"So we'll lose again?"

"That's my prediction. The flood is coming."

Carl glanced at the ocean and drank some more coffee. "What happens on appeal?"

"Depends on who's on the Mississippi Supreme Court. Right now, there's a very good chance the verdict will be affirmed in a 5-to-4 decision. The state has been notoriously sympathetic to plaintiffs for the past two decades and, as you probably know, has a well-earned reputation as a hotbed of litigation. Asbestos, tobacco, fen-phen, all sorts of crazy class actions. Tort lawyers love the place."

"So I'll lose by one vote?"

"More or less. The court is not entirely predictable, but, yes, it's usually a 5-to-4 split."

"So all we need is a friendly judge?"

"Yes."

Carl placed his cup on a table and shot to his feet. He slid out of his jacket, hung it over a chair, then walked to the windows and stared at the ocean. A cargo ship inched along a mile out, and he watched it for several minutes. Barry slowly sipped his coffee.

"Do you have a judge in mind?" Carl finally asked.

Barry hit the remote. The screen went blank, then disappeared into the ceiling. He stretched as if he had a sore back, then said, "Perhaps we should talk business first."

Carl nodded and took his chair. "Let's hear it."

"Our proposal goes something like this. You hire our firm, the money gets wired into the proper accounts, then I will give you a plan for restructuring the Supreme Court of Mississippi."

"How much?"

"There are two fees. First, a million as a retainer. This is all properly reported.

You officially become our client, and we provide consulting services in the area of government relations, a wonderfully vague term that covers just about anything.

The second fee is seven million bucks, and we take it offshore. Some of this will be used to fund the campaign, but most will be preserved. Only the first fee goes on the books."

Carl was nodding, understanding. "For eight million, I can buy myself a supreme court justice."

"That's the plan."

"And this judge earns how much a year?"

"Hundred and ten thousand."

"A hundred and ten thousand dollars," Carl repeated.

"It's all relative. Your mayor in New York City spent seventy-five million to get elected to a job that pays a tiny fraction of that. It's politics."

"Politics," Carl said as if he wanted to spit. He sighed heavily and slumped an inch or two in his chair. "I guess it's cheaper than a verdict."

"Much cheaper, and there will be more verdicts. Eight million is a bargain."

"You make it sound so easy."

"It's not. These are bruising campaigns, but we know how to win them."

"I want to know how the money is spent. I want the basic plan."

Barry walked over and replenished his coffee from a silver thermos. Then he walked to his magnificent windows and gazed out at the Atlantic. Carl glanced at his watch.

He had a 12:30 tee time at the Palm Beach Country Club; not that it mattered that much. He was a social golfer who played because he was expected to play.

Rinehart drained his cup and returned to his chair. "The truth, Mr. Trudeau, is that you really don't want to know how the money is spent. You want to win. You want a friendly face on the supreme court so that when Baker versus Krane Chemical is decided in eighteen months, you'll be certain of the outcome. That's what you want. That's what we deliver."

"For eight million bucks I would certainly hope so."

You blew eighteen on a bad piece of sculpture three nights ago, Barry thought but wouldn't dare say. You have three jets that cost forty million each. Your "renovation" in the Hamptons will set you back at least ten million. And these are just a few of your toys. We're talking business here, not toys. Barry's file on Carl was much thicker than Carl's file on Barry. But then, in fairness, Mr. Rinehart worked hard to avoid attention, while Mr. Trudeau worked even harder to attract it.

It was time to close the deal, so Barry quietly pressed on. " Mississippi has its judicial elections a year from now, next November. We have plenty of time, but none to waste. Your timing is convenient and lucky. As we slug it out through the election next year, the case plods along through the appellate process. Our new man will take office a year from January, and about four months later will come face-to-face with Baker versus Krane Chemical.”

For the first time, Carl saw a flash of the car salesman, and it didn't bother him at all. Politics was a dirty business where the winners were not always the cleanest guys in town. One had to be a bit of a thug to survive.

"My name cannot be at risk," he said sternly.

Barry knew he had just collected another handsome fee. "It's impossible," he said with a fake smile. "We have fire walls everywhere. If one of our operatives gets out of line, does something wrong, we make sure another guy takes the fall. Troy-Hogan has never been even remotely tarnished. And if they can't catch us, they damned sure can't find you."

"No paperwork."

"Only for the initial fee. We are, after all, a legitimate consulting and government relations firm. We will have an official relationship with you: consulting, marketing, communications-all those wonderfully nebulous words that hide everything else. But the offshore arrangement is completely confidential."

Carl thought for a long time, then smiled and said, "I like it. I like it a lot."

The law office of F. Clyde Hardin amp; Associates had no associates. It was just Clyde and Miriam, his feeble secretary who outranked him because she had been there for over forty years, far longer than Clyde. She had typed deeds and wills for his father, who came home from the Second War without a leg and was famous for removing his wooden one in front of juries to distract them. The old man was gone now, long gone, and he had bequeathed his old office and old furniture and old secretary to his only child, Clyde, who was fifty-four and very old himself.

The Hardin law office had been a fixture on Main Street in Bow-more for over sixty years. It had survived wars, depressions, recessions, sit-ins, boycotts, and desegregation, but Clyde wasn't so sure it could survive Krane Chemical. The town was drying up around him. The nickname Cancer County was simply too much to overcome. From his ringside seat, he had watched merchants and cafes and country lawyers and country doctors throw in the towel and abandon the town.

Clyde never wanted to be a lawyer, but his father gave him no choice. And though he survived on deeds and wills and divorces, and though he managed to appear reasonably happy and colorful with his seersucker suits, paisley bow ties, and straw hats, he silently loathed the law and the small-town practice of it. He despised the daily grind of dealing with people too poor to pay him, of hassling with other deadbeat lawyers trying to steal said clients, of bickering with judges and clerks and just about everybody else who crossed his path.

There were only six lawyers left in Bowmore, and Clyde was the youngest. He dreamed of retiring to a lake or a beach, anywhere, but those dreams would never come true.

Clyde had sugared coffee and one fried egg at 8:30 every morning at Babe's, seven doors to the right of his office, and a grilled cheese and iced tea every noon at Bob's Burgers, seven doors to the left. At five every afternoon, as soon as Miriam tidied up her desk and said goodbye, Clyde pulled out the office bottle and had a vodka on the rocks. He normally did this alone, in the solitude of the day, his finest hour. He cherished the stillness of his own little happy hour. Often the only sounds were the swishing of a ceiling fan and the rattling of his ice cubes.

He'd had two sips, gulps really, and the booze was beginning to glow somewhere in his brain when there was a rather aggressive knock on his door. No one was expected.