One of the bailiffs prodded him – it didn't seem to Hardy as though it was the first time – and suddenly, with a true primal scream, the man slammed himself backwards into the bailiff. Then, with surprising agility, he shifted and body-slammed the other guard into the elevator's walls.

The two guards were both on the floor.

'Jesus Christ!' Hardy leaped back toward the holding cell, putting distance between himself and the Samoan, who was exploding out of the elevator in his direction.

But everyone on the floor had heard the scream, and now doors were opening all over the place, alarms going off, bailiffs appearing from courtrooms, judges from their chambers, other inmates – already under escort – starting to get into it.

A klaxon sounded and voices were yelling, 'Lock it down! Lock it down!'

The Samoan had obviously been in the hallway before and knew just where he wanted to go. He broke left in a shambling run, taking out another bailiff who was, stupidly, trying to pull his radio and perhaps try to fight it out in a hallway jammed with humanity.

Stopping the man was going to be a problem.

The Samoan had reached the end of the hall, bailiffs and other inmates hugging the walls lest they be crushed in the rush. But there was no real way out. The same alarm that sounded the klaxon effectively closed off the corridor, automatically locking the double doors at the end of it. By the time the Samoan realized he couldn't open them and turned again for another run at the hallway, three bailiffs stood in his way, as well as three uniformed officers with their guns drawn.

Hardy heard another scream, an anguished and rage-driven cry. Other bailiffs and cops were backfilling behind the original five until, in under another minute, a phalanx had formed, effectively sealing off any possibility of escape.

The Samoan turned back to the locked doors. Turned around again, held his cuffed hands out in front of him. 'Shoot me,' he screamed. 'Please, shoot me.'

Because of the incident, Cole was even later. He told Hardy that they'd picked him up at the hospital during the night, and this had obviously disturbed his beauty rest. In his orange jumpsuit, with his slack posture and unkempt hair, the boy appeared malnourished and pathetic. But Hardy thought his eyes were clearer than they had been the day before. That wasn't saying much, but it was something, and this morning Hardy would take whatever he could get.

He was still shaken by what he'd witnessed. A little more critical mass of inmates and it would have been a riot. Another rush by the Samoan and he would have been shot dead. Instead, he had finally gone terrifyingly quiet. He sat on the floor and let them come and shackle him and take him away, belted down to a gurney.

Cole sat on the concrete bench. Hardy had already done enough time on the damn thing this morning – he was standing now, leaning back against the door.

Because the morning's routine had been so violently interrupted, they weren't going to get much time to work out any kind of strategy – but Hardy wanted to get at least a few things straight if he was going to defend this boy. The plea. Bail. Money. Timing issues.

But again, it wasn't going to be that simple.

'What's waiving time mean?' Cole asked after Hardy had told him that he was going to have to do just that.

To Hardy, this was merely a logistical detail. Cole had an absolute right to a speedy trial. In practice, though, defendants very rarely wanted one. The conventional wisdom was that it was always to the defendant's advantage to delay. Delay put off an eventual verdict, and until a verdict was rendered, you were presumed innocent, a small detail but a critical one. Delay also provided the opportunity for key witnesses to get run over by a bus or disappear or forget what they had once clearly remembered, thereby strengthening your case. The victim or the family of the victim might lose emotional fire, the need for revenge or, if the delay was long enough, sometimes even closure. The cop who arrested you might get another job. DA priorities could change and you could get offered a better deal to cop a plea.

The possibilities varied, but the general rule held true: a continuance is half a dismissal. Delay was a good thing.

Hardy tried to explain this to Cole. 'The courts are so backed up that no judge wants to assign a preliminary hearing in ten days, so we just say we're OK with putting it off for a few months…'

'A few months?'

'Maybe. Longer if we can.'

Cole was shaking his head. 'And I stay in here? No way. I can't do that.'

'I hate to break it to you, Cole, but you have to do that. You've got a DA who's talking death penalty to help her get elected, so at the very least we want to put off the trial until after the election, which is next November, nine months. At least.'

But Cole was still shaking his head, frowning, struggling with it. 'I can't stay in here for nine months,' he said. 'I'd die.'

'You've got a lot better chance of dying shooting smack for nine months out on the street.'

But this fell on deaf ears. 'No.'

'Cole, listen-'

'I can't be here for nine months! Do you hear me?'

It was a violent outburst, and after the morning's earlier events, it got people's attention up and down the hall. A bailiff was outside the cell before Hardy had any time to react on his own. 'Everything all right here?'

After assuring him that it was, Hardy watched the man move uneasily off, then turned back to Cole. 'If you go to trial now, Cole, with the city still pretty inflamed over Elaine's death, some of the jurors will undoubtedly-'

'I can't,' Cole interrupted. 'I just can't. My mom says you can get me off.'

'I haven't even talked to your mother yet, Cole. And I can't get you off in ten days. If nothing else, I'll need more time just to decide how I'm going to approach the damn thing.'

'Just say I didn't do it.'

'Did you do it?'

He shrugged.

Hardy got a little short. 'Because you've already said you did on tape, in case you don't remember. That's going to take some undoing.'

'You can undo it as well now as you can in nine months, don't you think?'

'No, I don't.'

The back door to the holding cell gave into the courtroom, and now that door opened and a bailiff appeared. They had called Cole's case first. 'Let's roll it out, boys. Showtime.'

Hardy gave his client a last look. 'We'll continue this later.' He stepped back and let Cole pass in front of him, out into the courtroom.

At Cole's appearance through the door, there was an audible rise from the gallery. Hardy, frustrated nearly beyond endurance, nevertheless gave his client a friendly upper-arm squeeze and urged him forward.

As they passed the prosecution table, Gabe Torrey motioned for Hardy to stop, and he let Cole go on over to the other side with the bailiff. He looked again out into the courtroom. More than a decent crowd was on hand, and it seemed restless.

Hardy knew Torrey from half a dozen other dealings, and he didn't like him. He considered the Chief Assistant DA pompous, petty, and political, to say nothing of under-prepared and officious. Now he would be talking death penalty and other similar nonsense, and Hardy knew it was going to get ugly, probably sooner rather than later.

Still, they'd never before crossed the line into hostility, and he saw no reason to go there now.

Torrey put out his hand in greeting and Hardy took it. 'I just wanted to give you a little heads up, Diz. You probably heard we want to move this one along due to Elaine's standing in the community. There's a lot of outrage…'

Hardy listened with half an ear. He noticed the gallery again. It really was humming. Cole was turned around at the defense table. His mother was leaning over the rail, trying to talk to him, but he, too, kept his eyes mostly on the prosecution's side of the gallery, which projected a true sense of menace. This was unique in Hardy's experience – there were people in this room who hated Cole already, and he felt it.