“I was just wondering why someone would go so far out of his way to take his own life.”

“Like I said, who knows what he was thinking? Look at the photographs in the obituaries. Half the time, a guy kills himself and in the picture he's got a big smile on his face.”

“In Pearsall's photograph-was he smiling?”

“Like he was having the time of his life.”

Leonard leaned forward and with his index finger pushed the thick manila envelope on the desk toward Seeley. “What can I say to get you to come to San Francisco?”

Two questions fought in Seeley's mind, one asking why he would let himself slip into his brother's plans for him, the other, why he wouldn't. When Leonard first called, Seeley turned him down at once, making the decision even before his brother could describe the lawsuit. After that, from the messages Mrs. Rosziak passed on to him, Seeley knew that, although the case was big, it could be tried in less than a month. For that short a time he could easily arrange continuances for his few cases in Buffalo. Wasn't this why he left his large corporate firm in New York City-not just to pick his clients and have no partners to answer to, but to be free to take cases of moral consequence. How many of his current cases came close to the heft of this one? Vaxtek was hardly the helpless victim that Leonard painted, but the multinational St. Gall was a war machine, and if Leonard was telling the truth his company's survival depended on this patent.

Seeley said, “I'm not admitted to practice in California.” If Leonard was in fact following his career, he knew that his brother regularly tried cases outside New York State. A simple motion to the court, granted virtually as a matter of course, was all that it would take for him to appear.

“You've done it before-practiced in other states.”

Seeley said, “Why are you smiling?”