“Listen, are you running this case all alone?”

“We’re doing fine,” Bernie said placidly.

“Did you explain she might get less?"

“I didn’t ask her.”

He almost dropped the phone. “Stay put,” he said tightly. “I’ll be right down.”

“Yeah, well, I won’t be here. I’m taking a little hop this afternoon.”

“Where to?”

“Just flying around. Alone with my God. In ever-decreasing circles until I disappear up my own asshole.”

Mitch felt as if he were playing second lead in a nightmare. “She’s my client! What am I going to tell her when she finds out you turned down eight hundred grand? Without consulting her, for Christ’s sake!”

“Tell her you have the Cincinatti Kid for a partner.”

“I may not have him,” Mitch said darkly, “for very long.” He hung up. Now he really needed the drink. He left the courthouse and crossed to a little bar-restaurant on Van Ness.

As the head waitress led him through the gloom inside, he glimpsed the surgeon eating alone at a table in the corner. He almost turned to leave, but the doctor glanced up and spotted him. He was damned if he would retreat after that, so he let the girl seat him at a table at the other side of the room. He was sipping a Gibson and studying the menu when he sensed someone standing over him. He knew it was the surgeon before he looked up.

“May I sit down?”

He took a deep breath. “Doctor, I’d rather you didn’t. You have counsel, the case isn’t over, it’s a matter of propriety.”

“’Propriety,’” echoed the doctor, sitting down anyway. “You almost said ‘ethics,’ didn’t you?” He signaled the waitress, ordered a drink, and asked Mitch if he wanted another.

Mitch shook his head. His cheeks were burning. If one of the doctor’s attorneys wandered in, Mitch might be facing an ethics committee within a week. “We’ve said it all, Doctor. The jury’s out. Your offer to settle was rejected.”

The doctor smiled. He was a very handsome man, like a TV surgeon. He was a Californian, but a product of eastern private schools. He had gone to Milton Academy, as Mitch recalled, then Harvard Medical and a residency at McGill. His clothes breathed wealth and his features were chiseled WASP: Mitch could bet that his ancestors were straight Boston.

If he had been less eastern, less handsome, more in the mold of the traditional San Francisco practitioner that the older jurors must have known, his case would be less precarious. The clothes were his attorney’s fault; he should have been better briefed.

“I’m told we’ll probably lose,” he said mildly. “And I’m facing bankruptcy. Also, a ruined practice. And I have some questions about it, that’s all.”