"Termination," Pincher said.

"C'mon," Steve said. "Give her some room. She's gonna be really good if you don't squeeze the life out of her."

Great, Victoria thought, a compliment from Solomon, as helpful as a stock tip from Martha Stewart's broker.

Steve said: "She's already better than most of your half-wits who want to plead everything out and go home at four o'clock."

"Not your business, Last Out."

Last Out. What was that all about? She'd have to ask around.

"My point, Ms. Lord, is that you cannot let Mr. Solomon badger, befuddle, or bedevil you." Pincher often employed the preacher's habit of alliteration and the lawyer's habit of using three words when one will do.

"Yes, sir," Victoria said.

"I myself have tried cases against Mr. Solomon," Pincher said.

"You're the best, Sugar Ray," Steve said. "n.o.body suborns perjury from a cop like you do."

Cuff links jangling, Pincher wagged a finger in Steve's face. "I recall you bribing a bailiff to take two six-packs of beer to the jury in a drunk-driving case."

"'Bribery' is an ugly word," Steve said.

"What do you call club seats for the Dolphins?"

"The way they're playing, torture."

"You're Satan in Armani," Pincher said.

"Men's Wearhouse," Steve corrected.

"You have raised contumacy to a high art."

"If I knew what it was, I'd be even better at it."

"We have a dossier on you. Contempt citations, frivolous motions, ludicrous legal arguments."

"Flatterer," Steve said.

"Any more circus tricks, I'll have the Florida Bar punch your ticket." Pincher shot his cuffs and flashed a hard, cold smile. "You don't watch your step, you're gonna end up like your old man."

"Leave him out of this." Steve's tone turned serious.

"Herbert Solomon felt he was above the law, too."

"He was the best d.a.m.n judge in the county."

"Before your time, Ms. Lord," Pincher said, "Solomon's father was thrown off the bench."

"He resigned!"

"Before they could indict him. Bribery scandal, wasn't it?"

"You know G.o.dd.a.m.n well what it was. A phony story from a dirty lawyer."

"I was only a deputy then, but I saw the files. Your father's the dirty one."

The room had grown tense.

"What's the penalty for slugging the State Attorney?" Steve said. His hands were clenching and unclenching.

Pincher balanced on his toes like a prizefighter. "You don't have the b.a.l.l.s."

The two men glared at each other a long moment.

"Boys, if you're through wagging your d.i.c.ks," Victoria heard herself say, "I need to know whether to go back into court or look for a new job."

After a long moment, Steve laughed, the tension draining away. Now she was trying to help him. "Aw, f.u.c.k it, Sugar Ray."

"Never saw you back down before." Pincher sounded suspicious, like Steve might sucker punch him the second he dropped his guard.

"Vickie's influence."

"Victoria," she corrected icily.

Pincher appraised each of them a moment, tugged at an earlobe, then said: "Ms. Lord, because I know of Mr. Solomon's predilection for provocation, I'm not firing you today."

"Thank you, sir." She exhaled and her shoulders lost their stiffness.

"For now, consider yourself on probation."

His good deed for the week, Steve thought, helping save her job. But what a p.r.i.c.k, that Pincher, hacking away at the newbie. Steve felt embarra.s.sed, like he'd been eavesdropping on another family's quarrel. Victoria tried so hard to be tough, but Steve had seen the tremble of her lower lip, the flush in her cheeks. She was scared, and it touched him.

A loud rush of water interrupted his thoughts, the unmistakable sound of an ancient toilet. A moment later, the door to Judge Erwin Gridley's personal rest room opened, and the judge walked out, carrying the sports section of the Miami Herald.

"What's all this caterwauling?" the judge drawled. He was in his mid-fifties and fighting a paunch but could still waddle down the sidelines after a wide receiver. Suffering bouts of double vision, he wore trifocals in court, but not on Sat.u.r.days, which Steve figured might explain some of his more egregious calls, including too many men on the field when replays clearly showed only eleven.

