“You can come in and wait. I don’t know when he’ll be in. He doesn’t have court until this afternoon.”

“Maybe you could call him.”

“Maybe.”

We entered the office and she directed me to a couch in a small waiting area. The furnishings were comfortable and seemed relatively new. I got the feeling that Schifino was an accomplished lawyer. The receptionist went behind her desk, turned on her computer and began her routine of preparing for the day.

“Are you going to call him?” I asked.

“When I get a moment. Just make yourself comfortable.”

I tried to but I didn’t like waiting around. I pulled my laptop out of my bag and turned it on.

“Do you have WiFi here?” I asked.

“We do.”

“Could I borrow it to check my e-mail? I’ll only be on a few minutes.”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

I studied her for a moment.

“Excuse me?”

“I said no. It’s a secured system and you will have to ask Mr. Schifino about that.”

“Well, could you ask him for me when you call him to tell him I am waiting here?”

“As soon as possible.”

She gave me an efficient smile and went back to her busywork. The phone buzzed and she opened an appointment book and started scheduling a meeting for a client and telling him about the credit cards they accepted for legal services rendered. It reminded me of my own current credit-card situation and I grabbed one of the magazines off the coffee table to try to avoid thinking about it.

It was called the Nevada Legal Review and it was chock-full of ads for lawyers and legal services like transcription and data storage. There were also articles about legal cases, most of them dealing with casino licensing or crimes against casinos. I was twenty minutes into a story about a legal attack on the law that kept brothels from operating in Las Vegas and Clark County when the office door opened and a man stepped in. He nodded to me and looked at the receptionist, who was still on the phone.

“Hold, please,” the receptionist said.

She pointed to me.

“Mr. Schifino, this man has no appointment. He says he’s a reporter from Los Angeles. He—”

“Brian Oglevy is innocent,” I said, cutting her off. “And I think I can prove it.”

Schifino studied me for a long moment. He had dark hair and a handsome face with an uneven tan from wearing a baseball cap. He was either a golfer or a coach. Or maybe both. His eyes were sharp and he quickly came to a decision about me.

“Then I guess you better come on back to the office,” he said.

I followed him to his office and he sat down behind a large desk while signaling me to the seat on the other side.

“You work for the Times?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Good paper but in a lot of trouble these days. Financially.”

“Yeah, they all are.”