Darryl begins to hum the Marine Hymn as he pushes the hot-air machine button. He rubs his hands together briskly, pretending to read the instructions. ‘“Him on. Rub hands together. Then wipe hands on pants.”

Junior associate that I am, I grin. I’ve seen that cartoon, too. What the hell? There’s nothing new under the sun. And, according to my tenth-grade Sunday school teacher, that saying comes from the book of Ecclesiastes. Perhaps Darryl is whistling in the graveyard: truly, with his raccoon eyes, he has a sickly look about him.

“Catch you later,” I tell him.

“Yeah,” he says, not looking me in the eye. Losing is a serious business. The firm spent over thirty thousand of its own money in experts and exhibits.

Martha Birford, who shares with me here an employment anniversary date, arrives outside Oscar Mays’s office at the same time, and we go in together. She has a piece of the Davis case, too. We both like Oscar better than Chip Burton.

It is no secret that Oscar was responsible for hiring us, for one thing, but also he is genuinely a nice man. He is in his sixties and seems ready to retire, but for some reason he won’t or can’t. If his office is any indication, he can afford it. He has a fireplace, an antique walnut desk I’d like to steal if I could figure out a way to get it through the door, and works of unknown (to me) Southern artists, who, according to Martha (incongruously, an art history major in college), for the moment are quite popular.

“Have a seat,” he says affably, standing until Martha is seated, always the old Southern gentleman. It hits me that Martha and I are getting a raise. I want to tell him that I have brought the firm a decent client but have learned that Oscar likes to speak first, whatever the situation. Age before beauty, I suppose.