"Mr. Solomon and I were reminiscing about old cases," Pincher told the judge.

"Mr. Pincher remembers cases the way a wolf remembers lambs," Steve said.

"I was just about to tell counsel that I'll be sitting second chair to Ms. Lord for the rest of the Pedrosa trial," Pincher said.

"You, working for a living?" Steve said.

"It would be an honor to have you in my courtroom," the judge allowed.

"It's my new hands-on plan," Pincher said. "One week every month, I'll be in court."

"Then who's gonna shake down lobbyists for campaign money?" Steve asked.

"Keep it up, I'll sue you for slander, Solomon."

"Now, don't you two git started." The judge tossed the sports section onto his desk. "Mr. Solomon and Miss Lord wore me out this morning with their grousing." He turned to the two of them, squinting through his eyegla.s.ses. "I'm hoping a few hours in the cooler settled your nerves."

"We're fine, Your Honor," Victoria said. "Thank you."

"Cell mates today, soul mates tomorrow," Steve vowed.

"Hah," Victoria said.

The judge said: "The clock's running down, so let's talk business."

"Yes, sir," Victoria said. "State of Florida versus Amancio Pedrosa."

"University of Florida versus Florida State," the judge corrected. "Gotta lay five points to take my dog-a.s.s, b.u.t.t-dragging Gators, for crying out loud."

"You don't want to touch that, Judge," Steve advised.

"h.e.l.l, no. Gator's QB got a stinger on the turf at South Carolina last week. I oughta know. I called roughing on the play."

As the three men continued to talk about football in grave tones, Victoria took stock of her career.

Humiliations great and small.

"Consider yourself on probation."

She had felt her face redden as Pincher berated her. Why did he have to do it in front of Solomon? It was doubly embarra.s.sing when Solomon spoke up for her, though for a moment, it made him seem almost human. She wondered if the florid tint had faded from her neck and cheeks. Victoria could not remember a time when she didn't blush under pressure.

She dreaded going back into the courtroom with Pincher perched on her shoulder like one of Pedrosa's illegal birds. All she wanted now was to win and prove she had the chops to be a trial lawyer.

But what if she lost? Or worse, got fired? The legal market sucked, and her student loans weighed a ton. Each month she wrote a check for the interest, but the princ.i.p.al just sat there-eighty-five thousand dollars-taunting her. The only clothing she'd bought since law school came from Second Time Around, a consignment shop in Surfside.

Except for shoes. Shoes are as important as oxygen, and you don't want to breathe another person's oxygen, right?

If she lost her job, she'd have to start selling the jewelry The Queen had given her. Irene Lord, called The Queen for her regal bearing and lofty dreams. Even when her money was gone, she had maintained her dignity and grace. Victoria pictured her mother, dressed in a designer gown for the Vizcayans Ball, her Judith Leiber evening bag flecked with jewels but lacking cab fare inside. She remembered, too, her mother fussing about Victoria's decision to go to law school. A dirty business, she called it.

"You don't have that cutthroat personality."

Maybe The Queen was right. Maybe law school had been a mistake. She struggled to be strong, to cover up her insecurities. But maybe she just didn't have what it takes. Certainly Ray Pincher seemed to doubt her abilities.

What's this bulls.h.i.t about Pincher sitting second chair? Steve hated the idea. There'd be no more fun in the courtroom, that's for sure. And Pincher would put even more pressure on Victoria. Steve wondered if she could handle it.

Doing his pretrial homework, Steve had looked her up in the State Attorney's Office newsletter, the "Nolo Contendere." Princeton undergrad, summa c.u.m laude, Yale Law School, a prize-winning article in the law journal. Nice pedigree, compared to his: baseball scholarship at the University of Miami, night division at Key West School of Law.

In addition to the ritzy academics, there was a little ditty in the newsletter: "We're hoping Victoria joins us on the Sword of Justice tennis team. She won the La Gorce Country Club girls' tennis championship three years running while in high school."

