“There’s no need,” I said.

“You are to do nothing, absolutely nothing,” said Moore, dumping his ashes on top of the ravioli, his voice rising in anger. “You’re getting paid a lot of money to do absolutely nothing and that’s all you better do. I’m not going to have some skinny-assed geek with a hard-on for my girl sending me to jail because he gets in the way of my high-priced attorney. The only reason you’re here is because Prescott told me you would stay out of his way.”

“I told Jimmy and Chester,” said Prescott, with the false conciliation of a State Department spokesman, “that I thought you were bright enough to grasp our defense and a sharp enough trial attorney to realize the importance of letting me try the entire case.”

“Do you got it now, asshole?” said Moore.

“That’s enough, Jimmy,” said Chester. “He understands.”

“Oh my,” said Moore with a laugh. “He’s crying. I see a tear.”

“Enough,” said Chet sharply.

“I’m not crying,” I said as I wiped my eyes with a napkin. “It’s just an allergic reaction to the smoke. And I don’t have a hard-on for your girl.”

“You could have fooled me,” said Moore. “Walking in here with a billy club inside your pants. You better choose here and now. Up or down, boy? It’s your choice. You step out of line and you won’t be able to find a client to save your life. You play ball and I can send a lot of business your way. A lot of business. It’s already started, hasn’t it?”

“Did you call the Bishops?” asked Prescott matter-of-factly.

“Yes,” I said, understanding now exactly what the position of outside counsel for the Valley Hunt Estates deal entailed.

“It’s a great opportunity for a young lawyer trying to make a name for himself,” said Prescott.

“Not to mention the money,” said Moore.

“We have to work as a team,” said Prescott.

“If that’s what my client wants,” I said.

“That’s what he wants,” said Moore. “Isn’t that right, Chet?”

“That’s what I want,” said Chet, now looking at me square in the face.

“All right,” I said. “Whatever my client wants. But the jury’s going to be asking the same question I just did.”

“We’ll tell them there wasn’t any other money,” said Prescott matter-of-factly as he folded a red napkin. “Ruffing simply exaggerated the amount in his testimony. His accountant advised him that money paid to an extortionist is a deductible expense, so like every other American he lied on his taxes and now he’s stuck with it.”

“You can prove that?” I asked.

“Just keep out of my way, Victor,” said Prescott coldly.

“So, everything’s settled then, right?” said Moore. “No more trips to the DA’s office, right? No more questions. No more freelancing, right?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“That’s damn right,” said Jimmy Moore. “Now, have some wine, Victor.” He poured a blood-red Chianti into my glass. “There’s plenty more where that came from. And finish your veal. I insist.”

I had lost whatever appetite I once held, and the sight of Moore’s ashes sinking into the ravioli gravy made me positively nauseous, but still I was hacking into the meat with a steak knife when Veronica returned. She smiled as she walked in, glanced at me with a touch of concern, and sat down.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she said.

“Not at all,” said Moore. “Victor was just telling us how much he was enjoying his chop.”

“THIS ISN’T THE WAY,” I said from the back seat of the limousine. I was alone in the car except for Henry, Moore’s driver. With the partition down I could see the back of his head, nappy hair cut short, thick neck, a set of tiny ears. “I told you Twenty-second and Spruce.”

“I be knowing where you live at, mon, believe me,” said Henry in his lilting island accent. “But is some business I need first to do.”

“Can’t it wait until you take me home?”

“No, mon. Just you sit back and be resting yourself. We be done here quick.”

I was too tired and nauseous to argue. From the restaurant we had gone to a bar and then to a place on the river and then to a private club above a storefront off South Street, where the booths had curtains and the lights were low. Through the whole of the evening, whenever Jimmy wasn’t looking, Veronica rubbed her hand across my crotch. Prescott had left us in the restaurant, and I too had tried to leave, but Moore insisted and Veronica smiled and against all my judgment I tagged along. Because the thing was, I knew, somewhere in my weak-willed heart, I just knew that tagging along with Jimmy Moore was exactly what I wanted to do. Jimmy was probably crooked and Chester was most likely his accomplice and Veronica was definitely dangerous, but sitting in those clubs, drinking champagne, laughing my forced laugh, stealing cigarettes, sitting in those clubs, I again felt the knot in my stomach ease and the ice melt. I couldn’t actually say I was enjoying myself after the browbeating I had been given at the restaurant, but for all his faults Jimmy knew something about living I had never learned, something I wanted desperately to learn.

“Have another drink,” Jimmy had said as he filled my glass with champagne. There were others at the table with us now, young girls with bare legs who slurped their champagne loudly, two well-dressed black men, doctors in business with the city, I was told, and, of course, my buddy Chuckie Lamb, who glared at me the whole of our time together.

“I’ve had enough,” I said even as the foam slipped over the top of my glass. “Really.”

“Your lawyer’s very stuffy,” said Veronica to Chester.

“It’s the profession,” said Chet.

“Look over there,” said Moore. A thin-shouldered bald man was leaning over a table, talking earnestly to a young woman with pretty, pouting lips. “Tom Bismark, managing partner of Blaine, Cox, Amber and Cox. Who’s that he’s with?”

“I think that’s his wife,” said Chester.

“How unusual,” said Veronica.

“His third wife.”

“I thought he moved out with his secretary,” said Moore.

“He did,” barked Chuckie Lamb. “He’s here with his wife, cheating on his mistress.”

“You have to admire a scoundrel who can’t even be faithful to his unfaithfulness,” said Moore. “What about you, Victor?”

“Not married,” I said.

“You can still cheat even if you’re single.”

“I’m pretty loyal.”

“You’re a boy scout, is that it?”

“I was, as a matter of fact.”

“I was never a boy scout,” said Moore. “I was too passionate for the boy scouts. There was too much I wanted to hold.” He leaned over to Veronica and with his hand turned her face toward him and kissed her with an open mouth. To see it knotted my stomach again.

“How’s your wife doing, Councilman?” I said.

Veronica’s eyes bugged out at me even as she was kissing Moore, but he just laughed when he was through. “Very fine, thank you, Victor. So nice of you to be concerned.”

“I find her very sweet and very sad,” I said. “Lonely, I think.”

“She is all of that and more,” said Jimmy. “But tell me something, Victor, how much sadness can we endure before we run for the light?” He snapped his fingers and one of the young girls with bare legs quickly threw her arms around my neck and her tongue in my ear.

“Hey, Chuckie,” said the councilman. “Victor here thinks you killed that lousy ballplayer.”

“Oh, he does, does he?” said Chuckie.

“You mean Zack?” said one of the girls. “He was so sweet. Why would you do something like that, Chuckie?”

Jimmy started laughing, losing control as he laughed harder, so hard he could barely get out the words, “Victor thinks you’re a murderer, Chuckie.”

“Victor better be careful,” said Chuckie, looking at me with an unkind eye. “He might just be right.”

I had left finally, feeling the tug of too much work and not enough time, the tug of responsibility, downing the last of my champagne and staggering out of the club into the cold misty night. I was looking for a cab on the deserted street when Henry came from behind me and grabbed my arm and led me to the limousine.