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ILL-GOTTEN GAMES
    By BV Lawson
    Courthouses are nothing more than human ant colonies. From his vantage point across from the information desk, Drayco watched workers scurrying through tunnels into various chambers, going about the business of life and death as if what they did mattered in a world where justice was fleeting. Drayco couldn’t help but wonder if he were more of a soldier ant or scavenger ant, or just subject to gloomy metaphors. This case he’d taken on for Benny Baskin wasn’t helping matters, since working with Benny was like partnering with a tornado.
    A couple of legal eaglets, twenty-something women walking nearby, stopped dead in the hallway and stared in a direction away from Drayco. One of the two said, “That’s him. That’s Baskin.”
    The comma-shaped eyebrows on the other woman were raised so high, Drayco wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d jumped off her face. She replied in a thick accent more Bostonian than mid-Atlantic, “That’s the hardball defense attorney, the one who never loses a case?”
    Her companion nodded. “What did you expect?”
    “Not someone who looks like an elf. Or Yoda. Hardly the type to make that junior Sheinberg associate cry.”
    With a strangled gasp, the two women averted their eyes to the file boxes in their arms, as the attorney in question headed their way. “You don’t think he heard us, do you?” the first one whispered, eyes darting back to the approaching elf.
    The elf stopped in front of them, then waved to an area behind the girls where Scott Drayco had one foot propped against the wall and was trying not to laugh at the red-faced duo gaping at him like stunned mullets. Oh yeah, Drayco had heard everything.
    Benny Baskin watched the girls run in the opposite direction. “What’s gotten into them? I’m pretty sure I put on deodorant this morning.”
    Drayco moved away from the wall, his six-four frame towering over Baskin, who stood four-nine without his platform shoes. Drayco admitted Baskin’s shock of white hair and eye patch might fit the elf description. Or the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins, considering the two shared the initials BB.
    “I think they’re new,” Drayco replied. “Probably getting their bearings.”
    Baskin’s voice was deep for his diminutive stature, growling like a bull terrier. “Listen, Drayco. You got any new leads on Jalen Truitt yet? I’m dying in there.” Baskin jerked his head toward the courtroom. “The prosecutor thinks he’s got this murder case sewn up tighter than Joe Montana’s favorite football. I’ve got an innocent client sweating bricks while that mealy-mouthed Odom kid, who I’d bet my retirement is guilty as hell, is sitting there wondering how his stocks are doing or whether he should buy a red or a black BMW.”
    Drayco frowned. “I thought the evidence against Manuel Parrack was circumstantial.”
    “True, but even I have to admit the prosecutor’s made a good case. Goddamn the man.”
    On cue, a silver-haired man in a brown pinstriped suit made a beeline toward them, the ever-present briefcase glued to his hand as if containing nuclear launch codes. The briefcase was a Budd Italian leather number, which must have set its owner back a grand. Prosecuting attorney Milton Taynter had never gotten over the fact his younger brother joined a private D.C. firm making three times what Taynter made. Drayco suspected it was a status briefcase, a symbolic sine qua non.
    Taynter’s famous Cheshire Cat grin never wavered except for bouts of a wheezy cough from years of smoking Tiparillos. “Greetings, dear Baskin. And I see you have your young attack pup Drayco with you today. Lovely morning, isn’t it?”
    Baskin muttered under his breath, but loud enough for Drayco to hear, “It was .”
    Taynter plowed right ahead. “I think we’re going to be able to end this case with closing arguments very soon, perhaps this very day. I noticed you delving into the bottom of your witness barrel.”
    Baskin