Why don’t you charge even a basic fee with her?”

“Look, she doesn’t have anything on me, okay?” I said. “Can we sort of change the subject now?”

I didn’t tell her that years earlier when I had looked through the dusty old account books from my father’s law practice, I had found that he’d had a soft spot for the so-called women of the night. He defended many and charged few. Maybe I was just continuing a family tradition.

“Fine,” Lorna said. “How did it go with Roulet?”

“You mean, did I get the job? I think so. Val’s probably getting him out right now. We’ll set up a meeting after that. I already asked Raul to sniff around on it.”

“Did you get a check?”

“Not yet.”

“Get the check, Mick.”

“I’m working on it.”

“How’s the case look?”

“I’ve only seen the pictures but it looks bad. I’ll know more after I see what Raul comes up with.”

“And what about Roulet?”

I knew what she was asking. How was he as a client? Would a jury, if it came to a jury, like him or despise him? Cases could be won or lost based on jurors’ impressions of the defendant.

“He looks like a babe in the woods.”

“He’s a virgin?”

“Never been inside the iron house.”

“Well, did he do it?”

She always asked the irrelevant question. It didn’t matter in terms of the strategy of the case whether the defendant “did it” or not. What mattered was the evidence against him-the proof-and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt.

But the question of did he or didn’t he always seemed to matter to her.

“Who knows, Lorna? That’s not the question. The question is whether or not he’s a paying customer. The answer is, I think so.”

“Well, let me know if you need any-oh, there’s one other thing.”

“What?”

“Sticks called and said he owes you four hundred dollars next time he sees you.”

“Yeah, he does.”

“You’re doing pretty good today.”

“I’m not complaining.”

We said our good-byes on a friendly note, the dispute over Gloria Dayton seemingly forgotten for the moment. Probably the security that comes with knowing money is coming in and a high-paying client is on the hook made Lorna feel a bit better about my working some cases for free. I wondered, though, if she’d have minded so much if I was defending a drug dealer for free instead of a prostitute. Lorna and I had shared a short and sweet marriage, with both of us quickly finding out that we had moved too quickly while rebounding from divorces. We ended it, remained friends, and she continued to work with me, not for me. The only time I felt uncomfortable about the arrangement was when she acted like a wife again and second-guessed my choice of client and who and what I charged or didn’t charge.

Feeling confident in the way I had handled Lorna, I called the DA’s office in Van Nuys next. I asked for Margaret McPherson and caught her eating at her desk.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry about this morning. I know you wanted the case.”

“Well, you probably need it more than me. He must be a paying customer if he’s got C. C. Dobbs carrying the roll behind him.”

By that she was referring to a roll of toilet paper. High-priced family lawyers were usually seen by prosecutors as nothing more than ass wipers for the rich and famous.

“Yeah, I could use one like him-the paying client, not the wiper. It’s been a while since I had a franchise.”

“Well, you didn’t get as lucky a few minutes ago,” she whispered into the phone. “The case was reassigned to Ted Minton.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He’s one of Smithson’s young guns. Just brought him in from downtown, where he was filing simple possession cases. He didn’t see the inside of a courtroom until he came up here.”

John Smithson was the ambitious head deputy in charge of the Van Nuys Division. He was a better politician than a prosecutor and had parlayed that skill into a quick climb over other more experienced deputies to the division chief’s post. Maggie McPherson was among those he’d passed by. Once he was in the slot, he started building a staff of young prosecutors who did not feel slighted and were loyal to him for giving them a shot.

“This guy’s never been in court?” I asked, not understanding how going up against a trial rookie could be unlucky, as Maggie had indicated.

“He’s had a few trials up here but always with a babysitter. Roulet will be his first time flying solo. Smithson thinks he’s giving him a slam dunk.”

I imagined her sitting in her cubicle, probably not far from where my new opponent was sitting in his.

“I don’t get it, Mags. If this guy’s green, why wasn’t I lucky?”

“Because these guys Smithson picks are all cracked out of the same mold. They’re arrogant assholes. They think they can do no wrong and what’s more…”

She lowered her voice even more.

“They don’t play fair. And the word on Minton is that he’s a cheater. Watch yourself, Haller. Better yet, watch him.”

“Well, thanks for the heads-up.”

But she wasn’t finished.

“A lot of these new people just don’t get it. They don’t see it as a calling. To them it’s not about justice. It’s just a game-a batting average. They like to keep score and to see how far it will get them in the office. In fact, they’re all just like junior Smithsons.”

A calling. It was her sense of calling that ultimately cost us our marriage. On an intellectual level she could deal with being married to a man who worked the other side of the aisle. But when it came down to the reality of what we did, we were lucky to have lasted the eight years we had managed. Honey, how was your day? Oh, I got a guy who murdered his roommate with an ice pick a seven-year deal. And you? Oh, I put a guy away for five years because he stole a car stereo to feed his habit… It just didn’t work. Four years in, a daughter arrived, but through no fault of her own, she only kept us going another four years.

Still, I didn’t regret a thing about it. I cherished my daughter. She was the only thing that was really good about my life, that I could be proud of. I think deep down, the reason I didn’t see her enough-that I was chasing cases instead of her-was because I felt unworthy of her. Her mother was a hero. She put bad people in jail. What could I tell her was good and holy about what I did, when I had long ago lost the thread of it myself?

“Hey, Haller, are you there?”

“Yeah, Mags, I’m here. What are you eating today?”

“Just the oriental salad from downstairs. Nothing special. Where are you?”

“Heading downtown. Listen, tell Hayley I’ll see her this Saturday. I’ll make a plan. We’ll do something special.”

“You really mean that? I don’t want to get her hopes up.”