“A hundred and fifty, easy.” Mitch stiffened. Bobby went on: “And I’d find you a nice condo to move into.”

“Your sister,” Mitch said drily, “would just love that.”

Sarcasm was lost on Bobby. “They all do,” he enthused, “once they’ve made the break. Hey, I even have a prospect!”

“No way,” said Mitch. His mouth was dry and he was oddly nervous. He did not feel anymore like phoning Tony. Instead, he went upstairs to join Lindy in the living room. Offhandedly, his heart pounding, he told her. “Of course,” he said, “if we sold it, we’d never find anything like it again. Probably never live in another house.”

She had been reading the paper, and she folded it and put it down. “Are you serious? What good is the money?”

“It’s not the money,” he shrugged. “Tony is leaving, someday. We have to face it.”

“He’s leaving because we’re practically dynamiting him loose. It’s still home to him. It’s home to us.”

He nodded and wandered to the window. She spoke from the chair: “Are you tired of it, Mitch?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured. “Hell, you know how I am.”

“But it’s not a camera or a motorcycle! It’s home! And I love it! It’s us! We don’t want to live in a condominium!”

“That’s for sure. OK, I told him to forget it. Let’s us forget it too.”

He didn’t know, himself, what he’d had in mind. After the trial, he’d think it through.

Their client was rolled in, in her iron lung. She was sworn before the bench. The effect on the jury was brutal. Bernie questioned her very quickly: her own testimony was unimportant; their object was to show her to the jury. Her smile, reflected in the mirror she must use to see other human beings, was heartbreaking. When she spoke of the surgeon, her eyes were tragic. His postoperative care was not even admissible as evidence, and she was suing the man who had saved her life. Her net impact was incalculable, but as she was wheeled out, Mitch sensed from the jury that it was no longer a question of whether, simply how much.

Mitch missed Bernie’s summation. He was alone in the jury room, lying on a leather couch, to take the strain off his back. He had no further desire to attend Bernie’s finest hour. He was jumpy and fearful. Something was changing within him. He needed a drink. When his back spasm passed he returned to find the courtroom cleared. The court had recessed until tomorrow. A note from Bernie lay on their table: "Splash one. Enemy tried to bail out. We refused eight hundred grand I love you. Do you love me?"

He swore silently and limped to a phone booth in the marble corridor. He dialed his office and caught Bernie arriving.