“Sam. My dear Sam. I think it might be helpful if I run down our court case for you, just to give you some idea of what you’ll be facing. We have a woman who gave up her career to marry Bernie and sold her business far too cheaply on Bernie’s advice, just to make him happy; we have a seven-year marriage, dare I say it?—the best years of Bernice’s life?—with a man who took her money, then committed flagrant adultery for years; a man who actually bought an expensive penthouse for his current paramour, though the deed remains in his name; a man whose net worth has appreciated from four million dollars to thirty-eight million dollars during the marriage, and that figure does not take into account the undervaluing of his assets on his financial statement or the large sum in his Cayman bank account—an account, incidentally, unknown to the Internal Revenue Service—on which no taxes have been paid. Finally, Mrs. Finger has had to endure the shame and humiliation of seeing her husband’s nude photographs with his lover in a gossip column, seen by everyone she knows, something every woman on the jury—and it will be a jury trial—will find disgusting in the extreme.”

“Are you finished?” Finger asked.

“No, Bernie, not quite. I should tell you that everything I have just mentioned can be substantiated with your own files, to which Bernice has legal and proper access, and of which she has availed herself.” Stone opened his briefcase and slid a handful of file folders across the table. “Of course, if we go to trial, there’s just no telling what my investigators will come up with when they start pawing through your law firm’s files and, of course, your personal life. I don’t think that will play very well with your firm’s clients, Bernie, particularly with those clients on the criminal side of your practice, when they start reading their names in the newspapers.” Stone snapped shut his briefcase. “And you and I both know that any court is very likely to give Bernice half of everything, even without Bernie’s outrageous adulterous behavior.” He stood up. “I think that about does it for now, Sam. Have a chat with your client and get back to me.” He turned and began walking toward the conference room door.

“Just a moment,” Teich said.

Stone turned and looked at him.

“Would you mind waiting outside for a few minutes while I confer with my client?”