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assist—”
    “No dividing, no assisting. On my own. Completely.”
    “I do like this attitude! Very eat-what-you-kill. Grrr! ”
    Bert pulls his chair in and places his thick hands on the table, drills his eyes into my forehead.
    “I’m leaving now,” he says. “Call us if the newspapers get too hot on you and I’ll handle them from down here. Other than that, any shit you create is your own. And when Graham said this was a career-maker, he forgot to mention it could also be a career-breaker. Therefore, I strongly advise you not to fuck up.”
    He leans back again and grabs his cigarette from its brief resting place on the table’s edge. I note that his words qualify as both the kindest and most effusive he has ever uttered to me.
    “Thanks for the confidence. Now if you’ll excuse me, before I pack my bags I think I owe myself a night of self-congratulation. Didn’t I mention? I won the Busch trial today.”
    “Well done, Bartholomew! You’ll have to tell us all about it sometime.”
    Graham’s head is down and he’s already sliding the Tripp file over the table at me. Bert stabs his half-finished cigarette out in the gray dunes of the boardroom ashtray, lifts his gut with a wheeze and leaves without another look.
    When Graham is finished handing everything over he carries himself to the door, his head perfectly still on delicate shoulders, but hips swinging in their sockets. Then he turns back to me and reveals one of his vampire smiles.
    “May I suggest that if you plan on engaging in any carousing, you do it tonight. Things may get a little hectic for you over the next while.”
    “No doubt.”
    “So, care to join me for a bite? I know a perfect place not far from here.”
    “Don’t bother, Graham. I know a perfect place of my own.”
    “Of course you do.”
    He steps forward once more to where I sit, throws a hand out to me through the smoke now twisting up the air vent or lingering in blue pools in the ceiling light sockets. We shake hands: two formal pumps, his grip—as always—firmer than mine.
    “Good luck, my boy,” he says, releasing me and sliding back to the door. “And enjoy it. I’m sure you’ll find that there’s nothing like your first homicide.”

T HREE
    W ith tie loosened and Tripp file stuck under my arm I walk out into the purple light of early evening and direct myself east toward the noise and tawdriness of Yonge Street for a victory drink. Victory for today, and the prospect of a more dazzling victory in the weeks to come. My first murder trial. And so long as no bodies turn up, the chances are good that I can manage to spare Mr. Tripp the indignities and stigma of long-term incarceration. I’m pleased with myself, and even more pleased after I’ve vacuumed the extra generous line of Great White Hope off my desk before leaving. Things are looking up.
    I like strip bars, and of the many of this fine city The Zanzibar is my favorite. It occupies this position for no special reason other than it’s exactly the way a strip bar should be. My law school friends and I used to come here after exams or for birthday piss-ups, but while those guys have all gone on to sensible marriages and four-bedroom Victorians in neighborhoods renowned for their alternative-education elementary schools and low crime rates, I’ve become a regular at the place.
    What I like is the padded front door that seals off the interior from any trace of natural light, the always startling first appearance of a room appointed with women in various states of undressin place of paintings or potted plants, the air a mixture of beer mold and coconut oil spread over passing breasts and thighs. I even like the men, pathetic and despised, knowing they are pathetic and despised, offering up foolish portions of their wages to the waitress, talking to the girls before a table dance and imagining themselves as wealthier and better-looking than they are, the kind of men these girls might want to be with for free.
    I