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you
wear a suit?”
    A stout woman
called from across the room, “Leave the man alone, Willie.”
    “I’m waiting for my
P.D., Willie,” I said.
    “Nah,” he replied,
and went back to his mother.
    The door beside the
receptionist’s desk opened. A short, heavy gray-haired woman in a bright floral
dress said, “Henry Rios.”
    I stood up.
    “I’m Sharon Hart,”
she said. “You want to come into my office?”
    I followed her
through the door and we picked our way down a hallway lined with metal file
cabinets into a small office. There was a calendar on one wall and framed
degrees on the other. Sharon Hart sat down behind her government-issue desk and
motioned me to sit on one of the two chairs in front of it. She pulled an
ashtray out of her desk and lit a cigarette.
    “So,” she said. “You’re
the famous Henry Rios.”
    There was nothing
particularly hostile in her tone so I ventured a smile.
    “I hope you can
walk on water, Mr. Rios, because that’s the kind of skill you’re going to need
on this case.”
    “Is that why you’re
getting out?”
    She looked at me
sharply. “I’m not afraid of tough cases.”
    “Then why withdraw?”
    “This case is
indefensible on a straight not-guilty plea.”
    “There are
alternatives.”
    She shook her head.
“Not with this client. He won’t agree to any defense that admits he did it.”
    “Any chance he didn’t
do it?”
    Her look answered
my question.
    “Then that could be
a problem,” I said.
    “He’s also going to
make a lousy witness,” she said offhandedly. “Not that there’s much for him to
say. He doesn’t remember what happened.”
    “So I was told.
Retrograde amnesia, is that it?”
    She nodded. “I had
the court appoint a shrink to talk to him. You’ll find his name in the files.”
She gestured to two bulky folders lying at a comer of her desk. “The doctor
says it’s legitimate. Jim doesn’t remember anything between opening the cellar
door and when that girl — the waitress — came down and found him with Brian
Fox.”
    “Is he crazy?”
    She smiled
slightly, showing a crooked tooth. “My shrink will say that he was at the time
of the murder.”
    “Not quite the
question I asked,” I murmured.
    “Is he crazy now?
Let’s say the pressure’s getting to him.”
    “Where’s he being
held?”
    “County jail,” she
said.
    “You’ve told him
what’s going to happen this morning?”
    “Yes,” she said. “He’ll
agree to it.” She stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. “We don’t get
along,” she added. “Call it ineffective empathy of counsel. But I do feel sorry
for the kid. I really do.” She stood up. “Take the files. You’ll find my
investigator’s card in them. He can fill you in. We better get downstairs. Pat
Ryan runs a tight ship.”
    “The judge.”
    “Patricia Ryan.”
    “Irish.”
    Sharon smiled. “Black
Irish, you might say.”
    Television cameras
were set up in the jury box and the gallery was packed with reporters. To avoid
the press, we had come in through the corridor that ran behind the courtrooms.
As soon as we reached counsel’s table, though, the cameras started rolling. At
the other end of the table a short, dark-haired man was unpacking his
briefcase.
    “The D.A.,” Sharon
whispered. “Pisano.”
    “What’s he like?” I
asked.
    She shrugged. “He’s
decent enough until you get him in front of the cameras.”
    “A headline
grabber?” I asked.
    “The worst.”
    As if he’d heard,
the D.A. smiled at us, then turned his attention to a sheaf of papers that he
was marking with a red pen.
    “Where’s Jim?” I
asked.
    “In the holding
cell, I guess,” she said. “They won’t bring him out until she takes the bench.”
    I looked over my
shoulder at the reporters. “This is quite a circus,” I said.
    “Better get used to
it.”
    A middle-aged woman
with stiffly coiffed hair and dressed in black stared at Sharon Hart and me
with intense hostility from the