"With Victoria and me, it's all business." No way would I confess to Granny that a part of me was jealous that my client had landed such a woman.

"Seems to me you got yourself an interesting conflict," Granny said.

"You mean a conflict of interest?"

"If Solomon goes to prison, you got a clean shot at this gal, who sounds a damn sight more suitable than your usual trashy girlfriends."

"Ancient history, Granny. I've evolved."

"About damn time."

Granny was right. In my younger days, my sly grin and my bucket of blarney unbuttoned the blouses of numerous barmaids, wannabe actresses, and aspiring models just off the bus from Apalachicola. My emotional maturity was nil. Nothing mattered outside the scope of my own pleasure. But now, after so many wastrel years, I was not in a relationship and I sensed what I had missed . . . the mutual commitment, the total involvement with the needs of the other person. As I am pushing middle age-oh hell, I'm in it-the smile has gone all crinkly-eyed, the hair is flecked with gray, and I am left with the empty feeling that I may have lost out. Do I even deserve a woman like Victoria Lord? A smart, capable, accomplished woman who still manages the seductive purr of a she-lion.

"Any other advice, Granny?"

"Nothing you haven't figured out. You gotta find that missing Russian gal of ill repute."

"Top priority. She never went back to the house where she lived with the other B-girls. They told the cops they don't know where she is, and my investigator can't get near them."

"So get off your lazy butt and do your own legwork," Granny said. "Just like the old days."

I'd already sent Sam Pressler, my investigator, to Anastasia, but he couldn't get past the thug in a black suit at the velvet rope. "Private club," the guy had said. Meaning you had to come in with one of the girls who secretly worked there. Pressler was a retired cop who wore perma-press short-sleeved white shirts and baggy pants. He had as much chance of being picked up by a Bar girl as I did of becoming Miss Universe. Before leaving, Pressler did a "trash pull" from the Dumpster behind the joint, looking for any leads, but came up empty, except for his own stained trousers and a stink he carried into my office.

I'd also spent twenty seconds researching Aeroflot Flight 100 because of what Gorev had said to Nadia, moments before he was killed: "Did they ask you about Aeroflot 100?"

"They ask nothing. I say nothing. I know nothing."

Aeroflot 100 was a daily nonstop flight from Moscow to New York. Leaves at 10:15 a.m., Moscow time, gets into JFK just before noon, eastern time. I figured that was Nadia's route to the US but didn't know what it had to do with any criminal investigation.

"I have an idea for getting inside the club without too much muss and fuss," I told Granny.

"Don't be busting no heads. The state Bar's warned you about that."

Granny was right. I've been given "private reprimands," a kind of double-secret probation, which is better than having the Florida Supreme Court deliver a "public reprimand" while you stand, head bowed, in front of the bench in Tallahassee.

I'm embarrassed about some of the things I've done in the practice of law. Realizing that, I've probably been too hard on Solomon. He's still young, and if he's not spending life in prison, he'll mature, just as I have. So who am I to preach about rectitude? When I was a young lawyer, I was always being held in contempt. In one of my first trials, a judge warned me: "Keep going, Mr. Lassiter, and I'll send you to a place you've never been."

"Already been to jail, Your Honor."

"Not talking about jail. I'm gonna send you to law school!"

These days, I try to act with integrity, but I'm a trial lawyer, damn it. In the legal system, not everything is black-and-white. I make my living in the gray.

There's an inherent conflict in trial lawyers' jobs. The Ethical Rules state: "As an advocate, the lawyer zealously asserts the client's position under the rules of the adversary system."

Zealously!

But where do you draw the line between zealousness and chicanery? Go ask some law professor. All I know, when you have an innocent client, it's easier to slide into that gray area without falling into the quicksand of self-loathing. So I was prepared to chop-block the state, to hit the prosecutor once from the blind side and twice upside the head in pursuit of Solomon's acquittal.

I was thinking these thoughts when I heard metal cleats clacking against the Mexican tile floor of the living room, and my nephew Kip came clomping into the kitchen.

"Not chicken-fried steak again." Whining. I've warned him about that. Lassiter men don't whine.

"Hush up, wash up, and clean up that mud you drug in," Granny ordered.

Kip was in eleventh grade now and working his tail off to make the football team at Biscayne-Tuttle, a private school on the shores of Biscayne Bay. Unlike his block-of-granite uncle, Kip was gangly and loose-limbed. He had decent speed but only average athletic skills, and currently he was a third-team cornerback.

"How'd practice go, champ?" I asked.

"Two pass breakups and a couple tackles."

"Good job."

"Plus I got torched on three long passes."

"It happens. Always clear your mind after a bad play. Learn from your mistakes, but don't dwell on them."

"I know, Uncle Jake. You've told me a zillion times."

"Hurry up now," Granny said. "Dinner will get cold."

"We expecting company?" Kip asked.

"No, why?" I said.

"'Cause there's a guy on the porch. Sitting in the rocker."

