Through all that craziness, Percy had worked hard to stay focused on what she said were the real people’s cases—traditional criminal work, instead of the political cases Donny gravitated toward. After a couple of years, she discovered personal-injury work. She was picky about those cases, too, determined to find the real wrongs. She succeeded, and one of those cases, a wrongful death action involving a black kid killed by private-security forces for trespassing on an empty lot next to their client’s polyethylene plant, delivered a big payday. One Percy got a third of, close to a million bucks. And turned around and gave most of it away, while even Miles sided with Donny in pleading her to hold on to more.

She said that verdict made her see what Donny was always saying. That all the cases were political cases, if you looked at them right. And then she said there’s a lot more money where that came from.

Donny said be careful who you piss off, and she just said I’m not as reckless as you, Donny.

Miles took all the cases. At least all the ones that deserved him. He was so good at it, one of those lawyers in the mold of the ones who only seem to exist in fiction, the champion of the underdog who manages to make a nice living without ever breaching his own strict ethical code.

As the bus sat there annoyingly long at the light, Donny remembered how depressing he had thought it was that his friend had to begin his journey to the place where lawyers don’t have to argue anymore with a stop along a Houston frontage road in the shadow of the elevated freeway. The lawn didn’t really help, and the fountain tended by angels carved from black stone just made it look like some cheap amusement-park imitation of the Isle of the Dead. When they walked up that morning, the fountain was off, but the pool was full, with what looked to be rainwater, and one big miserable-looking koi. Milton was already there when Donny and Percy arrived, and the owners of the place, friends of the family, greeted him and took them up to the room where Miles lay for visitation.

“We didn’t have time to do much to prepare him,” said the funeral director, a middle-aged woman. “The wounds were pretty bad.”

“It’s okay,” said Milton. “We’re not having an open casket.”

Donny looked at Percy.

The room was small, and quiet. You could hear the freeway traffic, but close enough to white noise that you didn’t mind. There was a reproduction of a painting on the wall, a still life with white flowers, some actual flowers in a vase, and four boxes of Kleenex around the room.