“An unwavering commitment to caprice, I see.”

She laughed a laugh so full of rue I felt like I was watching Betty Davis tilt her head back, stretch her white neck. “Exactly. I aspire to live my life like a character in a sitcom, every week a new and perky adventure.”

“What’s the title of this episode?”

“Into the Maw, or maybe Into the Mall, because after this I need to go to the Gallery and buy some tampons. Why were you in that stupid little courtroom this morning?”

I took another sip of coffee. “One of my clients attempted to buy one hundred and seventy-nine automatic rifles, three grenade launchers, and a flamethrower from an undercover cop.”

“Is he in the mob, this client of yours?”

“There is no mob. It is a figment of the press’s imagination.”

“Then what was he going to do with all those guns?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?”

“I had heard you were a mob lawyer. It’s true, isn’t it?”

I made an effort to stare at her without blinking as I let the comment slide off me like a glob of phlegm.

Yes, a majority of my clients just happened to be junior associates of Mr. Raffaello, like I said, but I was no house counsel, no mob lawyer. At least not technically. I merely handled their cases after they allegedly committed their alleged crimes, nothing more. And though my clients never flipped, never ratted out the organization that fed them since they were pups, that sustained them, that took care of their families and their futures, though my clients never informed on the family, the decision not to inform was made well before they ever stepped into my office. And was I really representing these men, or was I instead enforcing the promises made to all citizens in the Constitution of the United States? Wasn’t I among the noblest defenders of those sacred rights for which our forefathers fought and died? Who among us was doing more to protect liberty, to ensure justice? Who among us was doing more to safeguard the American way of life?