I didn’t answer but planted myself on a wooden block with my feet together for the deadlifts and took a grip on the bar with one hand curled up and the other curled down. I exhaled forcefully and began. The yoga people say that all human energy originates in the spine—the kundalini energy, they call it. I would never let on to Harvey that I know about this, but as I bent and lifted with the weight, I felt the energy rising along my spine.

Rodney clapped his hands. “Clean and jerk. Time to work.”

I put the weight down and got off the block. Rodney nearly always spoke in rhyme. I changed my grip so that both hands were curled down. Pulling the weight to my waist as in the deadlift was no problem, but the weight wavered for an instant at the top of my chest. My ribs ached from my encounter with Pete Manzo.

“Drive,” said Rodney. “Drive it up. Make me sweat.”

The weight rose above my head. I looked at myself in the mirror with the weight aloft. The body is a symbol. Rodney stayed close to me while I completed the reps, then two more sets.

“Looking good, like you should.” Considering that egos tend to run rampant in bodybuilding gyms, Rodney was an extremely decent guy. I replaced the barbell in the rack.

“Hey, Rodney. How come everyone here is wearing animal-print workout clothes?”

He looked around the gym for a moment. “We are animals. We have hearts and lungs and blood and flesh and fur and teeth and claws.” Very profound, Rodney is.

Once I had finished with the weights, I started to worry again about the work piling up on my desk, about the motion I needed to finish for Mrs. Peterson’s abortion clinic case. That I wasn’t getting any work from the courts. Most of all I was worried Monica Fullbright had slipped through my fingers. I drove to the office. The answering machine’s red light blinked ominously. I must be the only lawyer in LA without a car phone. Without even a decent answering machine that could be operated by remote beeper. Two messages were from Mrs. Peterson, screaming at me for not returning her calls. There were a couple of clicks meaning someone had called and hung up. A message from the printer said I still owed $37 for my last order of stationery. There was another click, and I was about to turn the machine off when I heard a muffled woman’s voice.

“...get off the case....”

It was Monica Fullbright. She sounded fucked up out of her head, like she’d swallowed half her teeth.

I rewound the message and played it a few more times. I couldn’t extract much more meaning from her words. I understood she was telling me I was fired.

“...leave me alone....”