“Ain’t over till it’s over.”

“I’ve been in sales for thirty years, and in my business it’s all about reading people, and that jury is going to acquit me. You were worth every penny. Even if it was ten times what I would’ve paid the next guy.”

“Just remember that when you get your final bill.”

We rose as the jury filed out, and Marcus’s girlfriend ran up from the audience and hugged him. Another young actress. They were easy to find in this town for people like Marcus, who drove Rolls-Royces and could convince girls that they knew a producer or a director looking for talent. South Beach was the new Hollywood.

I left the crowd and went to the bathroom—small but paneled with what I was sure was imported wood and accented with brass shined to a gleam. It’d be a shame for the country’s wealthy to have to tolerate an average bathroom. I was splashing water on my face when the door opened and Detective Pascal walked in. She wore the leather jacket I had bought her for her birthday. She leaned against the sink next to mine and folded her arms.

“He’s gonna walk,” Sarah said.

“Yes, he is.”

“Would it be too presumptuous of me to ask if you felt bad?”

“You know my emotions never come into it.”

“Oh, I know, Tatum. That’s why we broke up. You’re like a block of ice. And that says a lot coming from a cop.”

“I thought we broke up because you were having sex with your partner?”

A man walked in just then. Sarah said, “Find another bathroom.” The man glanced between the two of us and left.

“I just thought this case, this case, will get to him. Nineteen-year-old girl, fresh off the bus and looking for help to make her dreams come true, and instead she finds Marcus Green, who strangles her to death in the middle of the afternoon. I thought, naively, just for a second, that you might feel bad defending him.”

“Hey, if you and those clowns at the prosecutor’s table had done your jobs, he wouldn’t be walking. Always, always, always make sure your victim is clean as a whistle, and if they’re not, you tell the jury every horrible thing about them at the beginning of the trial. After I was through with her past, it looked like you guys were trying to hide it. Once you break trust with a jury, bam, that’s it. Game over. Also, not that this little detail matters to the government, but he’s innocent.”