“That is ominous. Playing your rock and roll too loud?”

“Yes, but that’s not it.”

“I’m sure we can scrape up a partnership distribution to get any back rent paid.”

“It’s nothing like that. I’m actually up-to-date in my rent, believe it or not. It’s just that the real-estate market has picked up. The landlord wants to gut the building, redo each floor into luxury lofts, and sell them off at obscene prices. I’m in the way.”

“What about your lease?”

“It’s up in a month. He mailed me an eviction notice.”

“When?”

“I got it a month or so ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about it then?”

“I don’t know, I guess I hoped if I ignored the letter the whole thing would go away. Except it didn’t go away, and the date’s getting close.”

“What about the other tenants?”

“They’re all getting ready to leave. But I don’t want to leave. I like my apartment, and I couldn’t bear to move. Is there something I can do?”

“We can fight it. There are all kinds of screwy landlord-tenant laws on the books. We’ll tie them up for months, bollix the whole condo deal, make their lives an utter misery. Making the lives of corporate types an utter misery is half the fun of being a lawyer.”

“What’s the other half?”

“I haven’t found it yet. Give me the eviction letter and I’ll file something.”

“Thank you, Victor,” she said as she stood. “I feel better already.”

“Don’t worry, Beth. It will be fine.”

At the doorway she turned and gave me a wan smile. “I knew I could count on you.”

Poor thing, I thought as she stood there with a hopeful expression on her face. She was going to have to find herself a new place.

When she closed the door behind her, I opened my desk drawer again, just to get another peek. Then I screwed up my courage and called Slocum.

“You have stepped in it now, Carl,” said K. Lawrence Slocum, the chief of the Homicide Division at the district attorney’s office.