Victoria got to her feet. "Your Honor, may we have a brief recess before the witness answers?"

"What?" Steve couldn't believe it. "Let her answer."

"Shut up," Victoria said.

"What seems to be the problem?" the judge asked.

"We just need five minutes, Your Honor."

The judge shrugged and said: "No jive. Back in five."

When they reached the corridor, Victoria grabbed Steve by the tie, kicked open the door to the women's rest room, and dragged him inside.

"Hey," he protested.

The harsh, astringent smell of ammonia was in the air.

"You think you can get away with this?" she said.

"With what?" He put on an innocent face that didn't fool her for an instant.

"You tell me. What'd you do, kidnap Thigpen and extort your sister?"

"You're nuts. Let's get back in there. We're one answer away from my winning custody."

"No, we're one answer away from my reporting you to the Bar."

"For what?"

"Whatever you've done is going to backfire. The next time Janice gets arrested, she'll go screaming to Zinkavich. She'll turn on you to save her a.s.s."

"She's got nothing on me."

For someone so shifty, he was a lousy liar. "You're not stealing home on me, Solomon, no matter how fast you think you are."

"Jesus, lighten up."

"I'm giving you ten seconds to come clean."

"Or what?"

"Or I go back inside that courtroom and ask to withdraw as your lawyer and stay the trial until the state investigates your sister's conduct."

"C'mon, Vic. This is the truth: When Janice walked into the courtroom, I didn't know what she was going to say."

"Sure you did. And you knew Thigpen wasn't going to show up. That's why you told me to wing it. You knew exactly what was going to happen."

"I just have good instincts."

"Not that good. What'd you do, bribe them?"

All of Steve's famed instincts told him to keep quiet. He knew how many criminals were tripped up, not by the police, but by their own big mouths. He also knew how self-righteously upright Victoria could be. So he would never understand why, in that moment, he told her. Did he hope that her feelings for him would outweigh her rigid sense of propriety? Was it some test, one she was bound to fail?

"Dammit, Steve," she prodded. "What turned Janice around?"

He blurted it out. "A hundred thousand dollars."

"Oh, no. Oh, no." She was shaking her head. "How could you?"

"I borrowed it."

"d.a.m.n you! You know what I mean. How could you suborn perjury?"

"I suborned the truth! I paid her not to lie. Every word she said in there was true."

"That's a rationalization."

"Yeah, but it's a good one. I was extorted. I'm the victim here."

"Tell that to the disbarment judge. It doesn't matter if Janice told the truth. Paying her is an illegal inducement under the Ethical Rules."

"Then the rules are wrong," Steve argued.

"d.a.m.n you!" Her look was anguished and angry. "You're as dirty as Pincher."

"I'm doing justice here. That's a pretty big difference."

"I could have won playing straight."

"I couldn't be sure of that," he said, softly. He moved closer to her, placed his hands on her shoulders, felt her tremble. Any second, she could burst into a rainstorm of tears. Or she could kiss him. Or she could- Smack. She slapped him hard across the face.

"Ow! What the h.e.l.l . . . ?"

"I'm required to tell Judge Rolle."

"No way. You ever hear of attorney-client privilege?"

"Doesn't cover fraud on the court. Read Kneale vs. Williams."

"Haven't I taught you anything? When the law doesn't work-"

"There's no wiggle room here. The Ethical Rules are mandatory."

"I'll lose Bobby and go to jail. They'll pull my license."

"I don't have a choice."

"You have the choice to do justice or blindly follow a bad law."

"I warned you when I took the case. I do it strictly by the book."

He slammed his hand into the tile wall. The tile didn't break. He wasn't so sure about his hand. "This makes it easier for you, doesn't it?"

"Makes what easier?"

His hand swelled with pain, and he felt a throbbing in his temples. "My being disbarred, disgraced, out of the picture. It's the proof you needed that you made the right choice."

"I'm marrying Bruce because I love him."

