I look on in astonishment. I’ve heard of people carrying large sums of cash around, but he must have ten thousand on him. If he keels over in the street, there’ll be a riot.

“Maybe she shot him in self-defense,” I say, recalling Leigh’s picture in the paper. Some beautiful women photograph terribly; Leigh Wallace could model for any magazine in the country. She looks like that curly-headed Spanish-looking brunette who’s always in the Avon catalogs Julia keeps at the front desk. Leigh has glittering dark eyes, a thin nose, a generous mouth, and the kind of figure that ties up traffic for blocks.

Seeing her picture the day after she was charged, I regretted my not-always-adhered-to vow to date only women close to my age. But look what it got Art Wallace, who, like myself, was in his mid-forties.

“I’d settle for self-defense,” Bracken says, handing me the bills, “but the cops say there was no sign of a struggle, and I can’t get a thing out of her. The cops nailed her on all the inconsistencies they’ve caught her in and because there was no sign of a forced entry. It.

appears she has gone to some length to establish her father’s church as an alibi, but a neighbor saw her drive by at the same time she was supposed to be in a meeting. Hell, I don’t know; I haven’t felt like doing much work lately.”

Bracken must be going crazy. A notorious workaholic, he bugged me night and day during the Perry Sarver case until he got the prosecutor to dismiss the charges against his client. Some lawyers, the mediocre ones, only go all out the last month before a trial.

Bracken knows only one speed. I can’t imagine he hasn’t browbeaten his client to tell him her life story.

Cancer, however, isn’t a disease that respects the work ethic. Once Rosa started going down, she didn’t feel like doing much either. The depression was as bad as the pain. What an ego this son of a bitch has. He ought to be home in bed and probably has no idea he is de pressed.