“Wow. I’m not sure. We’ll have a chat with our supervisor and go from there.”

I say, “I have a meeting this afternoon with an investigator with the police. They’ll seem concerned, ask a lot of questions, but it’s going nowhere. They’ll close the case by the end of the week and be happy with a good outcome.”

Beatty asks, “And you want us to open an investigation?”

I look at Judith and say, “Perhaps we should talk about it first. I’m inclined to pursue Kemp. What about you?”

She says, “Let’s talk.”

Beatty and Agnew take their cue and stand to leave. We thank them and Judith walks them to the front door. When she returns to the conference room, she sits across from me and says, “I don’t know what to do. I’m not thinking clearly right now.”

“We can’t allow the police to do this, Judith.”

“I know, but don’t you already have enough trouble with them? If Kemp is desperate enough to snatch a child, he might do anything. Now do you understand why I get nervous when Starcher is with you?”

I can’t really argue with this.

“Do you think Swanger killed the girl?” she asks.

“Yes, and he’s probably killed others.”

“Great. Another lunatic out there gunning for you. You’re a train wreck, Sebastian, and you’re going to get someone hurt. I just hope it’s not my child. We got lucky today, but maybe not tomorrow.”

There’s a knock on the door and Judith says, “Come in.” The receptionist tells her there is a reporter with a cameraman out front. Two more have called the office. “Get rid of them,” she says, glaring at me. What a mess I’ve created.

We finally agree to do nothing for a few hours. I’ll cancel the meeting with the police detective; the investigation is a sham anyway. As I leave I tell her I’m sorry, but she wants no part of an apology.

I sneak out a rear door.

7.

Reporters are looking for me, but I have had enough of the story. Others would like to find me: Link and his boys; Roy Kemp when he hears I’m talking to the FBI; perhaps even Arch Swanger, who’s likely to phone in at any moment and ask why I sang to the police.

Partner takes me to Ken’s Kars and I drive away in a dented Mazda with 200,000 miles on it. No lawyer, regardless of how impoverished, would be caught dead in such a vehicle. I know one who was leasing a Maserati when he was forced into bankruptcy.

I spend the rest of the day in my apartment, hiding and working on two cases. Around five o’clock, I call Judith to check on Starcher. He’s fine, she says, and the reporters have gone away. I check the local news where the “dramatic rescue” is the lead story. They use some old footage of me walking into the police station and make it sound like I risked my life to save my son. The fools are swallowing all the bait the police give them. This too shall pass.

Because I’ve slept about six hours out of the last seventy-two, I finally collapse on the sofa and fall into a coma. Just after 10:00 p.m., my cell phone rings. I check the caller ID, then grab it. It’s Naomi Tarrant, Starcher’s teacher, the gorgeous young thing I’ve been fantasizing about for months. I’ve asked her to dinner five times and have been hit with five noes. But, the rejections have been progressively softer. I have neither the talent nor the patience for the usual mating rituals—the stalking, the accidental encounters, the blind dates, the silly gifts, the awkward phone calls, the referrals from friends, the endless Internet chatting. Nor do I have the guts to go online and lie about myself to strange women. And, I fear I’m forever scorched and gun-shy from the Judith disaster. How can one human possess so much meanness?

Naomi wants to talk about Starcher, so we do. I assure her he was not harmed in any way. He’ll never understand what really happened, and I doubt anyone will tell him. Frankly, he was pampered for about forty-five hours by two people he viewed as buddies. He’ll be at school tomorrow and he needs no special attention. I’m sure his mother will arrive with a long list of demands and concerns, but that’s his mother.

“What a bitch,” Naomi says, dropping her guard for the first time. I’m surprised by this, but love it nonetheless. We spend a few minutes thoroughly trashing Judith and Ava, who we agree is an airhead, and I haven’t had this much fun in years.

From left field she says, “Let’s do dinner.” Ah, the life of a hero. The power of celebrity. The reporters claim I risked my neck to save my son and women are throwing themselves at me.

We establish a few rules. The date has to be a big secret. The school does not expressly forbid its unmarried teachers dating unmarried parents, but it’s certainly frowned on. And why ask for trouble? If Judith found out, she would probably file a complaint or a lawsuit or something from her bottomless bag of dirty tricks.

We meet in a dark, low-end Tex-Mex joint the following night. Her choice, not mine. Since no one speaks English no one will be listening. No one cares, especially me. Naomi is thirty-three years old and rebounding from a divorce. No kids, no discernible baggage. She begins by telling me all about Starcher’s day at school. As expected, Judith brought him early and had some instructions. All went well; no one mentioned his little ordeal. Naomi and her classroom aide kept a close eye on him, and, as far as they could tell, nothing was said by his friends. He seemed perfectly normal and went about the day as if nothing had happened. Judith picked him up after school and grilled Naomi, but it was hardly out of the ordinary.

“How long were you married to her?” she asks in amazement.

“The paperwork says less than two years, but we could live together for only the first five months. It was unbearable. I tried to tough it out until the kid was born, but then I found out she was already seeing her latest girlfriend. I fled, he was born, and we’ve been fighting ever since. Getting married was a horrible mistake, but she was pregnant.”

“I’ve never seen her smile.”

“I think it happens about once a month.”

The margaritas arrive in tall, salty mugs and we dive in. We briefly touch on her marriage, then move on to more pleasant matters. She’s been dating, there are lots of calls, and I can understand why. She has soft, beautiful brown eyes that are hypnotic, even seductive. The kind of eyes you can gaze into for hours and wonder if they’re real.

Me, I don’t date much, don’t have the time, too much work, and so on. The usual disclaimers. She seems fascinated by my work, the unpopular cases, the notoriety, some of the thugs I represent. We order enchiladas and I keep chatting away. I soon realize, though, that she follows the one rule of a great conversationalist: Keep the other person talking. So I push back and ask about her family, college, other jobs she’s had.

I order a second margarita, she’s half finished with her first, and we go back and forth with stories about our past. A platter of enchiladas arrives and she hardly notices. Judging by her figure, she has the appetite of a bird. I can’t remember the last time I had sex, and the longer we talk the more I am consumed with that subject. By the time I finish both the food and the booze, I’m fighting the urge to lunge across the table.

But Naomi Tarrant is not impulsive. This will take time. It’s Tuesday, so I ask her what she’s doing Wednesday. No go.

“You know what I’d really like?” she asks.

What? Anything.

“This may seem a bit odd, but I’m really curious about mixed martial arts.”

“Cage fights? You want to go to the cage fights?” I’m stunned.

“Is it safe?” she asks, and mentions the little episode involving the riot and Starcher’s close call with disaster. Judith sued me again and Naomi got a subpoena to testify.