The magistrate’s office for the city of Richmond was on the first floor of the police department, past the information desk and in close proximity to lockup and Sally Port 1.

It was not quite four o’clock in the afternoon. Vince Tittle wasn’t feeling good about his job or life. It wasn’t hard to look back and see where he had cracked the glass, chipped the china, scorched the sweet milk in the pot. He had succumbed to a favor. He had sold his soul for an office that looked very much like a tollbooth.

Tittle had not always thought the worst about himself. Until four years ago he had enjoyed a fulfilling career as a photographer at the morgue. He had been proud of taking pictures perfectly to scale. He had been a magician with lighting and shutter speeds. His art went to court. It was viewed by prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and juries.

The chief medical examiner adored him. Her deputy chiefs and the forensic scientists did, too. Defendants hated him. Tittle’s lust for justice was what got him into trouble. His road to hell began when Tittle joined the Gentleman’s Bartering Club, which included hundreds of people with training, skills and talents that Tittle couldn’t always afford. He took family portraits, and photos for Christmas cards, calendars, graduations and debutante balls, swapping his skills for virtual cash minus a ten percent commission that went to the club.

Tittle rarely shopped in reality after that. He could take wedding pictures, for example, and earn a thousand virtual dollars, which in turn he might virtually spend on roof repair. Tittle was addicted to his camera. Soon he became virtually wealthy, which is how he met Circuit Court Judge Nicholas Endo, who was at war with his wife and losing.

Judge Endo believed Mrs. Endo was having an affair with her dentist, Bull Ehrhart, and wanted to catch her in the act. Tittle would never forget what Judge Endo said to him one night when they were drinking bourbon in the clubhouse.

“Vince, you’ve got virtually everything a man could want,” said the judge as he paid five virtual dollars for a drink that was real. “But there’s got to be one thing in this club you can’t buy, and I bet I damn well know what it is.”

“What?” Tittle said.

“You love court. You love the law,” said the judge. “Taking photographs of stiffs is getting boring. Has to be. Should always have been, Vince.”

Tittle slowly swirled ice in his Maker’s Mark. The truth pained him deeply.

“Come on. Come on.” The judge leaned across the table and said in the tone that reminded Tittle of come here, kitty, kitty, kitty, “I mean, Vince, how goddamn challenging can it be to shoot a liver on a scale, a brain on a cutting board, stomach contents, little cups of urine and bile, bite marks, axes in the back of people’s heads?”

“You’re right,” Tittle muttered, motioning for Seunghoon, the cocktail waitress. “This round’s on me.”