THE LAST DAY.

Steve and Bobby had gotten two steps inside the front door of Les Mannequins when the first wave of infantry attacked.

"Steve, I need you!" Lexy shouted. Her long blond hair, usually ironing-board flat, was poufed up today. She wore hot pink Lycra short shorts with a white sh.e.l.l top.

"Look at me," she commanded, extending a long, bare arm. Her wrist was wrapped in a leather brace.

"I don't do Rollerblade accidents," Steve said, without stopping. If he lingered, he'd pick up half-a-dozen freebie clients before he reached the stairs.

"It's a workers' comp claim," Lexy declared.

"You have a job?" Moving past the front desk now. One stumble, he'd be a wildebeest set upon by lions.

"Part-time. At 1800b.l.o.w.j.o.b."

"You're a phone-s.e.x operator?"

The stairs were in sight. A haven as inviting as Key West to Cuban rafters.

"Easy money," Lexy said. "All I do is m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e."

"Masturbation," Bobby said. "ANATOMIST RUB."

"But if you diddle a dozen times a day, five days a week, you end up with carpal tunnel." Lexy held up the wrist support for show-and-tell.

Steve violated his own rules and stopped at the foot of the stairs. "You really do it? I thought the oohing and aahing was fake."

"Say, you're not Steve the Stud who calls at three A.M., are you?"

Before Steve could answer, Lexy's twin, Rexy, stepped out of a dressing room in her skysc.r.a.per Jimmy Choos. She wore identical short shorts and her hair was piled into an identical pouf. "Steve! They arrested me!"

"Who? Why?"

"DUI, can you believe it? All I had were four or five black Russians. They're like milk shakes, right? Plus they charged me with obstruction of justice."

"Why?"

"For eating my panties."

"You were wearing panties?"

"Just a thong. The cloth is supposed to absorb alcohol and screw up the Breathalyzer, but I still blew a point nine. What should I do?"

"Next time, wear boxers."

Steve started up the stairs and was tugged backwards. Gina had his coattail in one hand and was waving a blue-backed doc.u.ment in the other. "Steve, can you sue a dead guy?"

"If he's got an estate. Why?"

"I was going out with this rich old guy, trying to pull an Anna Nicole Smith."

"And you killed him?"

"No way. He said if I went to bed with him, he'd name me in his will. So I did it, and now, guess what, he's dead."

"Congratulations."

"No. Read it! Paragraph seventeen."

She thrust the doc.u.ment in front of Steve's eyes, and he read aloud. "'Finally, I promised Ms. Gina Capretto that I would name her in my will. h.e.l.lo, Gina.'"

The reception room was empty, unless you counted the Pamela Anderson inflatable doll at the desk. Steve and Bobby walked past her and into the inner office.

"Forty-five . . . forty-six . . . Hey, jefe."

Sweating and red-faced, Cece was doing elevated push-ups, her feet on Steve's chair, her arms on the floor, veins throbbing in her neck. She wore denim cutoffs and a chopped T-shirt. Three toes on each bare foot were encircled by faux diamond rings.

"Forty-seven . . . forty-eight . . . Hey, Bobby . . . Brittany Spears."

"SPINY RAT BREAST," Bobby shot back.

"Good one," Cece said. "Forty-nine . . . fifty!" She kicked off the chair into a handstand, pointed her jeweled toes toward the ceiling, lowered into a vertical push-up, then sprang into a front flip and landed on her feet.

Steve glanced at Victoria's desk. The few law books and files she'd brought with her were neatly packed in three cardboard boxes. Though he'd never been married, he imagined this is what it felt like on the verge of divorce. A piece of himself would soon be missing.

Cece grabbed a towel and roped it around Bobby's neck. "Hey, brainiac, I hear you're stuck with your uncle from now on."

"Next year, we're going back to court and he's gonna adopt me," Bobby said. "Then I'll call him 'Dad' instead of 'Uncle Steve.'"

Steve grabbed his calendar from his desk. "Cece, where are my appointments?"

"Don't got any," she said.

"No one's called?"

"MasterCard. You've been canceled."

"I don't get it. Where are the new clients? I just won a big murder trial."

The door opened, and Victoria walked in.

"I mean, we just won a big murder trial," he said. "Hey, Vic."

"I need to talk to you," she said.

She wore a glen plaid outfit that reminded him of something. What was it?

