“So we find her license, it’s gonna say her name is Bjorklund, is that it?”

I knew it wasn’t. I couldn’t remember what it was. Something Italian.

“And if we call up there to Dairy-Anne, Connecticut, they not gonna tell us this car’s been stolen, are they?”

Before I could answer he grabbed me by the collar and the belt and manhandled me over to the strip of grass where Marion was lying, her eyes blank and unblinking so that I couldn’t tell if she was seeing anything or not. “Get down,” he said, and roughly pushed me first to my knees and then to my stomach. I was now staring at Marion from about two feet away and she still had not blinked.

There was a tremendous crushing sensation in the middle of my back and I knew that Roy the cop was kneeling on me. I made some kind of noise from deep in my chest as air rushed out of my lungs, and then suddenly the whole area in which we were lying was lit up with headlights.

A car stopped, then another, then another after that. The cop bellowed at the cars to move on, but they didn’t. Doors began opening, footsteps began sounding on the asphalt.

Roy was stuck then. He was surrounded by law students—six, eight, ten of them.

“Good evening, Officer,” said a calm, cheerful male voice. “May we be of some assistance here?”

“You’ll be in the back of a patrol car in two minutes, you don’t get the hell out of here.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m counsel to these people.” The speaker did not say he was our lawyer.

The cop lightened the load he had put on me, giving me the chance to turn my head. The speaker was, of course, one of the partygoers, a third-year student, a guy people had been talking about as having already secured one of those coveted associates’ positions with one of the premier D.C. firms. Behind him, one of the other students was taking pictures with a flash camera. She took a picture of me, then took several shots of Marion lying on the ground, glassy-eyed, with the sinewy cop standing over her.

“Hey,” my cop shouted, “you can’t do that. Cyrus, get that camera away from her. And you, all of you, get outta here before I call for backup and have you all arrested.”

The third-year student held up his hand with such authority that Cyrus stopped moving. When he was sure he had Cyrus’s compliance, he said to my cop, “On the contrary, Officer, as long as we are standing back a significant distance and not interfering with the conduct of your official duties, we have a right peacefully to gather and observe the proceedings. People v. Baldwin. Supreme Court, 1984.”

Both cops were silent.

“My father argued it,” the third-year said. “He is now United States deputy attorney general.”

“I don’t give a damn what your daddy does,” said the cop. But it was clear that he did.

“Oh, I concur with that sentiment exactly, Officer. I only mention it because he lives right here in Old Town, and if you will allow me to, I can call him and have him here within just a few minutes so he can give you not only the cite to People v. Baldwin, but he can bring the published opinion, show you where—”

“You’re already interfering with our official duties,” the cop said. But lights were going on in the homes lining both sides of the street, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the cop swinging his head from one lighted house to another. This was not what he had anticipated. He knew even better than we did that anyone could be living in Old Town: Supreme Court justices, cabinet officers, elected officials. It was that kind of place.

The cop got off me altogether, pushing down with his hand on my shoulder harder than was necessary as he stood up. I stayed where I was and waited to see what would happen next.

“With your permission, Officer,” the third-year student said, “I would like to have one of my colleagues attend to Ms. Bettinelli, who appears to be in some danger. My colleague is an Army medic who served in Bosnia.” He pointed to a rather dazed-looking fellow with short hair. “And if you would prefer not to have him approach her, then we really should call the EMTs. In fact”—he pulled out a cell phone—“I can do that right now, if you wish.”

Roy hesitated. From my position on the ground, the left side of my face in the dirt, what I saw was a pack of drunken law students. Roy must have seen it differently. He said, “You got a medic, send him over.”

The dazed guy lurched forward in a relatively straight line, dropped down onto one knee, gently turned Marion’s head, and then used his thumb and forefinger to apply pressure to the sides of her mouth to force it open. I was lying right next to him. I didn’t see anything but teeth. “There’s signs of vomitus,” he announced gravely. “She’s got to get to a hospital.”

“That’s where I was taking her,” I called out in a sudden wash of inspiration.

“Oh, gosh,” said the third-year, and everyone was quiet for a moment as if contemplating the dangerous possibilities of this traffic stop.

“She still has a pulse,” shouted the erstwhile medic as if he had done something miraculous to discover it.

“Cyrus,” ordered the cop in charge, “see if there’s vomit.”

Cyrus, who had made it back to the patrol car, returned to Marion, reconnoitered a position where he could get down on his hands and knees and move his head between hers and mine, got down so low his head was on the grass and his hat fell off, and tried to peer into her mouth. His picture got taken in that posture, too.

“Oh, God, Cyrus,” said the other cop, “sit her up, would you?”

Cyrus and the student each took Marion under the shoulder and twisted her and rolled her until they could hold her torso in some semblance of a right angle to her legs. There was no sign of vomit on her lips, her chin, her sweater, at least none that I could detect. There was, nevertheless, a round of murmurs from the gathering of students. It grew stronger until the cop, perhaps thinking that none of this was going to be worth the effort of filling out forms and making court appearances, not to mention responding to media and department inquiries, gave up. “All right,” he said without bothering to look himself, “I’ll accept what you’re saying. Go. Take her to the hospital. But,” he added, straightening up and kicking me with the side of his foot, “this one’s not driving.”

“No problem,” said the intrepid third-year, and within seconds I was bundled, pushed, and folded into the backseat of the Audi, my legs behind the driver’s seat, my hips behind the passenger’s seat. The cop leaned in the car then and looked directly into my face as if intent on remembering it. “I understand you got some powerful friends, boy.” He waited a beat. “I just want you to know you got some powell-ful enemies, too.”

Did he say “Powell-ful”? Did I really hear him say that? I could not be sure, but before I could formulate the question he was gone and the other students were loading Marion into the front seat like a large sack of cement, and then the third-year himself got behind the wheel, strapped himself in, made sure Marion was strapped in, called “Thank you” to the cops and “Bye” to his friends, and wheeled onto the street.

We went a block and a half to Washington and turned right, heading for the Parkway. I was too stunned to say anything, and then I noticed our driver trying to catch my eye in the rearview mirror. “How did I do?” he asked.

“Fantastic,” I said. I was about to express admiration, gratitude, wonder at what had just taken place, when he derailed me with a laugh and a quick glance into the seat next to him.

I knew it was coming the instant before it happened. There was a movement, then a tumble of dark hair, then one dancing eye peering around the curve of the seat back. “And how did I do?” said Marion.