“Yeah. I thought I did a good prelim but...” There’s nothing like seeing your errors in writing, the objections you should have made, a time you should have moved, a time you should have kept still. It’s like trying to learn kick-boxing or karate from watching a videotape.

“They’re all guilty until you prove ‘em innocent. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s any other way.” Burt roared at his own joke.

I got my cash and moved away from Burt. He is bad for my idealism, and I didn’t have time to sit around. I had to find out who the man was who was following me. I put on some lipstick and fluffed my bob before I sashayed across the courtroom. The bailiff in 117 is called Radar. He’s short, got a head shaped like a dish and eyes in the back of his head.

“Radar, I need a favor. I need you to run a DMV on this license number,” I said, unfolding the old parking ticket with my scribbled writing and pushing it in front of him.

“Not supposed to,” he said without looking up from the gun magazine he was reading.

“I had a little accident over the weekend. A fender bender. I got to find out if this guy was honest about the information he gave me. He said he didn’t have a driver’s license with him.”

“Okay, give it to me,” he said with a sigh. There’s a real sense of them against us around here even if we’re on different sides: prosecution, defense, it’s still us against the rest of the world.

After giving the ticket to Radar, I had him let me into the lockup. I heard the click of my Charles Jourdan black high heels across the concrete floor and the deep sound of men’s voices. Doesn’t matter how many or how few guys are in there, as soon as you call for your client and start to talk to him, there will be some guy who gets up and goes over to take a piss in front of you. I have seen every kind of dick—every shape, length, width, horses’ dongs and things that look like pretzels—pee out thin yellow streams in county facilities.

I assumed my usual position: shoulder against the bars, back to the pisser, hands in suit pockets. Herbert “Sly” Evans was waiting for me. He smirked at the pisser and the other guys in the cell. It was a mystery to me what Sly had to smirk about. He was going down for at least four years.