That first day. It's what she wore the day we were thrown in jail. And now it's the last day.

Later, when Steve would think about this moment, he would remember her face. Troubled. Eyes puffy. Hair messy. Not much sleep and maybe a crying spell. But just then, he barely noticed. He was too wrapped up in his own punctured dreams of a big-time law practice. "This doesn't make sense. We win a huge case, and this place is like a morgue."

"That's just it," Cece said. "You didn't win Barksdale. At least, people don't think you did. I was in the clerk's office yesterday, and everybody was saying how great it was that Pincher figured out your client was innocent, even if you couldn't. They say he's gonna run for governor as a compa.s.sionate prosecutor."

"I don't believe this. Vic, you believe this?"

"Could we talk now? Please."

The phone rang and Steve said, "Maybe that's a new client."

Cece picked it up: "Solomon and Lord, Attorneys at Law . . ."

For a few minutes more, anyway, Steve thought.

"Civil and criminal litigation," Cece continued. "Hablamos Espaol."

"Steve . . ." Victoria said.

"Yes, Your Honor," Cece said into the phone.

"Hang on," Steve told Victoria, trying to listen. When a judge calls, it was usually not to compliment your lawyering skills.

"Yes, sir. I'll tell him right now, Your Honor," Cece said, then hung up.

"What?" Steve said. "Who was that?"

"Judge Gridley himself. He's p.i.s.sed 'cause you're late for the Sachses' final hearing."

"What final hearing! You didn't put it on my calendar."

"You expect me to keep track of all the places you're supposed to be?"

"That's your job!"

"Don't yell at me. I'm not your slave."

"Victoria, come on. You've got to represent Harry's wife."

"Why?"

"The Sachses' divorce. Gridley requires both parties be represented, even when it's uncontested. I'll introduce the property settlement agreement. Harry and Joanne will say they signed it, and we'll be out of there in five minutes."

"Then we'll talk?" she asked, but Steve was already hustling her toward the door.

10. We all hold the keys to our own jail cells.

Fifty-five.

SOLOMON'S LAWS.

"Y'all think my dog-a.s.s Gators can make the Final Four?" Judge Erwin Gridley asked.

"Tough region," Steve said. "They'll be lucky to get to the Sweet Sixteen."

The judge harrumphed, or maybe the open-jawed alligator head on his desk did. They were in the orange-and-blue chambers of the old Bull Gator himself. Steve sat on one side of the T-bone-shaped conference table, his client, Harry Sachs, alongside. As Harry was not working today-meaning he wasn't pulling one of his numerous cons-he had left the wheelchair at home. He wore jeans and a cammie jacket emblazoned with Marine battle insignia he'd bought on the Internet. Harry was admiring a miniature replica of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, maybe wondering how much it would bring at a p.a.w.nshop. Steve made a mental note to frisk his client before they left chambers.

Directly across the table sat Joanne Sachs, a handsome woman in her mid-forties in wire-framed gla.s.ses and a gray wool dress with a white lacy collar. Steve nodded to her, thinking they were a mismatched couple. If he saw Harry and Joanne side by side on the street, he'd figure she was a librarian about to have her purse s.n.a.t.c.hed.

Victoria sat next to Joanne, scanning the Property Settlement Agreement. At the side of the judge's desk, Sofia Hernandez, in a black leather mini and a white blouse, was poised over her stenograph machine. Her long, lacquered nails were emblazoned with silver hearts.

"Mr. Sachs, have you been a resident of Miami-Dade County for six months prior to filing this pet.i.tion?" the judge asked.

"Yes, sir," Harry said.

"Your marriage irretrievably broken?"

"Like Heidi Fleiss' hymen."

"How's that?"

"He answered in the affirmative," Steve said, giving his client a sharp look.

"Now, this Property Settlement Agreement," Judge Gridley continued, "you agree with its terms?"

"Every word," Harry said fervently.

"You, too, Mrs. Sachs?"

Joanne Sachs started to nod, but Victoria put a hand on her arm and said: "Your Honor, I'm not sure this agreement is entirely fair."

Steve bolted to attention. "What are you doing?"

"Representing my client," Victoria said.

"Your client already signed the agreement."

"Without benefit of independent counsel."

"Hey, Lord. Stick to the script, okay?"

"I'm not a potted plant."