“I’ll be down to see you in less than an hour.” If Oscar passes on it, I’ll refer the guy after I break my boss’s neck.

“Thank you,” Dr. Chapman says politely and hangs up.

Elated, I put down the phone and write his name down on a yellow pad. Who is he? God, lawyers are horrible. Bad news makes me feel almost as good as sex. I grab up the Davis file, but instead of heading for Oscar’s office, I swing by the John. Sometimes, I think the best thing about being an attorney is being able to go to the bathroom whenever I want. If I worked in a factory, I’d need a catheter attached to my thigh.

In the head, I join Daryl Worley, who is at the next urinal.

He doesn’t look so hot. Charcoal-colored pouches under his already dark eyes make him look as if he has survived a physical beating instead of an emotional and financial one.

He was the lawyer on the Stoddard case a week ago in which the judge snatched from us on a judgment notwithstanding the verdict after a jury had awarded our client two million dollars.

“How’s it going, Darryl?” I say, unzipping my pants. Daryl, ten years younger, made partner last year. He has become a friend in the last few months, and we’ve started playing some tennis this summer.

He smiles sadly as he shakes off, but instead of a mournful acknowledgment, he recites, “You can beat it on the wall;

you can throw it on the rocks; but it’s always in your pants you get that last little drop.”

Damn! If people knew what some of us were really like.

The guy is smooth as mercury in front of a jury, but as soon as he steps outside the courtroom he regresses into an adolescent. I laugh dutifully while he washes his hands, not having heard that ditty since high school.

“Women have it worse,” I say, keeping the conversation off law. If given a chance to talk about the case, Darryl will start in on Curtis Hadley, the trial judge in the Stoddard case, and I haven’t got the time. I’m a little surprised he hasn’t been to my office to talk to me today about it.