"A guy?"

"A soldier," Kip said. "Three stripes. That's a sergeant, isn't it?"

-12-.

Reporting for Duty I opened the front door and stepped onto the porch, scattering several green lizards. It was a hot, moist night with the scent of jasmine in the air. The jacaranda tree in the driveway was shedding the last of its purple flowers, succumbing to the summer heat.

And there was Manuel Dominguez sitting in Granny's rocking chair on the porch. Buzz cut, square jaw, just the beginning of a double chin. He wore a US Army dress blue uniform. A brass disk with crossed rifles on his collar identified him as a member of the infantry. Gold-braided chevrons on each shoulder marked him as a sergeant. Four gold overseas service bars on his right sleeve indicated he'd served in several combat zones. A fruit salad of colorful ribbons was pinned to his chest. If I had to guess, I'd say they were for various acts of distinguished service and valor. Perhaps in Desert Storm or Afghanistan or maybe the Battle of Gettysburg, for all I knew.

Because none of it was real.

Manuel Dominguez wasn't really a sergeant. Had never been in the Boy Scouts, much less the army.

He was a former client. A small-time grifter and con man I'd walked out of the courthouse a couple of times and left behind once or twice, too. But his crimes were always nonviolent and his sentences always short. Most recently, I'd gotten him probation for a lottery scam called advance fee fraud.

"Hey, Manuel," I said. "What's the charge this time?"

"Nada, jefe."

"So why you here? You want some chicken-fried steak?"

"Already ate."

"Lemme guess, The Forge."

He snapped off a crisp salute. "Scallops ceviche, the bone-in porterhouse with a side of Parmesan truffle fries. Rose Marie went for the caviar and Dover sole. We split a butterscotch souffle for dessert."

"You get the Johnnie Walker sauce with that?"

"Is there any other way to go?"

"And who paid?"

"An orthodontist from Topeka. Here on a convention. I limped in, using my cane. And of course Rose Marie had her pregnancy pack under her dress. Looks about eight months, I'd say. The orthodontist sent us a bottle of Cristal, then came over to the table to shake my hand and give me the 'thanks for your service' speech. I told him how I dismantled IEDs in Iraq, and about the one I didn't quite dismantle. Of course, he insisted on paying the dinner tab. Then his wife took a selfie with us to show the folks back home."

"No photos, Manuel. I've told you about creating evidence."

"Hey, what's the harm?"

"Actually, wearing those medals is a federal crime."

"Tell that to John Wayne. I got a standing ovation when I limped out of there."

Dominguez was basically a professional moocher, running his hungry soldier scam all over town. Tuesday night was The Forge, Thursday was Joe's Stone Crab during the season, and Katsuya for sushi during the summer. I couldn't remember the rest of his schedule.

"And how is the lovely Rose Marie?" I asked.

"Great. Due any year now."

"So if you haven't been busted, why the hell are you lurking on my porch?"

He wrinkled his forehead and scrunched up his mouth. Looked embarrassed, if that's possible for a career con artist. "When I was on probation, I had to take some classes."

"If you took cooking, you wouldn't have to prey on unsuspecting orthodontists."

"Actually, I studied for the PI exam. Passed and got my license."

"Congratulations. I guess they did away with the good character requirement."

"I used an alias, but I got the badge just the same. I'm a private dick now."

"So you lied to get some semihonest work. I'm proud of you."

"Well here's the thing, Jake. I got a client who knows me and you are tight."

"Thick as thieves," I agreed. "You're my favorite lowlife. So who's your client?"

"Call him Mr. X."

"Okay, that's creative."

"Mr. X hires me to find this Russian girl. Natasha . . . something."

"Nadia Delova."

"That's her."

Now we were getting somewhere, I thought. You pick up leads anywhere you can, even from a phony sergeant. "Why's Mr. X want to find her?"

"Ah, jeez, Jake. I can't tell you that. Ethics and all."

"Let me take a wild guess. Mr. X has a proposal for me."

"How'd you know?"

"Because, Manuel, you couldn't find a beet in a cup of borscht."

"Huh?"

"Mr. X didn't hire you to find Nadia. He hired you to bribe me."

"Bribe? No way, Jose. He wants to do a joint adventure."

"Joint venture?"

"Exactamente. And if you find her, there's fifty large in it for you."

Manuel grinned at me and rocked back and forth in Granny's chair. From somewhere down the block came a screeching sound weirdly like a woman's scream, but I knew it was just a peacock in mating mode.

"Just find her?" I said.

"Well, bring her to Mr. X before the police get to her. Otherwise, no deal."

"Aw, Sergeant Dominguez. I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because Mr. Y has already offered me a hundred thousand."

"Who the hell is Mr. Y?"

It took less than a second to come up with the answer. If I'd hesitated, Manuel would have seen the indecision. It's tough to con a con man. "Didn't he tell you, Sarge? Mr. Y is Mr. X's brother."