"Yeah, you already had one, whoever wrote it. Who did write it, by the way?"

Cimino just stared at me, looking annoyed. Strike two for me. He wasn't going to help me out. Listening to this tape later, Tucker and Chris Moody would probably have a nice chuckle as I flailed away.

"Well, whoever did it-it was crap," I said. "It wasn't convincing. You want to disqualify the bidders, that is how you do it. That's the memo you want."

He stared a hole through me for a while. I admit it occurred to me, a flash of panic-he knows-but there was nothing I could do but sit still, and eventually his eyes moved down to the document. He read it over, skipping to the good part. "Okay. Yeah. Yeah, this is better." He looked up at me. "This looks better."

"Jack Hauser came by the other day," I said. "I signed him up on a lawsuit with the city."

He looked at me, his eyes narrowing. "Yeah?"

"I think maybe you and I have had a communication breakdown," I said.

We were dancing around it. I couldn't imagine another way to do it. I couldn't rush in here and be direct. I had to let him know that we were on the same page without saying so explicitly. And he needed to see that there was a reason for my sudden change of heart, a reason why my stubborn refusal to do what he wanted was suddenly replaced with eager compliance. That reason was his referral of Hauser Construction to my law office. A guy like Cimino, I figured, would willingly believe that I'd want in, that I'd do what he asked, if there were sweeteners involved. It's how he operated, so it was psychologically soothing for him to believe it motivated others, too. He'd sent me that legal business to get me on board, and I was telling him that it had worked.

"Yeah?" he said. He was being noncommittal, which was smart of him.

I pointed to the document. "There are a couple of companies there that might not be so happy, losing out on that prison contract. They might sue. They might make a lot of noise. They might talk to other people. Reporters. Politicians. Maybe-shit, maybe law enforcement. People will want to know, what's the reason?"

He was stoic, listening to me. "You telling me something I don't know?"

"No, I think you know. But that other memo-the one bearing my name, that I didn't write-that memo's garbage. It wouldn't hold up. Look," I said, leaning forward, "if an action of the PCB comes under scrutiny of any kind, you need to be able to say you relied on advice of counsel. But the advice of counsel has to be somewhat convincing, Charlie. That other memo-it wasn't persuasive. I think this one I prepared, on the other hand, is."

He looked back down at the memo, but he wasn't reading it. He was thinking.

"You need an advocate," I said. "Someone who argues for a living. Someone who can take facts that smell like shit and convince everyone they're perfume. Or at least, someone who can muddy up the water enough to make our position plausible."

He made a thoughtful noise. "And I suppose that's you?"

"Ask Hector Almundo if that's me."

Judging from the taped conversations the feds had played for me, these guys already seemed to have a favorable opinion of my skills. It was probably why I had lasted this long on the job, despite my stubbornness-Hector, and what I had done for him.

"Or not," I said. "I don't care. But I'm not a transactional lawyer, Charlie. You want someone who will read a thirty-page document and robotically apply the law-honestly, you don't want me. I'm not interested. But the good stuff-where you need someone to make an argument, a convincing one-I'm your man."

He slowly nodded his head.

"And I still have a full-service law firm," I said. "Open for business, if the occasional customer wants to drop by. I'm always grateful for new clients."

His expression seemed to soften. This, I thought, was making sense to him. I was presenting the world in exactly the way he, himself, viewed it. And I was being as tactful as I could. I wasn't using words like "fraud" and "collusion." But I was telling him, in so many words, that I now understood the rules, and I liked the game.

Cimino reached into a candy dish on his desk and threw a couple of jelly beans into his mouth. He cupped a few more, like he was guessing their weight, and considered me. "What was it with Hector?" he asked. "How'd you pull that off?"

"Plausible deniability," I said, without hesitation. "But with Hector, it was tougher, because the feds had him on tape. We had to work after-the-fact. We had to dissect every sentence uttered by him and by Espinoza and show that Hector didn't take Espinoza seriously. The jury thought it was plausible."

He kept nodding his head. I thought it was nervous energy more than agreement.

"Now, hypothetically, if I have the luxury of counseling a client beforehand, not after the other shoe has dropped," I said, "it's easier. I make a convincing case for a particular position, and all the client has to do is say, 'Okay, I accept your advice.' The client can always utter the three magical words-'advice of counsel'-and me, I can just say that I stand by my legal reasoning. That's the great thing about the law, right? There's no concrete answer. It's all about opinions."

