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dropped the two ball as Vail walked past.
    “You’re late!” Butterfly Higdon, who was probably the best cook in the state—although at 250 pounds a butterfly she definitely was not—yelled over her shoulder as she scraped the grill with a spatula and Tad and Fana polished tables in the restaurant section.
    “The usual,” Vail yelled back.
    “I’m cleaning the grill.”
    “So?”
    “Jeez,” she said, “you’d think you own the goddamn place.”
    In fact, Vail did own a small piece of the bar and grill, as did a dozen other lawyers, judges, cops and newsmen, all of whom had chipped in to buy it when a greedy developer had tried to squeeze her out a year or so back. Vail took his cup from among two dozen on hooks in the comer and poured himself a cup of coffee, then went to a large round booth in the back.
    The Judge sat at his usual place in the booth reserved for the regulars. Half a dozen newspapers littered the table, as did two copies of
City Magazine,
one still open to the Vail story. He sipped his coffee and perused the morning paper through pincenez glasses, which he held in place with one hand while he heldthe paper out with the other. A blueberry muffin lay forgotten on a plate in front of him, a pat of butter melting on the knife which lay across the plate. Vail shucked his jacket and threw it on a chair, sitting across from the elder statesman of the Higdon Gang.
    “You’re late,” the Judge said without looking at him. “And I see you are now immortalized in ink.” He nodded toward the article.
    Vail ignored the sarcastic compliment and laid four silver dollars in a tight row on the table. The Judge stared past the paper at them, finished the story he was reading, then put the paper carefully to one side.
    “Four of them, eh?”
    Vail nodded.
    “Four on one. Hardly what I would call reasonable odds.”
    “It worked out.”
    The Judge leaned back in his chair and put his glasses in his jacket pocket. Jack Spalding was a tall, gaunt man, hollow-cheeked, his handsome face seamed with the battle scars of forty-five years in the courtroom. Wisps of brown and white hair were combed carefully back from an Alpine forehead; twinkling pale blue eyes were alert to any challenge. He was, as always, dressed to perfection in tweeds, red and blue striped tie, and pale blue shirt, with a fresh red carnation, picked from the nearby city park, carefully placed in his lapel.
    Spalding was a man of rare distinction who had stepped down from the bench, disenchanted by courts that were degraded by millionaire drug dealers in their twenties, Uzi-wielding teenagers and lawyers who went through their daily litany with about as much passion as Division Street hookers. He now held court each morning for a handful of promising young lawyers who rehearsed their cases before him, quoting law, trying out lines, challenging his wisdom with tricks and chicanery. He always caught them, of course, although sometimes he let them get by on the theory that a good lacing in court was sometimes more educational than sage advice.
    Marty Vail represented his proudest moment. This was the son he had never had. The protégé who had surpassed the master. And he accepted the young man’s arrogance and conceit as the flaws of a mind so focused and disciplined that losing a court case was simply incomprehensible to him.
    The Judge squinted his eyes and stared at the four silver cartwheels.
    “Four on one,” he mused. “I would have to conclude that they threw the heavyweights at you, consequently I will rule out negotiation, which therefore rules out the young sharpies. Had to be a power play.”
    “Okay so far.”
    “City, county and state?”
    “I’ll give you that, too. No more clues.”
    The judge squinted his eyes at the ceiling for a few minutes, then said, “Two from the city, since they got the bill, one each from county and state. So … I make it City Attorney Flederman, it’s basically his problem.”
    Vail slid one of