"You haven't changed since that day in the jail cell. You're still the same robot, the same automaton."

"And you're the same unethical lowlife."

"You're bloodless and soulless, Lord. Sin alma o corazn."

"I can't believe I considered being with you for even a second."

"Likewise," he agreed. "We're totally incompatible."

"Polar opposites," she said.

"The cobra and the mongoose."

"Good-bye, Solomon," she said, pushing the door open and heading back to the courtroom.

Fifty-two.

LOVE VS. LAW.

Victoria knew she had, at most, two minutes before the judge would return to the bench. Sitting with perfect posture at the Pet.i.tioner's table, she furiously scribbled notes on a pink index card.

"Your Honor, it is my sad duty under Part 2 of Rule 4, Subsection 3.3 of the Ethical Rules to report an obstruction of justice . . ."

Janice sat on the witness stand, thumbing through one of Judge Rolle's children's magazines, Zinkavich glaring at her from his crumb-covered table. The courtroom door opened, and Steve waltzed in, whistling.

Whistling!

Some upbeat tune. Trying to distract her, Victoria figured, sidetrack her from what the law required her to do.

Steve approached Zinkavich, slapped him on the back: "Jack, my man, let's do lunch sometime, whadaya say?"

"You been drinking?" Zinkavich said.

"Hey, Sis," Steve called out. "Despite everything, I still love you."

"Feeling okay, Stevie?" Janice said.

Victoria watched warily as Steve circled her table, winked at her, and said: "You look absolutely stunning, honey bun."

She tried to ignore him and kept taking notes: "My partner, Stephen Solomon, has committed a gross violation . . ."

Standing in front of the bench, Steve began singing, "How Deep Is Your Love."

Singing! Like the sappy Bee Gees, only off-key.

Then he glided around the well of the courtroom, swiveling his hips, dancing a rumba with an invisible partner.

Dancing!

Victoria tried not to watch him, but that was impossible. Limber as a snake, he coiled his way from bench to bar, all the while singing. Somewhere between being touched in the pouring rain and living in a world of fools, he slid across her table, his b.u.t.t scattering her index cards.

"You can stop taking notes, Vic."

"Go away!" She s.n.a.t.c.hed her cards as if they were thousand-dollar bills.

"You probably wonder why I'm so happy."

"I don't care."

"It just occurred to me you're not gonna tell the judge a d.a.m.n thing. You know why?"

"Get away from me! Now."

She couldn't believe his arrogance. Even after all this, he was still so c.o.c.ksure of himself.

"Because I know what makes you tick, Vic."

"Hah."

"I know what's important to you. More important than all the rules in all the books."

"Whatever you think you know, Solomon, you're wrong."

He gave her that gotcha grin that made her itch to slap him again.

"No matter what you think about me, you love Bobby," Steve said. "I saw it in your face when he was testifying. He said he wished you were his mom. And your look said you wished it, too. You love the kid with all your soul and all your being. And because you know he belongs with me, you couldn't live with yourself if something you did took him away. Just like I always told you, love trumps the law. So tear up your note cards, Victoria, because you can despise me until the end of time, but you won't do this to Bobby."

He slipped off the table and plopped into the chair next to her. Victoria searched for a reply, but before she could say a word, the rear door to the courtroom opened and Judge Althea Rolle hurried in, robes flowing. "Don't bother standing," she said, dropping into her high-backed chair. "We're gonna finish this up real quick."

It had been a performance. Steve wasn't nearly as sure of himself as he tried to appear. But he had taken a shot, aiming for the deepest part of Victoria, the part she kept hidden. He had aimed for her heart.

If it didn't work, if she finked to the Fink and to the judge, he had another option. It would take them several days to crank up the machinery of the criminal justice system. You can't get an indictment overnight. You need subpoenas, affidavits, sworn testimony. Time enough to pack the old Caddy with everything important-some sweats, some John D. MacDonald paperbacks, the panini grill-and uncle and nephew would hit the road. To where, he didn't know.