La Gorce. Old money, at least by Miami standards, where marijuana smugglers from the 1980's were considered founding fathers. The La Gorce initiation fee was more than Steve cleared in a year. Thirty years ago, no one named Solomon could have even joined.

So why was Victoria Lord slumming in the grimy Justice Building, a teeming beehive of cops and crooks, burned-out lawyers and civil service drudges, embittered jurors and senile judges? A place where an eight A.M. motion calendar-a chorus line of miscreants on parade-could crush her spirit before her cafe con leche grew cold. Steve felt a part of the place, enjoyed the interplay of cops and robbers, but Victoria Lord? Had she gotten lost on her way to one of the deep-carpet firms downtown? Stone crabs at noon, racquetball at five.

Now Steve tried to follow the conversation. Judge Gridley was spouting his views on a college football playoff-a grand idea, there'd be more games to bet on-when they were interrupted by a cell phone chiming the opening bars of Handel's "Hallelujah."

"Excuse me," Pincher told them, fishing out his phone. "State Attorney. What? Good heavens! When?" He listened a moment. "Call me when the autopsy's done."

Pincher clicked off and turned to the others. "Charles Barksdale is dead."

"Heart attack?" the judge asked, tapping his own chest.

"Strangled. By his wife."

"Katrina?" Victoria said. "Can't be."

"She probably had a good reason," said Steve, ever the defense lawyer.

"Claims it was an accident," Pincher said.

"How do you accidentally strangle someone?" the judge said.

"By having s.e.x in a way G.o.d never intended," Pincher said. "They found Charles tied up in some kinky contraption."

"This is big," Steve said. "Larry King big."

"Charles was a dear friend," Pincher said, "not just a campaign contributor. To die like that . . ." He shook his head, sadly. "If the grand jury indicts, I'll prosecute it myself."

Pincher was not given to many honest emotions, Steve thought, but the old fraud seemed genuinely upset.

"Charles was a gentle man, a charitable man, a good man," Pincher continued.

Now he sounded like he was rehearsing his closing argument.

"Boy, would I love to defend," Steve said.

"Widow'll end up with Ed Shohat or Roy Black," Judge Gridley predicted.

"I'm as good a lawyer as they are."

"This ain't a Sat.u.r.day night stabbing in Liberty City," Pincher said. "This is high society."

Pincher was right, Steve knew. He'd had dozens of murder trials, but most were low pay or no pay. He never had a client with the resources of an O. J. Simpson or Klaus von Bulow. Or the looks and glamour of Katrina Barksdale. He didn't know the Barksdales, but he'd read about them. Charles had made millions building condos while collecting custom yachts and trophy wives. Katrina would have been number three or four. Wife, not yacht. Photos of the old hubby and young wifey were routinely plastered in Ocean Drive and the Miami Herald. You couldn't open a restaurant or hold a charity event without the glam couple. And when her husband stayed home, Katrina was on the arm of an artist or musician at younger, hipper parties.

The lawyer who got this case was gonna be famous.

Steve could picture the Justice Building surrounded by sound trucks, generators humming, a forest of satellite dishes, an army of reporters. A carnival in the parking lot, vendors hawking "Free Katrina" T-shirts, iced granizados, and grilled arepas. There'd be TV interviews, magazine profiles, a.n.a.lysts critiquing the defense lawyer's trial strategy and his haircut. It'd be a ton of publicity and a h.e.l.luva lot of fun. And then there was the fee. Not that money juiced him. But Bobby's expenses were mounting, and he'd like to put some bucks away for the boy's care.

And wouldn't he love going mano a mano with Pincher? The b.a.s.t.a.r.d would try to ride that pony all the way to the governor's mansion. All the more reason Steve l.u.s.ted after the case. He hated pretension and self-righteousness, but most of all, he hated bullies. And in Sugar Ray Pincher, he had all three.

"This one's out of your league, Solomon," Pincher said, hammering the nail home.