“Sure,” he persisted. “Still, when it’s all said and done it’s going to turn out to be some psychopath. I mean, with the picture and all. Some real sickie, you’ll see.”

“We all will.” I glanced at the time sheets in his hand, hoping for a change of subject. “Sending out six years of back bills?”

“Checking on the associates. I want to see who’s putting in the hours.” He decided to end on a hearty note. “I’m sure you’ll be glad to get back into some normal work yourself.”

“I’m sure,” I said, and went to my office.

My secretary looked up blandly from her desk. “Mr. Taylor just left word about the Stafford case,” she told me. “He said to call when it’s convenient.”

I stepped inside and dialed. “Hello, Nate.”

“Adam.” Nate Taylor’s black-accented voice was roughly what Otis Lee’s would have been after Harvard Law School and enough trial work to give him bleeding ulcers at thirty-three. “I told your secretary not to rush you to the phone. I figured you might not be in the mood.”

“Consider yourself a diversion.”

“All right. I’ve been sitting here reviewing the evidence of job discrimination by that fine gentleman of the old school, Peyton Stafford. I thought before I went to the trouble of proving at trial what you know to be true I’d see about talking settlement.”

“I’m always glad to talk. Peyton’s a little less flexible.”

“You’ve got no defense, Adam. Tell him that.”

“It’s not quite true, though. Reread my deposition of your lead plaintiff. No jury’s going to put some guy with four drunk citations in charge of a lumber mill.”

“Clients lie to you all the time,” he said matter-of-factly. “Even yours. My other plaintiffs are clean and your man has discriminated. Those are the facts.”

“Okay. We’ll sit down next week. I’m just telling you, don’t come expecting the sun, stars, and moon. You’re not getting them.” I said goodbye and hung up.

“Shit,” I said aloud.

I looked down at the list. Most days I came to the office, drank one cup of black coffee, and went over the list of things to do I’d written the day before. Staring now at Friday’s list—eight numbered items with the first three crossed off—I knew with a cold, clear certainty that I didn’t give a damn.

I surveyed my office—a framed law license, two shelves of law books, and some comic prints of English barristers—until I came to my grandfather’s dartboard on the far wall, pocked with contests between my father and me. I reached in my desk drawer for a dart.