“Then my advice is to make a settlement offer. She’d go for it, she doesn’t have the stomach for litigation. She even cried during the dep.”

“She did?”

Give me a break. “Let’s settle it. I bet Julicher will call tomorrow with an offer, and if he doesn’t I’ll call him and feel him out. He can’t be totally sure we won’t prove the affair and if we do, he loses his case. And his contingency fee.”

“No. No settlement. Out of the question. It’s the same as an admission.”

I rubbed my forehead. “No, it isn’t. You wouldn’t be admitting anything. You’d be making the case, and the girl, go away.”

“No.”

“You’re putting me in an impossible position, Fiske. There’s no solution.”

“I don’t agree. I’ll find a solution.”

Bastard. “Look, we need to discuss this later, in person.” So I can smack you upside your head.

“Certainly. Kate and I are going out to dinner tonight at Samuel’s. I think Paul will be joining us, but you won’t, right?”

“Right.” I had something better to do. As cranky as I felt, scratching my ass would be something better to do.

“Fine, then. I’ll be home by ten. You and I can chat upstairs in my study.”

Chat? “Good.”

“See you then,” he said, and hung up.

Paul, who called almost immediately afterward, sounded more concerned about Fiske than Fiske did. He phoned from his car, which he called his virtual office. “They’re crucifying my father in public, did you know that?” he said, angry. “I just heard it on the radio. They’re trying to get the deposition transcripts.”

“Don’t worry, they’re under seal.” Not a hard order to get, one judge protecting another. “They can’t.”

“What did she say? How does she justify what she’s doing?”

I couldn’t talk about this with him. Not yet, maybe not ever. “She doesn’t, really. How’d the job go, with the garage?”

“You want to talk about an underground parking garage on a day like this? Isn’t her deposition important?”

“Yes, but tell me what happened with the garage. We have a life, too, right?” Ha.

“The salt got through the paving asphalt over the garage and damaged the membrane below. That’s why it leaked.”

“So you were right.”

“It happens. Rita, give me the headline. How’d the deposition go?” The connection crackled, which gave me an idea.

“We can’t talk now, over the car phone. It’s not secure. Anybody can pick it up.”

“Right. Damn. I talked to Mom, she’s pretty upset.”

I bet she is. What do they call it when a woman is cuckolded? Or doesn’t that matter enough to have its own word?

“There were reporters in front of the house,” Paul was saying over the static. “They tore up the garden, so she’s fit to be tied.”

She’s got worse trouble than the begonias. “Where are you anyway?”

“Running errands. I’ll see you at what time? Seven? At the restaurant?” His horn honked. “Pass me already, you jerk!”

“I’m not going to dinner. It’s Tuesday, remember? Poker night.”

“What? You’re playing cards tonight?”

Here we go. “I’ll be at your parents’ by ten.”

“I can’t believe you’re going to play cards! Dad got calls from the newspapers, even somebody from AP. All hell’s breaking loose, Rita!”

There’s no better time to play cards than when all hell’s breaking loose. It clears the head. “I’ll see you at home.”

“Rita, it’s a game! Shit!” he said, but I didn’t know if it was at me or at the traffic. “Are you still upset about last night? Because if you are, we can talk about it. I want to talk about it.”

I don’t.

“This morning you were so quiet.”

“I’m fine. I have to go.”

“Sure. All right,” he said. Unconvinced. Hurt.

Let it be. I hustled him off the phone and didn’t respond to his parting line: “I love you.”

I didn’t know what to say.

The five of us-me, my father, Uncle Sal, Herman Meyer, and Cam Lopo-sat around the Formica table in my father’s hot, cramped kitchen, waiting for a quorum. Seven is the optimum number for a poker game, but we never had a full house. The average age of our group was seventy-two, so one player or the other was always in the hospital. Still, the Tuesday night game went on. Prostate would be the only thing that would end us for good.

“So where is he? He’s late again,” Herman said. He was a kosher butcher, compact and healthy even at age sixty-nine, with bushy gray hair. Herman was insane about poker and even collected chips. As usual, he wanted to get started. “What is it with that kid, he can’t be on time?”

Herman meant David Moscow, a young copywriter who was trying to join us. David was gay, but the old men were past the age when such things mattered. They only cared that David was late. “He’ll be here,” I said, shuffling the cards. “Give him time.”

My father, at the head of the small table, was fingering some plastic chips. “What’s the difference if David’s a little late? Mickey’s late, too.”

Herman frowned. “Mickey had a doctor appointment, he told us he’d be late. This kid, he’s always late and he never tells us.”

“Then that’s the same as tellin’ us, ain’t it?” my father said. Water sweated down the sides of his brown beer bottle. “Same difference.”

Herman shook his head. “No. He wants in, he should be here. What does it take? He lives a block away.”

“Relax, Herm,” said Cam, sitting next to him. “It’s rainin’ out. Everybody’s late when it rains. Forget about it.” Cam had lost an arm in a machine-shop accident and always said nothing would ever bother him after that. At seventy, he was tall, gaunt, and his skin was pitted from teenage acne. Still, a ready smile redeemed his otherwise working-class face and he’d tell you proudly that his teeth were all his own.

“I can’t forget about it,” Herman said. “The kid has no responsibility. If he worked for me, I’d fire him.”

Cam sat back in his chair. “Did you go to that show this weekend, for the poker chips?”

Herman nodded. “Yeah, but they’re not all poker chips. Some are casino chips, some are dealers’ chips. Some are markers. It’s all different.”

Cam smiled. “Oh, I see. Very complicated.”

“Yes, it is, and to answer your question, I got some nice chips.” Herman twisted toward the front door, showing the casino chip painted on his yarmulke. It was a gray chip that said club bingo in cheery red letters around the outside. I once asked Herman if this was sacrilegious, he said it depended on what your religion was. “Now where the hell is that goddamn kid?”

“It’s not David’s fault he’s late,” Uncle Sal said. “They work him because he’s young. They take advantage.” Sal was shorter than my father and frailer, with identical bifocals. His forearms were skinny, his elbows protruded from his short-sleeved shirt like chalky knobs, and he had a neck as stringy as a baby bird’s. Sal had never married, he was like a permanent little brother.

“What chips you buy, Herm?” Cam asked.

“I got some nice ones. One mother-of-pearl, a real pretty purple one, and I bought a new ivory. With scrimshaw.”

“Like with a boat on it?”

“Nah, got a fleur-de-lis in the middle.”

“Floor-da-what?” Sal asked.

Herman rolled his eyes. “Like a design, Sal. A French design. It’s from 1870, like you.”

My father laughed. “How much you pay for this French chip, Herman?”

“Like it’s your business?”

My father smiled. “They’re robbin’ you blind, you know that.” The plastic chips he’d been playing with fell to the table with a clatter I recalled from my childhood, when I’d go to sleep in the tiny back bedroom. They didn’t let me join the game officially until I was thirteen and had paid my dues fetching beer and pepperoni.

“They’re an investment,” Herman said. “They’re antique.”

“Hah! They’re used.”

I pitched a card at my father and it sailed like a whirligig across the table. “Dad, play nice. He’s got a hobby. You got a hobby?”