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litigating as posing. For the umpteenth time, Lexy had been ticketed for parking in a handicap zone, despite Steve’s warning that bulimia did not qualify. He was also fending off lawsuits against her sister, Rexy, who had a habit of selling costume jewelry as the real thing on eBay. Rexy claimed innocence on the grounds that the cheap jewelry had been worn by a semi-famous SoBe model, her very own self, and therefore it took on additional value.
    “So why are you here?” Nash asked. “Why aren’t you in the courthouse with all those clients of yours?”
    A perfectly good question. Steve had awakened around eleven, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt with the slogan:
“Speak Slowly. I’m Not Fluent in Idiot.”
He took Bobby to school, figuring half a day of sixth-grade education was better than none. Cece, his secretary or assistant or office czarina, or whatever the hell she called herself this week, phoned to say that a jail inmate named Gerald Nash wanted to see him.
    Despite his posturing, Steve wanted the case of
State v. Nash.
Not that he liked Nash. But that was okay. Maybe even better. If you’re fond of your clients, it’s harder on you when they’re carted off to prison.
    If he got the case, Steve would have to explain some things to Bobby. He’d tell the boy that guilt isn’t black or white. The legal system is filled with shades of gray. Gerald Nash was more misguided than dangerous. Should he be put away forever based on the dumbest thing he ever did? Steve believed in the power of people to change. Okay, maybe not serial killers. But if he was spared prison, Gerald Nash
might
change his life. Maybe he’d work in animal rescue and give up the felonious stuff.
    Then there’s the little matter of the felony murder rule, a hoary remnant of the English Common Law. Sure, Nash was responsible for the loss of Misty and Spunky, but he didn’t gun down his accomplice.
    “Why do
you
want me?” Steve asked, turning the tables.
    “I keep thinking about that crazy stunt you pulled. Chasing me. Diving into the channel. You’ve got principles and you’re tough. You’re the kind of guy I want on my side.” Nash paused a moment. From somewhere inside the bowels of the jail, a piercing wail could be heard. “Your turn, Solomon. You’ve been doing nothing but trashing me and my cause. What are
you
doing here?”
    “I figured anybody who pisses off Ray Pincher can’t be all bad.”
    Nash laughed. “It’s my father Uncle Ray really hates. Clifford Nash.”
    He said it as if Steve should know the name.
    “Dad’s a professor at FSU. Geopolitics. The global corporate conspiracy. How the military-industrial complex has taken over the country and people like Uncle Ray are just banal servants of evil, the Adolph Eichmanns of our time.”
    “Family reunions must be a lot of fun.”
    “Know what really torques Uncle Ray? My old man’s white. Not bad enough he’s an old lefty and a hippie pothead, but white, too. Now, here’s the weird thing. Dad
thinks
black. He hung with Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver. When I was a kid, one year at Thanksgiving dinner my old man says he’s more black than Uncle Ray. Man, they got in a huge fight over that. Ray called Dad an ‘ivory tower pinko’ and Dad called him a ‘house nigger.’ They started pushing and shoving and the turkey ended up on the floor. That pretty much ended the relationship.”
    Nash was quiet a moment. Maybe thinking about his father and uncle tossing the gravy boat at each other. Then he began telling Steve what happened the night before. The other Jet Skier—the one who got away with the dolphins—was Nash’s girlfriend.
    Oh. A woman.
    Steve hadn’t realized that. In the dark, a hundred yards away, in a black wet suit, there’d been no way to tell. Her name, it turned out, was Passion Conner. Steve gave Nash some shit over that, like maybe she’d plucked the name off a daytime soap or out of a James Bond book. It had a Pussy Galore or Mary