“Is that your final answer, Mr. Walker?”

Eli nods.

“You must speak for the record.”

“Yes, Your Honor. I have a commitment to my profession,” he says. “I cannot tell you.”

He speaks in a noble tone, like George Washington to his daddy about the cherry tree.

I am wondering if his lawyer has told Eli that they do not serve booze in the county jail, even in the relatively tame little room they reserve for star boarders. In forty-eight hours, ethics will take a backseat to the DTs, and if I know Eli, and my senses are correct, he will feed Lama to the Coconut.

“Then you leave me no alternative, Mr. Walker. I hereby hold you in contempt and order you into the custody of the county sheriff for a period of three days, at the end of which time we shall meet and confer again. We can all hope that by that time you will have come to your senses.”

“Your Honor, I would request that my client be allowed to remain free, pending appeal of the court’s order.”

“Denied,” says Acosta.

It will take at least three days for his lawyer to get to the appellate courts on an extraordinary writ.

The lawyer seeks assurances that Walker will not be kept in the general lockup with other prisoners. Acosta assures him, in his own inimitable fashion, that Eli will not be raped, then nods to the bailiff, a sign that it is time for Eli to go.

The bailiff takes him by an arm out into the courtroom and around to the courthouse holding cells. Walker’s lawyer drifts away, back into the courtroom and the corridor beyond, to tell the assembled throngs, the media horde, what their hero has done.

“Now to more pressing matters,” says Acosta. “What are we going to do about your witness, Mr. Nelson?”

Before Nelson can open his mouth Harry is up from the couch on his feet, moving for a mistrial. We have agreed that Harry should take the lead in this matter, to defuse Acosta’s clear rage at me, and to take the self-serving edge off my current predicament.

“Thank you, Mr. Hinds. I’ll take your motion under submission. Right now I’d like to hear from the DA if you don’t mind.”

Harry takes his seat. We are like two bookends on the Coconut’s couch.

“James Preston has clearly identified Mr. Madriani as one of several men seen with the defendant checking into the Edgemont Motel,” says Nelson.

“So what?” says Harry.

Acosta shoots him a look that would stop a charging bull elephant, but not Harry Hinds. He is up again, like some spring-loaded puppet.

“There’s nothing, not a shred of evidence linking Mr. Madriani to the crime. This is gossip-mongering, pure and simple. The prosecution is in trouble so it’s trying to put the passions of the defendant on trial, to discredit her attorney,” he says.

“That cell,” says Acosta, “the one that Mr. Walker is now occupying. I should warn you, Mr. Hinds, it has plenty of room for two. Now sit down and shut up.”

This puts Harry back down on the couch again.

Acosta looks at the court reporter. “Strike that latter from the record. From the part about jail,” he says.

The court reporter stares at the Coconut, like “This isn’t done.” Acosta shoots her another withering look, and keys are being punched on the little stenograph, history being rewritten.

Nelson rips into Harry’s argument. “This is competent, relevant evidence,” he says. “It is something the jury should hear. Something on which the jury should be allowed to form its own conclusions.”

He tries to soft-peddle this to the Coconut, giving assurances that the state will not dwell unduly on my indiscretions.

He knows as well as I that a single reference to this matter will seal Talia’s fate in the eyes of the jury. It would be as if suddenly the devil had jumped up to argue her cause.

He concedes that I am only one of several men that the witness will identify as having been with the defendant at the motel. What they want to expose, he tells the court, is not my own failings, but Talia’s record of infidelity.

“The fact that the defendant was engaged in extracurricular activities goes to her state of mind,” says Nelson, “her motive for wanting to terminate what was clearly an unsatisfying marriage.”

Acosta mulls over this for a moment, weighing the ins and outs of this argument.

“Now,” he says, “it’s your turn.” Harry starts to get up.

“No, no, not you,” he says. “Him.” The Coconut injects all the contempt he can into this single personal pronoun, gesturing toward me with the back of his hand. He wants me in sackcloth and ashes.

I am on my feet, stumbling verbally. The hardest thing a lawyer will ever have to do, defend himself.

“I apologize to the court,” I say, “for this situation that I find myself in.” I try to explain that this relationship with my client is something of ancient history, like the Druids at Stonehenge. The Coconut isn’t buying this, or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t care.

“But you didn’t disclose it to the authorities, to the court, did you, Mr. Madriani?”

“No, Your Honor, I did not.”

“Why?” he says.

I begin to get into it, going backward, starting with my last conversation with Ben at Wong’s the night before he died.

Nelson cuts me off before I’ve finished a sentence.

“Your Honor, if we’re going to do this I want to Mirandize Mr. Madriani.”

“Of course,” says Acosta.

I am struck cold by this. Besides the notion that I may have to bare my soul, acknowledge my affair with Talia, is the obvious fact that Acosta has taken back this question because he thinks that in answering it I may incriminate myself. I stand here staring at him in stark silence, knowing that the judge who is trying Talia’s cause now believes it possible that I may have helped her in this crime.

“This is ridiculous,” says Harry.

“No, Your Honor, it’s not. We have reason to be concerned,” says Nelson. “Mr. Madriani misled the officers who questioned him after the murder. He was asked why he left the Potter, Skarpellos law firm, whether he’d had disagreements with the victim. He denied this. Now it begins to look as if he left the firm because he was discovered having an affair with the victim’s wife. This goes to motive,” he says.

“Whose motive? Are we talking about the defendant or me?”

Nelson looks me in the eye. “Any way you like it,” he says.

I cannot hold myself back. “Ben knew it,” I say, “he knew about Talia and me, but we talked it through. We stepped away friends, before he died. Why else do you think he recommended me to oversee the trust fund at the law school?”

“Mr. Madriani.” Acosta is trying to silence me. “You’re warned,” he says, “not to say another word. Do so at your own peril. Do you understand?” Acosta wants to keep me from fouling the record. He nods to Nelson to Mirandize me, but nobody seems to have the little card. A half-dozen lawyers in the room and no one can spout what every flatfoot on the beat knows by heart. Nelson wings it, about eighty percent correct, he hits the high points, the right to counsel, to remain silent.

Harry’s chewing on my ear to sit down and shut up. He pushes me onto the couch. “If he has the right to remain silent, and the right to counsel, then I’m his lawyer,” he says, “and I’m advising him not to say another word.”

The Coconut looks at Harry, little black beady eyes, marking him as a troublemaker. “Very well,” he says. “What about this evidence? You’ve heard the district attorney. Why should I not let it in?”

Harry doesn’t need a second invitation. There is more composure here than I would have credited. Harry’s going for the jugular, cutting into Nelson on the damage this revelation will do with the jury. He’s a bundle of rhetorical questions.

“We have an isolated piece of evidence,” he says. “A witness says he saw the defendant with Mr. Madriani at his motel, on what-one occasion?”