Brad looked like he'd been kicked in the balls. Which, in a way, he had. "You don't know that for sure," he said.

I leaned forward in my chair, over my desk, close to Brad's ear. "Try me," I whispered.

I sat back. Brad sat there, stunned, for a good minute. The he got up, spun out of his chair, stalked around the office a couple of times, sat back down, and started gnawing on his thumb.

"Fuck!" he finally said.

It was over. I won.

Now was the time to get him back to our side. "Brad," I said. "You don't want to have the money back. You think you do right now because you're cheap and you're in a panic. But it's penny wise and pound foolish. In the long run, you're going to look good by letting Michelle keep it."

Brad smirked. "Somehow I doubt that," he said.

"Such little faith," I said. "Try this one on: today, as you may or may not know, I was casually accused of setting up my client for her accident."

"I watched that in the office, right before I called," Brad said. "What an asshole."

"You have no idea," I said. "What if we say that I set up this meeting in a panic, and begged you to take the twelve million back? That way, from my point of view, any suspicion would be off of me, because I'd have no financial reason to off my client."

Brad looked at me strangely. "This benefits you, but I'm waiting to see how it benefits me."

"It benefits you, Brad, because you angrily refuse to accept the money back. How dare I assume that just because Michelle is in a coma, that'd you'd snatch the money back. We can say that in addition to refusing the money, you demanded that if Michelle didn't recover, that I donate the money to brain trauma research. Say, fund a professorship at UCLA Medical School or some such."

"What were you going to do with the money, if you don't mind me asking?"

I gestured to the heavens with my hands. "Damn it, Brad. I don't know that she left me her money. Even if she did, I sure as hell don't want it. If it got given to me, that's probably what I'd do with it. Yes, that's what I would do. But my point here is — this idea came from you. You look good because you took a stand for Michelle."

"And you throw the scent off of yourself."

"There is that added benefit, yes."

Brad thought about it. "And you'll say that this is what happened?"

"No, Brad," I said. "This is what happened. At least, as I remember it."

Brad smiled, even though I'm sure it hurt to do it. "You sure are a piece of work, Tom. All right, keep the twelve."

"And her gross points."

"Oh, come on, Tom," Brad said. "Stop with the kicking."

"Tell you what," I said. "I'll drop our twelve gross points if you give Charlene Mayfield six."

"What do you care?" Brad said. "She's not even your client."

"Brad, you moron," I said. "They're not from me. They're from you. Remember the concept: Make Brad Look Good."

"Oh. All right."

"Great," I said, leaned back and closed my eyes. I was getting a headache. When I opened them again, Brad was still sitting there, looking pensive.

"Something on your mind, Brad?" I asked.

"Hmmm? No, just thinking about the accident. It's a terrible thing, you know."

"I know," I said. "We've been through this."

"No, I know," Brad said. "I was just thinking about why we were having the mask made in the first place."

"You were going to have her head explode, or something, I thought," I said.

"Well, not really that," Brad said. "It's for this scene in the film where the alien overlord is trying to get control of Michelle's body — we were going to have the overlord stick his tentacles in her mouth and ears as a way to get to her brain. Really disgusting, of course — eyeballs popping and mouth really huge and all that. Obviously we couldn't do any of those effects with Michelle's real face."

"Glad that you recognize that, Brad."

"We could have used digital effects, but those things are expensive," he said, apparently oblivious to the fact that his latex mask had, in fact, just cost him twelve million dollars. He grinned suddenly, a rueful grin. "You know, I could have used that alien overlord right about now."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Oh, nothing," Brad said, waving me off. "I was just free-associating. If our alien overlord was real, then it wouldn't matter if Michelle was in a coma or not. He'd just suck her brain out, plop himself in, and do the part himself. No one would know any better. Michelle's not exactly Meryl Streep. Would have saved me money, anyway."

Brad caught a look at my face. "Jesus, Tom," he said. "I'm sorry. That was probably not the nicest thing I could have said right about now. Sorry if I just upset you. You all right?"

"I'm fine," I said. "I'm sorry, Brad. I just had a thought myself."

The door to the fourth floor of Pomona Valley Hospital opened, and I was confronted by the face of officer Bob Ramos.

"Hi, Mr. Stein," he said.

"Hi, Bob," I said.

"Nice dog you have there," Officer Ramos said.

Joshua did his best stupid dog grin.

"Not my dog, it's Michelle's," I said. "I thought he might help bring her out of it. You know."

"Sure," Ramos said. "I guess we can pretty safely say you don't want Dr. Adams to know about it, right?"

"Right," I agreed. "I'm not visiting at two in the morning just because I'm not sleepy."

"Got it," Ramos said.

"By the way," I said. "I've got something for you." I pulled out a CD that I'd been carrying under my arm.

Ramos took it. "What is this?"

"You mentioned that your daughter was a fan of Tea Reader's," I said. "So I thought she might like to have an autographed copy of the CD. See, look, it's even made out to 'Maria.'" I didn't tell Ramos that the CD had in fact been autographed by Miranda. The chances of Tea Reader herself doing me a favor these days were slim and fast approaching none.

"Well, that was really nice of you to do that," Ramos said. "My little girl is going to be thrilled right out of her socks. You're a real stand-up guy, Mr. Stein."

"It's nothing," I said. "Glad to do it. Is anyone else in with Michelle?"

"I've been here since midnight and no one's come through except for the nurse," Ramos said. "You might check with Officer Gardner. She's over at the stairs. Been there since 11."

"That's all right," I said. "I'm just going to pop in for a couple of minutes. You'll let me know if the nurse comes by again?"

"Sure," Ramos said. "I'll make a lot of noise. Give you enough time to hide the dog in the can."

"Thanks, Bob," I said, and then headed down the hall with Joshua.

The door to Michelle's room had been left open. Inside, a cone of light illuminated Michelle, whose bed had been positioned so she was reclining rather than lying down directly. The rest of the room was dark, and the other two beds in the room, still empty, had their curtains closed around them. I closed the door, and then went over to Michelle. She was unchanged: comatose and on a respirator. I felt a fresh wave of guilt.

"Tom," Joshua said. "I can't do anything from down here."

"Do you want to get on the bed?" I asked.

"No, that'd be mighty uncomfortable," Joshua said. "Grab me one of those visitor's chairs and put it near the head of the bed, please."

There was one near the bed on my side; I wheeled it around to Joshua's side, to avoid him accidentally knocking over the IV. He asked me to turn it around so that the back faced the bed; when I had done so, he jumped up on the chair and propped himself up on the back of the chair, putting himself on a level with the bed.

"That'll probably be close enough," Joshua said.