He ran a hand down his cheek. "I don't want to step on her, Gina, or God knows, fire her. But her focus has been off on this since the beginning, and now, especially after she reneged on Boscacci, he's going to want to take her down." He sat back, crossed his arms in a pensive mode, looked from window to window around the room. Suddenly, he came back to Roake, his eyes bright with an idea. "How about if I tell her I'd like to sit second chair?"

Roake gave it some thought. "She might resent that, too. She might even quit. And your hours on top of hers? Would the clients go for that?"

"I don't care about my hours," Hardy said. "I wouldn't charge for them. Long term, getting Amy straight and on track is worth more to the firm than I'd bill, don't you think?"

Roake smiled, spoke gently. "You don't have to ask me, but that doesn't sound like the managing partner I know and love. He's been pretty tough on billing lately, even with some of our partners."

"Touché," Hardy said, smiling.

But Roake was back to business. "She still might quit, though. Take it as a vote of no-confidence."

"Except that she knows she's screwed up. I think it might be more likely, especially with the other pressures she's feeling, that she'll be grateful she's not fired."

Roake, warming to the idea, was nodding. "Okay. You could certainly say you've got every right as managing partner to demand a closer accountability. You can't let another mistake happen on your watch. What's she going to say? No?"

"She could. She might."

But Roake shook her head. "Sure, but I don't think so. I think she'll thank you for offering. So, assuming she'd be okay with it, how would you handle it logistically?"

Hardy came forward, suddenly pumped up at the prospect. "The way I see it, I get up to speed on the evidence while she's arguing the rehab criteria at the seven-oh-seven. That way, even if we lose at the hearing, we're stronger for the adult trial. Plus, between you and me, if her personal problems become too much for her, I'm already on board. The clients now know me. It's good insurance." He dropped his head for a moment, stunned at how right this decision felt.

Frannie's message the night before had struck a reverberant chord. He needed something to reconnect himself with who he was- an officer of the court, a justice freak, a guardian of the law. What he needed for his own good was a pure case, where you defended your client because the presumption was innocence. If the prosecution couldn't prove otherwise, couldn't prevail against a spirited defense, the client walked.

This was neither cynical nor manipulative- it was the essence of the system. And though Hardy had lost some faith, a great deal of faith, in the mechanics, in the way it sometimes played out in the real world, suddenly it was crystal clear that this imperfect system, if he still believed in anything, was what he believed in. More, it was an opportunity for his own redemption that he couldn't let pass.

He hadn't taken a murder case in over three years. They were too time-consuming, too physically grueling, too emotionally demanding. They played hell with his home life.

There was better money to be made quicker and more fun to be had cutting deals. You could skim along the top of things and not worry too much- hell, not worry at all. You laughed until your face hurt, and you'd be damned if you'd ever have to internalize any of your clients' problems. You just fixed their messes.

And yet at some level, Hardy never lost his awareness that the fun was about as ephemeral and nourishing as cotton candy, and often left a worse aftertaste. And the money often felt dirty.

He might not have wanted to face it squarely, but once he did, it wasn't any mystery to him why he'd been drinking too much. He could see where it would all lead if he continued. The picture wasn't pretty. No, more. It was so ugly that, thank God, it had made Frannie cry.

Maybe it was time to engage again, to let himself care.

He lifted his head, broke a weary half grin. "So. Second chair? You think?"

Roake nodded. "It's got your name on it."

Amy Wu hadn't been able to face the idea of going back into the Sutter Street office and facing Dismas Hardy and her other colleagues again, not after the brutal dressing-down she'd taken at the hands of Allan Boscacci, who'd first kept her waiting for almost two hours, then informed her that he had already filed a motion for a 707 hearing on the Bartlett matter, to have the boy declared an adult.

He hoped she realized what she'd done, and wanted her to be under no illusion- she wasn't getting away with it. Oh, and by the way, if she ever wanted to communicate with him about any case ever again, she should do it in writing, signed by her, no "dictated, not read" bullshit. And he didn't mean e-mail. And she would find this to be the policy for every assistant district attorney in his office.

Badly shaken, fighting tears, she'd crossed Bryant, then descended into the dark and ripe-smelling stairway under the bail bondsman's office that led down to Lou the Greek's. She'd taken her stool at the bar and ordered straight vodka.

No cosmopolitans today. No frou-frou little cocktails. She wasn't here to party. She was drinking.

By five-thirty, Lou's was jammed and Amy's immediate troubles had mostly been drowned. The bar was Mecca for the lawyers and cops who worked out of the Hall of Justice, and Amy's situation with Andrew Bartlett was as nothing compared with the shit storm that had developed over Deputy Chief Glitsky's handling of the LeShawn Brodie matter.

During the late morning and early afternoon, Brodie had taken the lives of seven of his hostages, one every twenty minutes while the local cops and the highway patrol argued over who had jurisdiction to provide a helicopter that would take him to the Sacramento airport. There, Brodie evidently had been convinced that authorities would also supply him with a plane to take him to Cuba. In fact, a police sniper shot him in the forehead when he'd gotten one step outside of the diner's entrance, while the helicopter waited, its rotors twirling, in the parking lot.

Both of the televisions over the bar at Lou's had been carrying nothing else for the past several hours, while the pros and cons of the original police strategy had fueled an endless and passionate debate among the clientele.

By the time it had gotten dark, Amy had had six vodka martinis and was ready to go home and get some sleep. But an aggressively clever young defense attorney named Barry had outlasted the other hopefuls around her, and now he had his arm around her as they negotiated the doors and came out into the suddenly full-dark night.

At the top of the stairs, Barry turned to her and she found herself being kissed. Then they were walking together down the alley that ran alongside Lou's. She had herself tucked inside the jacket of his suit against the chill. She'd already told him she didn't think she should drive, but he said he was sober enough and could drive them both.

He was parked where she had parked. Where every visitor to the Hall parked. In the All-Day just up at the end of the alley.

The lot was one block wide, bounded by three-story buildings on both sides, closing the place in. Every spot, alley to alley, was filled during business hours every day. Now the place held only three cars- Amy's by the near building, and then Barry's car and another one parked in adjacent spaces on the far side. One light, burning from high on a pole by the deserted pay station, cast its pool over the area, leaving the borders in deep shadow.

When they got to his car, Barry opened the door for her and she lowered herself, taking care lest she collapse into the seat. As they backed out, the car's headlights raked the building in front of them, then washed over the car in the adjacent parking space.