‘Will the defendant waive time?’ Which meant that in exchange for this three-week delay, May would give up her right to a preliminary hearing within ten days.

‘Yes, Your Honor.’

Barsotti scratched his chin. ‘Three weeks, hmm.’ He looked down at his desk, moved some papers around. ‘Will counsel approach the bench?’

Pullios, Hardy and Freeman moved around their respective tables and up before the judge. Barsotti’s eyes were milk-watery. The drama hadn’t lasted long. ‘We’re getting ourselves into the beginning of vacation season here. Would there be any objection to, say, the day after Labor Day?’

‘None here, Your Honor,’ Freeman said.

‘Your Honor, Labor Day is over two months away. The defendant has a right to a speedy trial, but the people have no less a right to speedy justice.’

‘I don’t need a lecture, Counselor.’

‘Of course not, Your Honor. But the prosecution is ready to proceed in ten days. Two months is a rather lengthy delay.’

This was not close to true, and everyone knew it. Barsotti looked at Pullios over his glasses. ‘Not for this time of year, it isn’t. We got a full docket, and you know as well as I do it can go six months, a year, before we get a hearing.’ Barsotti clearly didn’t expect to get any argument, and it put his back up. He shuffled some papers, looked down at something on his desk. ‘We’ll schedule the prelim for Wednesday, September sixth, nine-thirty A.M. in this department.

‘Thank you, Your Honor,’ Freeman said.

Pullios had her jaw set. ‘That’d be fine, Your Honor.’

‘That’s all now.’ He brushed all counsel away and looked over to the bailiff. ‘Call the next line,’ he said.

Prelim courtrooms were on the first and second floors. The hallway outside the courtrooms on both floors was about twenty feet wide, the ceilings fifteen feet high, the floors linoleum. But except for the sound of falling pins, it had all the ambience, volume and charm of a low-rent bowling alley.

During the hours court was in session there were seldom less than two hundred people moving to and fro -witnesses, lawyers, clerks, spectators, families and friends. People chatted on the floors against the walls. Mothers breast-fed their babies. Folks ate lunch, kissed, cried, cut deals. On Monday and Thursday mornings, after the janitors had cleaned up, the hallway smelled like the first day of school. By now, seven hours into the workday, it just smelled.

Hardy, Glitsky and Jeff Elliot stood in a knot outside Department 11. All of them were watching Pullios’s rear end as it disappeared around the corner down near the elevators. ‘Good thing justice is blind,’ Glitsky said, ‘or Freeman wouldn’t have a chance.’

‘I don’t know,’ Elliot said. ‘He’s got May.’

‘Yeah, her dress though, that baggy yellow thing doesn’t show it off like old Betsy.’ Hardy liked calling her Betsy. He knew he was going to get used to it and slip someday. He kind of looked forward to it. He pointed at Elliot. ‘That was off the record.’

Jeff was happy to be included again. ‘Of course.’

‘Just making sure.’

‘So what do you think,’ Glitsky asked, ‘Christmas for the trial? Next Easter?’

Hardy said he didn’t know how long Freeman could delay if he wasn’t going to make bail. He wouldn’t want to leave May in jail for a year, awaiting trial.

‘I don’t know. Maybe she’ll make bail,’ Glitsky said.

‘How’s she gonna make bail?’ Elliot asked. ‘Half a million dollars?’

‘How much does David Freeman charge? Half a million dollars? If it goes a year, it could easily come to that.’

‘How’d she get Freeman anyway?’ Hardy asked.

Glitsky shrugged. ‘If we only knew an investigative reporter or something…’

‘She’s got to have some money. What’s her house look like?’ Hardy asked.

‘Apartment,’ Glitsky answered. ‘Small. Nice, but small.’

‘Maybe Freeman is one of her clients.’ Elliot clearly liked the idea, was warming to it. That’s it! Freeman is one of her clients. Nash was another.‘

Glitsky held down his enthusiasm. ‘And the will is collateral on the come after he gets her off.’

‘What will?’

Glitsky stopped short. He took a beat, then smiled down at the reporter. ‘Did I say “will”? I don’t think I said “will.” ’

Hardy shook his head. ‘No, I’m sure I would’ve heard it. I was right here and I didn’t hear anything like “will.” ’

‘Are we on the record here or what?’ Elliot leaned into his crutches. ‘Come on, guys.’

Hardy glanced at Abe. ‘What do you think?’

‘It’s gonna come out anyway,’ Abe said, ‘but it would be sort of nice to find out how Freeman got connected to May. Pullios is really going for capital?’

Hardy nodded. ‘You heard her.’

Glitsky laid it out for Jeff – the $2 million will, the profit motive, Farris tentatively authenticating the handwriting.

‘Well, there’s the money if he gets her off,’ Elliot said.

Glitsky looked at Hardy. ‘This guy must not know any defense attorneys,’ he said. Then, explaining, ‘Jeff, listen, if there’s one thing all defense attorneys do, they get their money up front.’

‘Think about it,’ Hardy said. ‘You’re found guilty, you don’t pay your attorney ’cause he didn’t do the job. You’re not guilty, you don’t pay him ‘cause you don’t need him anymore. Either way, your attorney is stiffed. Maybe you’re grateful, but not a half million dollars’ grateful.’

‘Maybe he just gets the rights up front for the book deal. Maybe that’s his fee.’

‘Pico was telling me that we – him and me – ought to go for a book deal. We found the hand, after all.’

‘Hey!’ Rare for him, Glitsky got into it. ‘I arrested May. I ought to get the book deal.’

Elliot said, ‘Somebody is paying Freeman. You still don’t think maybe he’s one of her clients?’

Glitsky put a look on Jeff. ‘A half million dollars’ worth of ass?‘

‘Not including bail,’ Hardy put in.

Glitsky said, ‘If she makes bail.’

‘I don’t know,’ Hardy said. ‘I’ve got a feeling here. Freeman’s going for delay. He doesn’t want delay if she’s cooling her heels upstairs. Which means she makes bail.’

‘I think you’re innocent. That’s why.’ This was not close to true. David Freeman’s words were tools to produce the effect he desired. That’s all they were.

May Shinn was drinking Chardonnay in a booth at Tadich’s Grill. David Freeman, her rumpled genius, sat across from her. Before the arraignment, he’d gone down to her bank with power of attorney and withdrawn $50,000, just about cleaning out her life savings. He’d known exactly the amount they’d set bail for. He’d gotten the clothes they’d taken from her and got them pressed before they gave them back to her. He’d bought her new makeup.

He’d followed the story in the newspaper. When he read of her arrest on Saturday morning, he knew he had to help her, that she would need an attorney, that a Japanese mistress of a well-known and powerful man was going to have a very difficult time making a defense against the arrayed powers. Now, having talked to her, he also had the advantage of believing she was innocent.

‘But I am unable to pay.’

He lifted his shoulders, sipped lugubriously at his own wine. The curtain was pulled across the booth. They had been through this before. He had started by trying to convince her that he was taking her case pro bono. Once in a while, he had told her, you just had to do something because it was the right thing to do. Which had caused her to smile.

‘If I can’t lie to you, you should not lie to me.’

‘May, why would I lie?’

She put her glass down, twirled it around, kept her eyes on him. Finally he cracked, laughing at himself. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘okay, but its not a terrifically flattering motive.’

‘It’s not been a very flattering few days,’ she said.

‘No, I guess not.’ Freeman drank some wine, then took a breath and began. ‘Until about ten years ago, attorneys weren’t allowed to advertise, did you know that?’