"It's all bullshit, if you ask me."

I didn't respond to that. I wasn't going to convince Charlie Cimino that he should respect the legal profession, much less the law itself.

"Okay. Well." I got out of my chair. "If this is the last time we talk, then-that Hauser Construction case? Thank you. I hadn't expected that. I think I understand the world a little better now. If you want me for the-for the more complicated issues, let's say, I'll be around."

Cimino was still playing with the jelly beans in his hand when I showed myself out. I got into the elevator and waited for the doors to close. Then I let out a long exhale, what felt like twenty minutes' worth of breath.

32.

I STOPPED AT A COFFEE SHOP A FEW BLOCKS FROM MY office. I ordered a large coffee, black, and left the small recording device-the F-Bird-on a paper napkin as I paid the guy. The next guy in line, Lee Tucker, snatched up the recording device as I walked away. I felt instant relief when that thing was out of my possession.

I went back to my office and collapsed in my chair, feeling utterly exhausted from the affair. I'd never done anything like this before, and I underestimated how draining it would be to perform on camera, so to speak. The conversation with Cimino was no more than twenty minutes, but I felt like I'd lost five pounds in the process.

Late in the afternoon, Shauna walked into my office and dropped down on the couch in the corner. We actually had pretty spacious offices, and my brother had given me the couch, which I thought added something to the space, though I wasn't sure what. Early-nineties-college-slacker, maybe.

"I have a date," she said. "A guy named Roger. Opposing counsel on a breach-of-contract thing. We settled it last week. Now he wants to take me to dinner."

I felt something swim around inside me. I wasn't sure what it was, but it seemed like I wasn't happy to hear this news.

"Coolio," I said, like an absolute moron. Coolio? I'd never said that word in my life.

"You think I should go?"

I busied myself with some papers and made a face. "Sure, if you want to."

I avoided her eye contact and felt a bit of tension form between us. Then I was saved by the bell-by the phone, actually. Marie, our assistant, on the intercom.

"David Hamlin for you?"

"Put him through."

"Who's David Hamlin?" Shauna asked.

"David Hamlin" was Lee Tucker.

I picked up the receiver. "David," I said. "Long time, no talk. How'd the circumcision go?"

"Are you able to talk?" Tucker was on his cell phone in crowd noise, walking while he talked. "Let's meet in ten minutes. Suite 410?"

"A friend of a friend," I said to Shauna, which wasn't terribly convincing, since we shared most of the same friends, and we went to college and law school together. But her mind was on her steamy date with Roger and she let it go.

Suite 410 in our building had been vacant until today, when a bogus company called Hamlin Consulting rented the space on a month-to-month lease. I opened the frosted-glass door and found an empty reception area and what appeared to be two offices on each flank.

"Honey, I'm home!" I called out.

I heard Tucker clearing his throat down the hallway to my left. I found him in an office with a chaw of tobacco protruding from his cheek and an empty Coke can on a desk.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he said. "I told you to go slow, to let Cimino come to you. You remember me saying that?"

"That rings a bell."

"That meant, go in there, keep your trap shut, and let him give you assignments, and fucking do the assignments," he said. "That didn't mean going in there and propositioning the fucking guy."

I didn't feel the need to respond. I thought it had gone fine.

"Well?" he asked. "You have some great reason why you didn't follow my directions?" Lee Tucker was a generally easygoing guy, I gathered, but not at this moment. His eyes were on fire.

"You were trying to clear your own name in there," he said, annoyed that I wasn't responding. "And in the process, you might have fucked the whole thing up."

"Is that what you think?" I asked. "That I fucked this thing up?"

"It's sure as hell possible you did, yeah. Maybe you seemed too eager to him."

"Maybe," I agreed, which only made him angrier. I admit, I was enjoying this.

"You do what I tell you," he said, directing a finger at me. "You run it past me first. There's a certain amount of ad-lib we can't control, but you don't walk in there with an agenda like that without passing it by me first. Are we clear?"

He was right, but I couldn't acknowledge it. He didn't know that I had an agenda that differed from the federal government's. They were trying to catch some swindlers. I was trying to solve a murder. Okay, and I was pissed off at Cimino and his people for dragging me into the mud with them. I was letting the feds use me for both reasons. But in the end, when all was said and done, for me this was about Ernesto Ramirez, not some public corruption case. I wanted to gain Cimino's trust so I could get inside, so I could find out more about who killed Ernesto. If Cimino went down because he had his hand in the public coffers, so be it.

