'Well, you did that.'

'You're damn straight, Wes. I looked them right in the eye and told them none of it was true. You don't think that's going to have an effect?'

'Oh, I'm sure it is. I just don't think it's going to be the one you wanted. Here you are, supposedly a good, practicing lawyer, and you're not showing respect for the system…'

'Because they got it wrong! Don't you see that? I've been falsely accused of something I didn't do and it's gotten all the way to this fiasco of a trial. How can I have respect for that? How can I even pretend to?'

'But to yell at the jury!'

'No, I didn't yell at the jury. I very carefully avoided doing that. I looked at them as people, and that's how they are going to see me.'

Farrell glanced at Christina as though he would ask for her help, but simply shook his head.

There was a knock on the door and Dooher slid off the desk and opened it. The cop from the Hall said that Judge Thomasino wanted to see Mr Farrell in his chambers, right now.

Farrell stood. 'Why don't you two try to keep your hands off each other while I'm gone,' he said, and quit the room.

Which left the two of them alone.

Dooher turned. 'He's mad at us.'

'There's a good call.'

'I suppose I should have told him before I disrupted the sacred order of the court, but the moment just came and I took it. If I'd've warned Wes, he'd have counselled me not to do it anyway. What did you think?'

'I don't know, Mark. I haven't done any other trials. I don't know how they play out. It shocked me when it happened, but now, hearing you explain it, it might work.'

'It won't hurt me, I'm sure of that. That's not what Wes is mad about anyway.'

She let herself down on to one of the wooden chairs. 'I know,' she said, 'it's us. But we told him we weren't going behind his back. It wasn't about the trial.'

'He didn't believe us.'

'You're the master of insight today, aren't you? First Wes is mad at us, and then Wes doesn't believe us.'

'Maybe we should mend a few fences?'

'I don't think that's a bad idea.'

Mark went over to the window and separated the blinds, looking out over Bryant Street and downtown beyond. 'I'm just not willing to concede,' he said, 'that there's a telescopic-sight camera set up on Nob Hill, trained on this window.'

He crossed back over to her and took her in his arms.

Judge Thomasino's chambers were neither large nor imposing, furnished as they were in functional Danish. Three tall teak bookshelves closed in the walls, and various diplomas, honors, and commendations in wooden frames seemed to have been stuck randomly on the green drywall. A robust ficus sprawled in the corner by a large window. One of Remington's brass cowboys graced a broad teak coffee table, but that was the extent of the decorative touches. The rug was faded brown Berber over the Hall's linoleum.

Jenkins and Glitsky were seated in low leather chairs in front of the Judge's desk and they both turned at the bailiff's knock. It was Farrell, and Glitsky stood, ceding pride of place to the attorneys. He was here because Amanda had asked him to be.

Farrell didn't sit, but walked to the front of Thomasino's desk. 'I'm glad you're here, Amanda,' he began. 'I wanted to apologize for my client. And to you, Judge. I'm sorry.'

Thomasino barely acknowledged the words with an ambiguous gesture, then got right to it. 'I asked you down here, Mr Farrell, to see if you can give me any reason why I shouldn't yank your client's bail. You should know that I already told Ms Jenkins that if she asked, I'd do it. I'm thinking of doing it in any event. If you want a mis-trial, your client can do sixty days next door' – meaning in jail – 'while he waits for his new court date, to contemplate whether he wants to interrupt the proceedings again.'

Glitsky wouldn't have thought Farrell could sag any further than he had when he walked in, but he did. Visibly.

Jenkins took it up. 'I'll be honest with you, Wes,' she said. 'You and I know this is the first murder I've gotten to trial. My colleagues in the DA's office are starting to wonder why I'm on the payroll if I'm never actually in trial. I don't want to wait another sixty days.'

'Minimum,' Thomasino intoned.

'Minimum,' she repeated. 'And I think the argument can be made that the outburst was potentially as prejudicial to your client as it might have been self-serving.'

A rueful nod. 'We were just discussing that,' Farrell said.

'So it's a wash,' Jenkins concluded.

Glitsky admired the way Jenkins delivered it. It sounded genuine enough, although he knew the truth was quite different. As the recess had been called, Jenkins had sent Glitsky upstairs to get Art Drysdale and tell him she was asking to get Dooher's bail revoked.

Drysdale had made a quick phone call – cryptic enough, but it must have been to Chris Locke – and then accompanied Abe back to Department 26, where Jenkins sat, still fuming, at the prosecution table.

From Glitsky's perspective, there was no question that Locke had some personal – political – connection to this case. The DA didn't want to see it postponed, to let it remain unresolved, much as he had asked for the unreasonably low bail. He was doing the Archbishop a favor.

As Drysdale had been explaining that the DA did not want to ask for bail to be revoked, Thomasino had sent word that he wanted to see Jenkins in his chambers and discuss that very thing, and Drysdale had supplied her with the reason she was to give for not wanting it.

Farrell, for his part, was a drowning man who'd just gone down for the third time, opened his eyes underwater, and saw the lifebuoy. He reached for it. 'Your honor, I will not let this kind of thing happen again.'

The glare. Thomasino growled once, settled into his chair. 'All right, now there's one other thing.' The two opposing attorneys looked at each other, wondering. 'I don't know how much control you have over your client's behavior, Mr Farrell – I'd gather not very much. But perhaps you could exert some influence over your second chair. I don't want to sequester this jury, but if we get too many more stories about Mr Dooher and Ms Carrera, I'm not going to have any choice. A man's accused of killing his wife, it's the better part of valor to keep his dick in his pants – excuse me, Amanda – at least until a jury's had a chance to make up its mind.

'Now I've told the jury not to watch television or read newspapers, but we all know what will happen if the defendant keeps getting on the front page. That's not in anyone's interest. Are we in agreement here?'

'Yes, your honor.

'Good.' Thomasino paused for a couple of seconds. He looked at his watch. 'I'm going to adjourn for today, giving you, Mr Farrell, a lot of time to make these points to your client and your associate. I'd use as much of it as you need.'

Farrell could only nod. Whatever the Judge wanted, that's what he wanted, too.