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These calls were never fun, but they could be useful. Defendants generally had no idea they were being sued until they got the TRO call, and they often went ballistic. If Ben played his cards right, however, he could sometimes talk defendants out of opposing a TRO, particularly in little cases like this.
    After four rings, the answering machine picked up. “Hey, this is Nicki Zinoviev,” announced a reedy male voice with a Russian accent. “I’m not here right now, so leave me your name and phone number and I’ll get right back to you.”
    “Hi, Mr. Zinoviev. My name is Ben Corbin, and I represent Mikhail Ivanovsky. He has sued you for possession of the contents of a safe-deposit box, and I’ll be appearing in front of Judge Harris at eight thirty tomorrow morning at the Daley Center to request an order preventing the box from being opened for the next ten days, so we can sort this all out. I’m having a set of the papers messengered to you tonight. You can appear in court tomorrow morning if you want, but you don’t have to. As I mentioned, all we’ll be doing is seeking an order to keep the box unopened for the next week and a half. Feel free to call me if you have any questions.” He left his office number and hung up. Maybe that would keep Zinoviev out of court tomorrow morning, maybe not.
    At 6:10, Ben and Noelle headed home for the last quiet evening they would have for a long time.

    At 8:15 the next morning, Ben and Ivanovsky sat on one of the hard, plain wood benches at the back of Judge Alfred Harris’s courtroom. His court had the same utilitarian steel-and-oak decor as all the courtrooms in the Daley Center, though it was larger than most. At least fifty lawyers and their clients packed the spectator benches behind the railing that split the courtroom in two. More sat at the two counsel tables in front of the railing and in the jury box, since no juries were needed for the emergency-motion call.
    The lawyers were a Whitman’s Sampler of the local bar: plaintiffs’ attorneys in sport coats and questionable ties, buttoned-down defense-firm lawyers in dark suits, and a surprising number of pillars of the bar in three-thousand-dollar Armanis making country-club conversation with each other. The clients were a mixed bunch too, but their faces all wore the same nervous and uncomfortable expression.
    “Do you see Nicki Zinoviev anywhere?” Ben whispered to his client.
    Ivanovsky scanned the courtroom and shook his head. “He’s not here.”
    “Good.” Ben would still have to convince the judge to issue a TRO, but with any luck this would be an easy victory.
    Ivanovsky v. Zinoviev was near the end of the emergency-motion call list, so they would be waiting for quite a while. Ben didn’t mind. Judge Harris had a mercurial temper, and watching other lawyers go first would give Ben a pretty good idea what kind of mood the judge was in this morning. Also, although Ben didn’t expect Ivanovsky to have to testify, it would be good experience for him to watch other witnesses on the stand and see how a courtroom worked.
    “All rise,” the bailiff ordered as Judge Harris entered through a door next to the raised dais that held his bench, a large piece of furniture that looked like a cross between a pulpit and an oversized desk. The judge was a tall, thin, olive-skinned man of uncertain ethnicity. He kept his ancestry vague to avoid being claimed by one of the city’s numerous racial and ethnic bar associations—and pigeonholed by the others. He was almost completely bald, and Ben would have assumed he shaved his head were it not for the strip of short iron-gray hair that adorned the back of his head just above his neck. It was a perfect mirror image of his thick mustache.
    Judge Harris was a sharp jurist who ran his courtroom well and did not suffer fools, gladly or otherwise. He worked through the pile of motions efficiently, ruling promptly after hearing the minimum-necessary argument and evidence. He