“Ah.” He nodded. “Dev Kapoor, then. He trained with Centrello, but he’s younger and more flexible.”

I took a sip of wine while I considered it. “That doesn’t solve the expense problem.”

“Come work for me,” he said again. “Pay me back in kind. You’re a brilliant lawyer. I knew that even before today. You can handle the Northstar discovery for me. After all, it’s thanks to you that we got this far.”

“Indentured servitude,” I said.

“No different from most of the world’s population. They all work for the Man.” With a grin, he tapped his turquoise shirtfront. “You’ll just be working for this man.”

I turned toward the park. The breeze rippled through my hair, and the fragrance of the blossoming trees drifted across the rooftop. I was a brilliant lawyer—at least I used to be. That was the question: could I be smart enough now to make this work for me? Ivins was playing me, that much was obvious. I had to figure a way to play him instead. It was jujitsu—I needed to figure out what he viewed as his greatest strength and use it to topple him. The sun was setting over the park, and I watched it sink while I thought.

His phone pinged, and I looked back as he pulled it out of his pocket and read the text. “Ha!” he said. “Ingram Barrett’s lawyers just filed an emergency motion to disqualify me as plaintiffs’ counsel in the Palmer case.”

“On what ground?”

“On the ground of my apparent personal relationship with a former CDMI lawyer.” His mouth stretched into a wide grin. “Just wait till Barrett finds out you’re working for me!”

That was what finally decided me. I lifted my glass. “I accept,” I said.

His teeth gleamed bright in the fading sun as he clinked his glass against mine.

Chapter 26

A sibilant hiss greeted Barrett as he entered the courtroom, and instantly he saw that Ivins had packed the gallery with CDMI shareholders. Not the institutional shareholders, of course; not the ones with votes, who mattered. No, these were the young women whose parents gave them a few shares upon their college graduations because they adored the company’s labels so much. Then there were the middle-aged men who used to jerk off to Madame’s famous poster; they bought their shares out of erotic nostalgia. These were Ivins’s typical constituent shareholders, the ones who owned just enough shares to file nuisance lawsuits and become thorns in the company’s side.

Ivins was there, of course, working his way through the crowd, glad-handing them like a politician. While Barrett’s lawyer, Dick Harrington, was sitting alone at counsel table with his head down. Barrett took a seat beside him. “How’s it looking?”

Harrington shook his head and continued reading his notes. This motion wasn’t his idea. He didn’t think the judge would disqualify Ivins from the Palmer case. He resisted, but Barrett insisted—that was the dynamic of this particular attorney-client relationship. Lawyers made the worst clients, so the saying went, but only because they refused to be buffaloed.