Barnum said, “Is that your only loose end?”

“So far,” Seeley said. “I still have two more shelves of depositions to read.”

“Did you get your pro hac motion granted?”

“Chris Palmieri's taking care of it.”

Barnum gave him a doubtful look. “What do you think of him-Palmieri?”

“Why?” Seeley remembered Palmieri's uncertainty about joining him at counsel's table.

Barnum said, “It didn't seem to you that he's maybe… a little light in the loafers?”

As he spoke, Barnum moved and Seeley caught a warning look from Leonard. It took him a moment to understand what was on Barnum's mind. The trim build, the close-cropped hair, the pink pocket handkerchief.

Seeley said, “That's none of my business.”

“If you want to win this case, you'll make it your business. The jury's impression of Vaxtek, what kind of company we are, is what they see when they look at counsel's table. I don't want them to see a queer sitting there.”

Seeley decided not to ask Barnum how many jury cases he'd tried. “If you count up who a lot of the AIDS victims are in San Francisco, I'd think having him at counsel's table would be an advantage.” It was cheap tactical point that Seeley regretted as soon as he made it.

“There's a big difference between the San Francisco you read about in the newspapers and the San Francisco that sits on a federal jury.”

Leonard had come around to the front of his desk. “Mike has a great track record with juries. I'm sure he'll pick his jurors carefully.”

“Not before Ellen Farnsworth, he won't.” Barnum's eyes hadn't moved from Seeley's. “She runs her own voir dire. She picks the jury.”

Seeley reminded himself that he hadn't yet done his research on District Judge Ellen Farnsworth, who would preside at the trial.