JOHNNY MERTON WAS PLAYING WITH ME, AND WE BOTH knew it. It was a fun game for him. He was doing endless years for crimes ranging from murder and extortion to excessive litigation. He had a lot of time on his hands.

We were sitting in the room at Stateville reserved for lawyers and their clients. I couldn’t believe Johnny was stringing me along, thinking I’d get him out early. It had been too many years since I’d practiced criminal law for me to be a good bet for any convict, let alone someone who needed Clarence Darrow and Johnnie Cochran working double shifts before he had a prayer.

“I want the Innocence Project working for me, Warshawski,” he announced that afternoon.

“And you are innocent of exactly what?” I pretended to make a note on my legal pad.

“Whatever they’re charging me with.” He grinned, inviting me to think he was clowning, but I didn’t smile back. Whatever else he might be, Johnny Merton was no buffoon.

Johnny was past sixty. During my brief stint as his lawyer when I’d been with the Public Defender’s Office, he’d been an angry man whose rage at being assigned yet another new-minted attorney made it almost impossible to stay in the bull pen with him. He’d earned his nickname, “The Hammer,” because he could bludgeon anyone with anything, including his emotions. The twenty-five intervening years-many behind bars-hadn’t exactly mellowed him, but he had learned better ways of working the system.

“Compared to you, my wants are so simple,” I said. “Lamont Gadsden.”

“You know, Warshawski, life in prison, it takes away so much from you, and one of the things I’ve lost is my memory. Name does not ring a bell.” He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. The snakes coiling around his biceps, looping down so that the heads rested on his wrists, seemed to writhe against his dark skin.