“I’ll be right out.”

“What’s the big deal?” Julia mutters.

“This guy looks pretty scruffy to me.”

“Wonderful, Julia!” I exclaim.

“Why don’t you put down the phone and just yell it in his face?” Yet I know what she means. Outside of a courtroom, Bracken is a ratty dresser-cowboy boots the color of musca dine wine, ties that strain against his bulging neck like sprung mousetraps, and belt buckles that double as beer bottle openers. Still, I’d cut off my left arm to get the results he does for his clients. My friend Dan Bailey, a veteran Chet Bracken watcher, retells the story that Bracken is so prepared he can tell you what his clients ate for breakfast the day they got themselves into trouble.

In the reception room Bracken’s appearance is, in fact, alarming. Scruffy isn’t the word. His suit, a cow patty gray, hangs on him; he looks like the family runt who has acquired a wardrobe of hand-me-downs. If he has been trying to lose weight, he should consider a career change as a barker for Weight Watchers. Otherwise he looks like a candidate for a bone-marrow transplant.

Immediately, I think he must have AIDS and realize I haven’t seen him around in two or three months. Despite the ghost he has become, Chet is a presence in Blackwell County legal circles, whether he is sighted or not.

“Mr. Bracken,” I say with a forced, uneasy jocularity, “to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” I would feel awkward calling him by his first name. We are not friends or equals, merely colleagues in a suspicious profession. A couple in the waiting room stare at Bracken and me as if I am greeting royalty.

Bracken pushes up from his chair and says, “Page, you got a few minutes?” No handshake. No smile. He may not look like the Chet Bracken of three months ago, but he is acting the same.