"You wanted me to hook Cimino," I said. "I think I did that."

"You better hope you did."

I shook my head, like he was a nuisance. "Think like Cimino," I said. "I refuse to do these bullshit memos he wants. But he doesn't bitch me out. He doesn't say a word to me. He just has someone rewrite them, still using my name. He fucks me, basically. Then he sends this Hauser guy to hire me for some legal work. This is how he says 'sorry' and 'thank you.' That's his world. He's made me an offer, Lee, and he's waiting to see if I'll accept. He's betting I will. So what did I just do in there? I just said 'yes.' I made him think he's the smartest guy in the world. You think I just made him suspicious? I think I just stroked his ego."

Tucker stared at me for a long time. One eye closed to a wink, but he definitely wasn't exhibiting affection toward me. "I've handled a hundred of you," he said. "Guys who think they're suddenly experts in how to do this."

"Did they all have clean, fresh breath like me?"

He laughed, a humorless grunt. "Well, you are one fucking hotshot, aren't you, Kolarich?"

My cell phone rang. Didn't recognize the number. Lee seemed annoyed that I would take the call while we were in the midst of a conversation, which was why I did it.

"Mr. Kolarich? This is Janine from Ciriaco Properties. Mr. Cimino would like you at his office tomorrow morning at nine. He said he'd like to discuss your business offer."

"Certainly, Janine," I said with mock sweetness for Lee's benefit. "I'll see Mr. Cimino tomorrow at nine."

I closed my cell phone and thought for a moment. Replayed the call in my mind.

"Go ahead, hotshot," said Tucker. "Pat yourself on the-what is it?"

Something was rubbing me wrong. I shook my head. I related the call verbatim to Tucker.

"So?" he said. "I'll meet you at eight-thirty for the hand-off."

I paced in a circle and stopped. "No," I said.

Tucker thought about that a moment. "No?" he asked, but he wasn't putting up much of a fight. He may have been having a similar thought.

"Something about the way she framed it. 'He wants to discuss your business offer?' It's like Cimino was telegraphing it."

"Hmph. Maybe. He wants to make sure, if you'd ever wear a wire, that you'll wear it tomorrow?"

"Let's leave it off," I said.

"That creates problems for me, you know that."

Of course I did. I was a defense attorney. When a government cooperator only wears a wire some of the time, it leaves the other conversations open to cross-examination. A good lawyer will claim that the government informant entrapped the defendant during the non-recorded conversations and then turned on the wire when it suited his purposes. Prosecutors prefer their cooperators all wired, all the time. But these things are fluid. Every situation is different.

I stated the obvious: "It'll create more problems if he makes me." Tucker relented, more easily than I would have expected. "Okay," he said. "I have to trust you on this."

33.

I MADE IT TO CIMINO'S BUILDING BY TEN MINUTES TO nine. For some reason, it seemed to make sense to me to be punctual for once.

"How are you?" I said to the Amazon princess at the reception desk. I didn't know where Cimino found these women.

"You're actually on time." Cimino appeared from the hallway, looking immaculate as always in his slick Italian suit and bright tie. He kept walking, past me. "Come on."

"We're going somewhere?"

"We're going somewhere. Sweetheart, tell them to have my car out front?"

I followed Cimino to the elevator. He kept his thoughts to himself. He stared at the doors of the elevator, rocking on the balls of his feet, breathing with some congestion. He probably expected me to break the silence with nervous conversation. He probably also expected that his silence was unnerving me. It wasn't, other than a fleeting notion, maybe one-in-a-hundred chance, that he was taking me somewhere to be executed. Okay, maybe one in fifty. I'd just make sure that Charlie went first through any door.

We joined a few people on the elevator and took it down to the main floor. Cimino took me out a side door, where a bright yellow Porsche 911 awaited us with an attendant standing sentry.

Cimino handed him a tip and got in. I jumped in the other side. The car was immaculate, with a black leather interior and a top-of-the-line stereo.

"Nice ride," I said.

Cimino threw the stick into first and turned out onto the street with the fluid precision you'd expect from a Porsche. My first time riding in one of these, and I hoped it wouldn't be my last.

"Not so great in the winter," said Cimino. "When it gets slick, I don't even bother."

"Where are we going?" I asked.