He strummed his suspenders again. “Most of these guys died with nothing. Nothing for their lovers or their friends. Or families, if they still had them. But if I filed a claim for them, and the claim paid out, there would be insurance money for their survivors.”

I looked at him and shook my head incredulously. “So, what, now you’re Robin Hood, stealing from the rich insurance companies to give to the survivors of guys who died from AIDS?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”

“Except you personally profited from the scam,” I said.

“I told you, I had to do it.”

“And I told you, you didn’t.” I stood up. “Here’s some free legal advice. Get yourself a good criminal lawyer, go to the authorities and cut a deal in exchange for your testimony against Confederation’s higher ups.”

“I’ll go to jail.”

“Yeah, probably, but for how long is up to you.”

I left him slumped back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

I folded the Chronicle, set it aside and had picked up the indictment against one of my clients that had come down the day before when a young voice spoke a tentative, “Mr. Rios?”

I looked up and saw Nick Trejo standing in the doorway, a backpack slung over one shoulder, smiling.

“There wasn’t anyone at the front desk,” he said, apologetically, “so I came down the hall to find you. Are you busy?”

“No. Come in, Nick. It’s good to see you. How have you been?”

He loped into the office, dressed for the warm spring weather in shorts and a T-shirt, the arms of a sweatshirt tied around his shoulders. He had filled out in the six months since I had last seen him and from the look of his arms and chest it appeared he had been hitting the gym. His hair was cut short and his face, no longer hidden by its wild tumble, was settling into its adult lines, strong, sensitive and as handsome as those of his older brothers. But the change in him seemed rooted in something more than the passage of time. Clear-eyed and poised, he radiated confidence and calm.

“I’m really good, Mr. Rios,” he replied, sitting down across from me. “I’m back in school and living on my own.”

I smiled. “Your mom let you move out?”

He grinned. “She said she couldn’t wait to get rid of me but I know it was hard for her to let me go. As she constantly reminds me, I’m her baby.”

“You look pretty grown up to me.”

His expression became serious. “That happens when you know you might not be around that long.”

I let the words settle between us. The sun smearing my grimy window cast his face in shadow. He was so young, so full of life that I couldn’t bear the implications of what he had just said.