“It didn’t say, we’re talking two paragraphs. Sydney came back from the john, saw me reading, tore it out of my hand, and did the old scream bit. I said, ‘Interesting theory, maybe we can use it for real.’ She freaked out and kicked my ass. Literally, she kicked me.” He rubbed his rump. “She had on these pointy pumps, it hurt like hell.”

“So the treatment was written before the case closed.”

“Before the formal sentencing, but everyone knew how it was going to go down.”

I said, “Whose idea was the deal?”

“Sydney proposed it, Laskin accepted. She lied and told him I’d agreed. I ended up agreeing anyway, because I thought it was the best I could do for Rand.”

“Get the boys started on their sentence and party with co-counsel,” I said.

“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “That night— her desk— was after we’d done the bulk of our work. That’s when Sydney and I really started getting it on. Before that, it was only minor stuff. We kept it outside the office.”

“Motels?”

“None of your business.”

“In her car?”

“You want to be a judgmental prick, go ahead. It’s no crime to have fun.”

“Fun till she started kicking you.”

“She was insane,” he said, “but let me tell you. She had her talents.”

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 31

Nymphomaniac,” said Milo. “To use a quaint old term.”

He blew cigar smoke into the air. The way the air felt today, he was cleansing it. “Not that I’m nostalgic for quaint old terms. Having borne the brunt of such.”

“ ‘Queer’ is common parlance now,” I said.

“So’s ‘niggah’ if you’re Snoop Dogg. Try it on some dude at Main and Sixty-ninth and see how many giggles you get.”

Smoke rings floated upward, wiggled and dissipated. We were two blocks from the station, walking slowly, thinking in silence, talking in bursts.

“So everyone’s screwing everyone,” he said. “Literally and otherwise. You think Weider’s story line pinning it on Malley was fiction? Or did she and Daney latch onto something eight years ago? Like Malley not being Kristal’s father. Like Troy telling Weider that Malley had put him up to it.”

“Montez jokingly suggested to Weider that they use it as a red herring and she freaked out. Maybe that was more than keeping her hot idea under wraps.”

“She’s got exculpatory evidence but conceals it. Because her main goal isn’t defending Troy, it’s cutting a film deal. Cold. As in what passes for morality in Hollywood.”