I ignore him.

“I’m surprised,” he says. Harry talks about fire and dragons. The fact that I was porkin’ another man’s wife and Ben didn’t even give me a lecture on alienation of affections. “The man’s very civilized,” he says. “Times have changed since my day.”

“I’m surprised you can remember back that far.”

He looks at me from the corner of his eye.

“Going back, are you?” he asks.

“No,” I say sarcastically. “Ben and I discussed the matter, but we decided it wouldn’t be a good idea-for me to go back for seconds.”

“No, asshole.” There’s irritation in his tone. “Are you goin’ back to the firm?”

“It wasn’t that friendly,” I say.

“Ah. The wife’s one thing; a partnership’s somethin’ else.” He laughs.

I ignore him, though with Ben I know there’s some truth to what Harry says.

“Why would I want to go back?”

“Money, prestige,” he hesitates for a second. “A good secretary.”

Dee has become an item of conversation between us marked by a good deal of profanity and laughter-my profanity and Harry’s laughter.

“I’m not going back.”

“Good,” he says. “I’m proud of you.” Harry appears relieved, like he’s been considering this scenario, my return to the firm, for some time. “You know I’d miss you,” he says. There’s just a hint of sentiment to his tone.

“You make it sound like going to Potter, Skarpellos is the same as dying,” I say.

He raises a hand, rotating it back and forth at the wrist, as if it’s one of those pendulous points in life that could go either way.

“Tell me, Harry, why do you do it? Why do you do criminal law?”

He makes a face. Like he’s never considered this before.

“The money’s good,” he says.

I laugh. “Sure. I’ve seen the palatial digs you call home. No, really, why do you do it?”

“It’s in the blood, I guess. Besides, I like the people.”

What Harry means is, he has a taste for “felonious voyeurism.” It happens. Lawyers, judges, cops, and jurors all find themselves titillated from time to time by the stories of violence, drugs, and sex. The criminal side of the law provides a window on the dark side of life that exists nowhere else.

But there is, in my mind, something more than this to Harry’s quest. Harry Hinds, I think, is a closet guardian of the underdog. There’s a compelling psychic identification with the losers of society here, gratification in squaring off against the state to save some poor fool from a long stretch in the joint. To Harry, this is sweet music. Whether or not one agrees with his work, Harry’s motives have social redemption. He’s a man moved by the view that prisons are filled with those who are the victims of their environment, child abusers who were themselves abused, druggies weened on the stuff by parents caught in their own chemical cycle.

As Harry rises to leave, to rejoin his clients, I realize that even with all of his foibles I am a little envious of this man. Harry Hinds has a clear vision of purpose to his life, a focus that at this moment, in the vortex of forces pulling upon me, I do not possess.

CHAPTER 4

I am early for my meeting with Ben. The Broiler is more subdued than Wong’s. The decor is Early Naugahyde, but it is quiet, a good place for talking, to discuss Sharon’s trust and Ben’s future. I belly to the bar and order a drink.

“Paul-Paul Madriani.” My only recognition of this voice is that it is someone unpleasant. Someone I would rather not be seen with, not here, not now.

I turn from the bar just in time to receive a back-slapping hand on my shoulder. Eli Walker is dean of the outcast press. Bellicose, usually three sheets to the wind, in his late sixties, Walker regularly traverses that nether-land between what he calls journalism, and political flackery for paying clients.

“Haven’t seen ya in here in a while.” He licks his lips as if he’s just stepped from the parched sands of the Sahara.

“Haven’t been around,” I say. The bartender returns with my drink and I swallow a quick shot. I offer nothing that Walker can latch onto, turn into conversation. He’s one of those clinging souls who as a result of some fleeting commercial contact fancy themselves your friends. In my case I had the misfortune of writing a single letter to unravel a title problem on his house, a favor I did at the request of one of the partners while I was with the firm.

He’s not moving on. Seconds pass in light banter, Eli doing most of the talking, the two of us weaving in the light traffic around the bar. Walker’s eyeing me like a thirsty dog. In between assignments and clients, he’s drooling for a drink. His hand is still on my shoulder, tugging on it like a ship trying to berth.

“How’s the solo practice goin’?” An odoriferous blast of alcohol is emitted with each spoken word. In the lore of the courthouse it has been said of Eli Walker that any cremation after death will result in the ultimate perpetual flame.

“Fine, keeps me busy.”

I begin to turn back toward the bar, a not so subtle signal that this conversation is at an end. I finally break his grip.

Walker doesn’t take the hint. He muscles his way in alongside me. The woman on the stool beside me gives Walker a dirty look, then scoots her stool a few inches away, giving him room to square his body to the bar.

Standing next to Walker I feel like a man in the company of a leper. I sense that I have suddenly declined in the esteem of a dozen drunks surrounding the bar.

“I’ll have what he’s having.” Walker looks at the bartender, who in turn looks at me. Reluctantly I nod. In his own inimitable way Eli Walker has found his way onto my bar tab. It is in moments like this that I regret lacking the sand to muster overt rudeness.

“Why’d ya leave Potter’s firm?” The question is asked with breathtaking subtlety.

“Oh, I don’t know. Guess it was time to strike out on my own.”

“Sorta like Custer against all them fuckin’ Indians, huh?” He chuckles to himself.

The least he could do if he’s going to hustle drinks from me, I think, is quietly accept my bullshit. He drops the subject of my career and launches into a lecture on his latest journalistic coup, a scandal featuring pork-barrel politics and the state water project. I tune him out.

I check my watch. Ben’s running late. I consider ways to dump Walker. I think about the restroom, but somehow I know he’ll just follow me-stand at the urinal and check my bladder. The bar is mostly empty and Walker is desperate, in search of a drinking companion.

The bartender has spied my empty glass. “Another?” he asks. I nod and notice that I’m now one drink up on Walker. I’ve got to slow my pace. I’ll smell like Eli by the time Ben arrives.

There’s the sound of sirens outside on the street, a fast-moving patrol car followed seconds later by the lumbering echo and diesel drone-a fire pumper. An emergency medical team headed to the scene of some fire or accident.

Eli tilts his glass toward the sound in the street, a salute, then downs the last gulp.

‘Too bad,” he says. “A tragedy,” he says.

“What’s that?”

“You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?” I wait for the latest bit of unconfirmed gossip. The stuff of which most of Walker’s columns are composed.

“Ben Potter,” he says.

Walker, I suspect, is brokering information on the high court nomination. Probably third-hand hearsay, which he’s spreading faster than typhoid from a cesspool.

“He passed on,” says Walker.

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean he’s dead-muerto-mort-fish food,” he says.

The words push me perceptibly back from the bar. I turn my head and stare at this old man in stony silence.

“Heard it on the police scanner in my car. They were callin’ in the EMTs, the paramedics.” He looks at his watch. “Can you believe it? Over ten minutes ago now. Get a coronary in this town, you’d better call a taxi,” he says.