CHAPTER THIRTY.

1.

The receptionist in the office of Shapiro's lawyer, Paul Guzman, checked and told Jack that Guzman was in court.

As Jack left the office, the Cowboy leaned over the receptionist and flashed his ID.

The receptionist looked sideways at Jack. Suspiciously. And repeated for the Cowboy the information she had just given Jack.

Whatever ID the Cowboy possessed impressed people.

Jack and the Cowboy waited for the elevators side-by-side, facing forward. Not talking.

Side-by-side, they entered the elevator, simultaneously turned to face-forward as if they were a double act in vaudeville, and rode down to the lobby in silence.

Jack hailed a cab.

"Can I give you a lift?" Jack asked.

The Cowboy nodded and got in beside Jack.

Together, facing forward, still in silence, they rode down to 100 Centre Street.

Jack smelled the Cowboy's very uncowboylike aftershave, a light, almost lemony scent. Expensive. Not something you'd pick up in a drugstore.

Jack checked out the Cowboy's fingernails, which were manicured.

Why the cowboy outfit?

Why not?

Jack was still studying the Cowboy's fingernails, when the Cowboy unconsciously flexed his left hand.

Those long tapered manicured fingers were deceptive. Those hands could belong to a strangler.

2.

"Docket ending 971," said the bridgeman standing at the front of the courtroom. "The People versus Fritz Donas on a 230.00, Prostitution, 115.05, Criminal Facilitation in the second degree, 100.10, Criminal Solicitation in the second degree, 220.41, and Criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree."

Jack whispered to a man carrying a briefcase in his left hand and a brown overstuffed expanding file under his right arm-undoubtedly a lawyer-"They told me Paul Guzman's in this court."

"Counsel," the bridgeman was saying, "do you waive the reading of the rights and charges, but not the rights thereunder?"

"Biland," the man with the briefcase and expanding file said. "Roger Biland. I'm not your guy, Guzman."

"What I meant," Jack said, "do you know Guzman?"

"What's your guy, Guzman, charged with?" Biland asked Jack.

"He's a lawyer," Jack said.

"Lawyer?" Biland said. "It's not good when one of us gets nailed."

"I'm not a lawyer," Jack said. "Not anymore."

"But you're representing your client," Biland said. "This guy Guzman."

"I'm not representing him," Jack said.

"Who is?" Biland asked.

"Nobody," Jack said.

"Let me give you my card," Biland said. "If he needs a lawyer, he could do worse than me. A lot worse."

"Your Honor," the defense lawyer was saying, "the bottom charge, criminal sale of a controlled substance in the second degree-"

"Your plea, Counselor," said the judge.

"Guzman's not charged with anything," Jack said.

"Then why are you here, trying to get him representation?" the man asked.

"I'm not," Jack said. "I'm just trying to find him."

"Keep the card," Biland said. "If you ever need a lawyer..."

Tucking the overstuffed expanding file tighter under his arm, Biland continued around to the right aisle of the court and sat in the back bench, where he put his briefcase on one side of him and his file on the other side of him and started taking papers from his pockets.

The bridgeman was calling another case: "Docket ending 694. The People versus Francisco Franco on a 120.04, Grand Larceny in the fourth degree on the complaint of Officer Leonard Cruz."

At the back of the courtroom, a man with white hair was jotting something in a reporter's notebook.

"Francisco Franco...," the judge said. "You've got a notable name."

Jack figured the white-haired man for a journalist. If the court was his beat, he might know Guzman.

"Los Cuatro Generales, Los Cuatro Generales," the white-haired man was singing under his breath. "Los Cuatro Generales, Mamita mia, Que se han alzado, Que se han alzado..."

"What's that?" Jack asked as he eased next to the white-haired man, who gave him a side-long glance.

"'The Four Insurgent Generals,'" the man said. "It's a song from the Spanish Civil War," he said.

"I didn't know the Spanish Civil War was a musical," Jack said.

The white-haired man held out his hand and introduced himself, "Leo Diamond."

Jack took his hand and introduced himself, "Jack Slidell. Are you a reporter?"

"I write about the courts," Leo said.

"Do you know a lawyer named Guzman?" Jack asked. "Paul Guzman?"

"The short, bald guy on the right," Leo said.

Jack nodded his thanks and started toward Guzman, but Leo touched his arm.

"If you're looking for a lawyer," Leo said, "he's a pit bull."

The Cowboy watched Jack talk to Leo.

A woman in a tan, tailored suit passing Guzman asked him, "Where's your client?"

"In LA," Guzman said, "doing hard time at the Beverly Hills Hotel."

"Mr. Guzman," Jack said, "can I talk to you for a minute?"

It took Guzman a moment to figure out which case Jack was asking about.

"Shapiro," Guzman said when he placed the case. "Right, the college professor who attacked the guy, what's his name, Flowers, and got fired."

3.

"Keating got Shapiro fired?" Caroline had said on her end of the phone call as Jack, followed by the Cowboy, walked up Broadway toward the bowling alley.

The wind kicked a discarded cardboard coffee cup down the street. The sky was a sulfurous yellow-green. Clouds boiled, racing up Broadway. An off-duty cab passed, its scram light on. On a construction site, six identical posters advertised an all-female, all-nude production of Waiting for Godot.

"Why would Keating get Shapiro fired?" she asked.

"Find out," Jack said. "What's Keating's connection to the college?"

The neon sign for Cosmic Bowling was made up of a crescent moon, stars, comets, zigzags indicating extraterrestrial forces.

Inside, the bowling alley was lit like a nightclub. A spinning disco ball sprayed the room with splinters of light. A throbbing bass beat below the eerie 1950s science fiction music of a theremin. Phosphorescent nebulae glowed on the ceiling. Black lights illuminated fluorescent blue-and-pink pictures of colliding galaxies on the walls.

Jack rented a pair of bowling shoes and sat down on an orange plastic chair.

The Cowboy sat in a bright blue chair in the next lane, also tying the laces of rented bowling shoes.

Jack hadn't bowled for years.

His backswing was jerky. He tended to start the ball behind his back, not straight by his side. He released the ball too far from his body, and his wrist felt loose. He got a couple of bad splits When the Cowboy held the ball, his thumb was at about twelve o'clock. He had a smooth four-step delivery. When he released the ball, his thumb was at eleven. Perfect.

His loft averaged twelve feet from the foul line.

Jack bowled a 115.

The Cowboy bowled a 137.

Jack left his ball and returned his bowling shoes to the clerk at the counter, a sandy-haired, young-looking middle-aged man who was reading a comic book. When the man looked up to acknowledge Jack's return of the shoes, Jack thought his eyes looked as galactic as the black-lit spirals on the walls.

The guy's tripping on something, Jack figured.

The Cowboy left his ball and returned his shoes and followed Jack out of the bowling alley.

When they both had left, Jack's law school friend, Vincent Tremain, got up from the table in the Cosmic Bowling restaurant, where he'd been nursing a cup of black coffee. As he'd planned with Jack over the phone, he wrapped the Cowboy's bowling ball in a pillowcase, brought it to the clerk, and asked, "How much to buy this thing?"

"That's an Ebonite Maxim Captain Midnight," the clerk said. "New, it'll run you seventy bucks, something like that."

Noticing how quickly Tremain pulled out his wallet, the clerk added, "I'll sell it to you for a hundred,"-which Tremain paid.

An hour later, while Jack was waiting in Penn Station for the Empire Service north to Hudson, Tremain called.

Jack answered his cell.

"I delivered your friend's bowling ball to the lab," Tremain said. "There's a cop who works there who owes me big. Says there won't be a problem getting prints off the ball, in the finger holes."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.