"You know, I guess I can tell you this now," she ventured hesitantly. "When I first looked into your office, it was so small, and well…"

"Dingy?" he offered, and she smiled an acknowledgment.

"Yes. So I wasn't even going to go in or even talk to you. You know what changed my mind?"

Jack didn't have a clue, so he just fixed an interested expression on his face and waited.

"It was your gay friend."

"Miro?" He was truly confused. "How so?"

"Our institute has advocated for gay rights. Most cops have this kind of overly macho thing going on. Y'know, like gay people aren't even worth spitting on, just because they have a different lifestyle. But I looked in and you're both sitting there chatting. He's your friend. That tells me something really important about you."

"Yes… yes," Jack said, hard-pressed to deal with that, but determined to try. "I find that people are just people, and that once you cut through all the surface stuff-the lifestyle choices, the color lines, the sexual whatevers- what really counts is who they are underneath." He smiled at a few of the overly developed men nearby to make his point. They smiled back. One of them waved.

"Exactly," she said earnestly, taking his heart and his breath away at the same time.

He gazed into her blue-green eyes swimming in their luminous beauty, thinking, Maybe this neighborhood isn't gonna be so bad after all.

When Herman walked in, Melissa King was sitting behind the huge oak desk in her office at the Federal Courthouse like a turret gunner about to flame some enemy aircraft. Volumes of the U.S. Court Reporter with mustard-yellow leather and gold bindings decorated three of the four office walls, giving the room just the right sense of awesome power. In those books was the gift of legal wisdom.

Judge King had decided not to dress up for the meeting, wearing no makeup and a blue-and-white muumuu printed with white Hawaiian flowers. She looked like Hilo Hattie in rehab. Her stringy blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail and held back with a rubber band. Her complexion was mottled with the heat rash of a third-trimester pregnancy. Her eyes were what scared him. They were as cold and deadly as two gun barrels-and they were sighting in on Herman over half-glasses perched on her nose.

He was back in his 'Number 4' court ensemble, his heart about as sound as the Canadian dollar-looking tired, but oh so presentable. Not that it mattered.

"Let's not waste a bunch a time on this, Herman," Melissa King started without preamble. "I know you don't have a million dollars."

"That's correct, Your Honor. Very perceptive."

"So how we gonna get this done?"

"Well, Your Honor, I was hoping to prevail on your sense of fair play, given our long legal relationship."

"Relationship? Let's review that. Two years ago you appeared before me on that silly MK Ultra mind control case against the CIA. Accused them of trying to brainwash people using broadcast television to create photosensitive epilepsy in viewers. Wasn't that the drill? Remember that one?"

"Judge, I'm not here to argue that case again. Obviously, you failed to see the merits there."

"Merits? Merits, Herman? What merits?" She shifted on her flat, bony ass to get more comfortable, then ripped her glasses off like she was getting ready for a fistfight. "You drag the CIA, CBS, NBC, Fox, and two animation companies into court and accuse them of conspiring to devise ways to hypnotize the American population with subliminal flashes during TV programs. Some case! Like the public is gonna go brain-dead from watching The A-Team. Not that I don't think that might do it, but did you have a shred of evidence?"

"Yes."

"No."

"Because you limited the scope. Cut me down. Kept most of it out."

"Dammit, Herman, the system is crowded. We've got scheduling calendars that look like rainy-day traffic reports. People wait years to get to trial, and you're wasting court time on all this hopeless bullshit!" She was glowering at him. "Okay. So you have anything to say before I impose this monetary sanction?"

"Your Honor, if I might, I'd like to please try and convince you that a fine of a million dollars is excessive, and I really think this problem with the amended complaint doesn't deserve a Rule Eleven penalty. It's not about the validity of the lawsuit." She was scowling angrily and he was beginning to sweat. His forehead felt damp, so he took out his handkerchief and wiped his face, folding it afterwards, then putting it carefully away, trying to look like Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind, instead of a fat, sweating mouthpiece about to get reamed.

"Your Honor…" he cautiously went on. "Using Danaus Plexippus really didn't cause substantial harm, because anyone can pursue the public interest in preserving monarch butterflies. I could have used anyone as a plaintiff, so it's of no real merit that the plaintiff foundation wasn't precisely as advertised."

"That's not the point, Herman, and you know it," she growled. "I bifurcated the injunction and the case for damages, then let you put them on together. Now it turns out that in order to finagle yourself a jury trial at public expense you ginned up a phony foundation with bogus damages and lied about it in court. You've done that for the last time. The fine stands at a million dollars."

"I don't have anything close to a million dollars," he said.

"Then you'll have to raise it. Sell something."

"Judge, nothing I have even comes close to that. I hate to reveal this to Your Honor, but my practice does not make much money. We do a lot of very important work, but much of it is pro bono."

"Herman, let's cut to the chase. I'm not reducing the amount, okay? So, you'll appeal and I'll prevail. In the meantime, I want to set up a payment schedule."

"Your Honor, I need time. You're going to throw me into bankruptcy."

"We certainly don't want that, now, do we?" She looked at her calendar, picked up a pencil, did some long division, then looked up. "Let's say, ten thousand dollars a month for the next eight years. How's that sound? I'll give you a break on the cost of money-we won't compound the interest."

"Even if I spend half my time doing paid speaking engagements I couldn't raise that."

"Who do you speak to, Star Trek conventions?" She was smiling now.

"I know you're enjoying yourself, Melissa, but this isn't funny to me. Just because you don't see the value in my legal actions doesn't mean they don't have value."

"Yeah, right. Okay, then. That's the deal. It's settled. I'll give you until the end of the month. That's four days to get the first payment in. The money will be distributed amongst the defense counsels to cover their legal fees for this joke of a case you filed against them. Once their expenses are met, the remainder will go to the circuit court."

"I'll have to sell all my office equipment."

"If that's what it takes, so be it."

He looked at her, realizing that he had hit a wall. He was afraid if he didn't get out of there his heart was going to take off on him again, so he nodded his head. "All right, I'll do my best."

"Always nice to see you, Herman," she said sarcastically, then pushed a button on her phone. The bailiff opened the door and stood waiting.

"Make sure Mr. Strockmire gets his parking validation. He's gonna need to save every cent he has."

Herman turned and walked to the door, but he paused there and looked back at her. "Some time in the future, you're going to see that I was right," he said.

"Four days," she reminded him.

Then he was out of her chambers standing in the cold marble hallway under a vaulted ceiling.

"Are you okay, Mr. Strockmire?" the bailiff asked. Herman had gotten to know him during jury selection. He was a nice, gray-haired old man in a federal marshal's uniform assigned to the courthouse until next year, when he would get his forty in and retire.