So everybody was on the same team, and a convivial spirit reigned at the table as people finished their coffee. Hardy had exchanged some easy pleasantries with the chief assistant DA when he'd sat down, but they hadn't talked to each other much since. Truth to tell, Hardy found Boscacci's perennially florid countenance somewhat forbidding- the collar at his neck, always buttoned to the top and festooned with a bow tie, seemed a half size too small; this in turn seemed to stretch the closely shaved skin on his face, to make his dark eyes bulge slightly, so that it always appeared that he might be on the verge of a stroke. Fifty-two years old, he wore his thick, black hair slicked with some kind of hair lotion and pulled straight back off his prominent forehead. But Hardy knew he could be an affable enough guy when he was on your side. He took the opportunity, as though he'd just remembered it, to thank Boscacci for the courtesy he'd shown Amy Wu yesterday in the Andrew Bartlett matter.

Boscacci waved off the comment. "Ah, that was nothing. She's an easy person to want to do something nice for." Then, leaning in a bit and lowering his voice, he added, "Besides, she didn't know it, but she couldn't have timed it better for us."

"Us?"

He included the group at the table. "Clarence. All of us. We chalk up the two convictions before the end of the week, when Clarence announces he can say he's had fifty murder convictions so far this term, not even four years."

"You're kidding me. Is that the number?"

"With your associate's two, it is. And fifty sounds so much bigger than forty-eight, you know what I mean?"

"I don't know, forty-eight sounds pretty good to me."

"Don't get me wrong. Forty-eight is a fine number. But we figure fifty is easier for the man in the street to get his arms around. Pratt's administration, she didn't even charge fifty murders."

"I remember it well," Hardy said. "I doubt if she charged fifteen."

Boscacci lowered his voice. "Twelve, if you want to get precise. Which is one of the reasons we've got such great numbers. Between you and me, we're recycling some leftovers." He grinned in triumph. "So, anyway, your Ms. Wu comes to me with a reasonable and some might even say charitable request, we find a way to make it win-win. She says it's not even out of the question the kid's stepfather- you know Hal North? North Cinemas?- will be so grateful for saving the kid thirty plus of hard time, he might want to express his gratitude to Clarence in a more tangible way."

"She mentioned the same thing to me, but I wouldn't be expecting that check soon."

Suddenly the forbidding aspect of Boscacci's personality appeared. His face darkened perceptibly. Hardy was half-tempted to reach over and undo his bow tie, let him get a breath, but he spoke clearly enough, without any difficulty. "Why? Is there some problem? North should be slobbering in gratitude."

Thinking fast, and realizing that he'd inadvertently almost tipped Boscacci to his own concerns about Wu's disposition of the case, Hardy said, "No. I don't see any problem, Allan. It's just that eight years is eight years that his stepson is gone. It's not likely that North's going to see the deal in quite the same way as you do."

"Well," Boscacci said, "somebody ought to go and explain it to him. Given the case against his boy-and it's a deuce, remember that- it may be the best deal we've ever agreed to from a suspect's point of view. Time we get around to serious fund-raising for Clarence, I'd hope he'd come to understand that. I'd bet your Ms. Wu could even have a little chat with him come fall if she was so inclined, draw the picture a little more clearly." He paused. "Anybody could do it, she could. She put her mind to it, I believe that woman could charm the skin off a snake. You're lucky to have her, but you already know that, don't you?"

Hardy nodded, affable as he could force himself to be. "It's why we pay her the big bucks, Allan. All that charm and a legal whiz on top of it. If I didn't believe the cosmic truth that we were always on the side of the angels, I'd say it was close to unfair."

9

A small jungle of dieffenbachia, rubber trees and other more exotic plants thrived in the corners and against the back wall of the firm's conference room. Opening to a sheltered outdoor atrium, complete with grass and fountain, the entire outer wall and part of the roof jutted from the line of the building, creating a greenhouse effect, and giving the room its nickname of the Solarium.

Now, at a few minutes after six, Gina Roake, the building's owner, in a conservative gray business suit, sat with a cup of coffee at the head of the large table that commanded the room. Roake was closing in on fifty years old, but few people would have guessed it. She'd always had good skin and a youthful face. A recent diet and exercise program had accented her chin and cheekbones and slimmed the rest of her down significantly, though she remained a bit zaftig. To her left, Dismas Hardy, emulating his old mentor Freeman, sipped some Baystone Shiraz from an oversized wineglass. Across from him, Wes Farrell was trying to tell what had supposedly just been voted the funniest joke in the world. But he was having some trouble getting to it.

"Who votes on that kind of thing?" Hardy asked. "It's got to be bogus. Nobody asked me, for example. Gina, anybody ask you?"

"No."

"See? And we're both famous for our senses of humor."

Farrell wasn't to be denied. "It's a very prestigious group of joke researchers based in Sweden or someplace. They wouldn't ask people like you and Gina."

"So it's a European joke," Hardy said, "which strikes me as pretty arrogantly Eurocentric. Okay, so now it's like, in some Swede's opinion, the funniest joke in the world. Those wacky Swedes, with the highest suicide rate in the world and all."

"Can I tell the joke?" Farrell asked. "And then you decide."

"All right," Hardy said. "But telling us up front that this is the funniest joke in the world, it's guaranteed to be forty percent less funny."

Farrell persisted. "You'll still get sixty percent of it. It'll be worth it, I promise."

"I can't wait," Roake said.

But Hardy wasn't through yet. "Did you laugh out loud when you heard it, Wes?"

"No, but I never laugh out loud at jokes."

"You laughed at Dirty Harold."

Farrell broke a grin. "True. I did."

"So based on your own response, this new funniest joke in the world isn't as funny as the Dirty Harold joke."

"Fucking lawyers," Farrell said. "Everything's an argument."

"What's the Dirty Harold joke?" Roake asked.

Hardy turned to her. "This little kid with a filthy mouth, so the teacher won't ever call on him. Then one day they're going through the alphabet, finding words that start with a given letter and then they use the word in a sentence. They finally get to 'e'- Harold's hand has been up the whole time on every letter- but she figures there aren't any filthy words that start with 'e,' so she calls on him…"

"Elf!" Roake exclaimed, smiling. "I know an elf with a big prick."

"That's it." Hardy drank some wine.

Farrell seized his chance. "So Holmes and Watson go camping and set up their tent and they go to sleep. Two hours later, Holmes goes, 'Watson, what do you see?' and Watson goes, 'I see millions and millions of stars. And Holmes says, 'And what do you deduce from that?' Watson says, 'I imagine each star has planets around it just like our own, with a chance of life on each one.' And Holmes goes, 'Watson, you fool, someone's stolen our tent.' "

"So." Roake maintained a poker face. "Having heard the joke, maybe now we can begin. I've got a handball game in forty-five minutes."

They were gathered for their monthly partners overview- business, after all- and Hardy spent the next twenty minutes going over the firm's numbers. The associates were all well utilized- the firm was cranking along, racking up substantial fees almost as though it were on automatic pilot. Hardy's concerns about Wu's deal with Boscacci might have been a legitimate topic for discussion on another day, but so far nothing had actually gone wrong, and he elected to keep his qualms under his hat.