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though he's a socialist, he's also such a total Ivy
League snob. I mean, how fucked-up is that?"
    "Every socialist I've ever met has also been an Ivy League snob," I replied.
    "I'm just saying that guys like you don't necessarily pay your
full dues. I went to Brooklyn Law School. People hear I'm a public defender,
they assume it's because I couldn't get a real job. People hear you're a public
defender and they assume you've got the world's greatest soul."
    "I was a lawyer for four and a half years before I became a public defender," I protested, although my license had actually been suspended for those final six months.
"Isaac told me when I started that I'd probably be able to move on to more
serious cases after six months or so."
    "So you go from arraignments to a murder case," Myra said.
"Whatever. It's Isaac's call."
    "Is there some reason you don't want me on this case?"
    "I haven't had a second chair on any of my cases. Why is Isaac
giving me one now?"
    "So you can mentor me?" I said, which got me a quick sardonic look.
    "It's because he thinks I'm rattled by the Gibbons case. He thinks
my focus isn't there. Essentially you are a no-confidence vote in me."
    "You don't really know that."
    "Yes, I do."
    "What Isaac told me is that it's a high-profile case, given the
victim. I don't see why that's not a good enough reason to have me on board."
    "I have my way of doing things. I'm not a supervisor, I'm not a
trainer, I'm a trial lawyer. I run on instincts, and can't always explain why I
do what I do, and don't have the time or inclination to try."
    "Look, I'm just happy to be on the team, okay?"
    "But that's the point," Myra said. "There is no team. This is
my
case."
    WE DIDN'T talk much on the rest of the drive. As we finally approached the bridge that led to the jail we pulled into a parking lot and went to a wooden trailer, where we got our passes for entering Rikers. It looked to me like a border checkpoint between third-world countries. I felt a sort of joy at the sordidness of it all, that part of me that responded to being a criminal defense lawyer in a way I had no interest in analyzing.
    We got back into the car and drove over the bridge, planes taking off from LaGuardia on our right side. Rikers wasn't what I had expected: the Los Angeles of jails, it was sprawling, disconnected, a bunch of buildings spread out haphazardly across a moody landscape.
    We parked in a crowded lot and entered the squat control center. The room was crowded with people trying to get in to see prisoners. I followed Myra to the window for attorneys, where she handed over our passes and filled out a visitation card. The guard stamped our hands and gave us plastic tokens identifying us as lawyers.
    Myra led the way out of the main building and back outside. There were seagulls everywhere, used to humans and ignoring our presence. We waited for a bus that took us to the facility where Lorenzo was being held.
    Finally we ended up in an interview room, waiting for Lorenzo to be brought in. The room was small, drastically overheated, two chairs on one side of a metal desk, one chair on the other. One wall was a window, two court officers dimly visible on the other side—one had maybe just told the punch line to a joke; both were laughing.
    Myra and I waited in near silence for ten minutes. I felt my nerves clutch; looking at Myra I could tell she felt it too, even with her experience. I supposed you never got completely used to sitting in the hostile space of a jail, waiting for a man accused of murder.
    Myra filled the time reviewing the papers that made up our initial file; not knowing what else to do, I did the same. Finally the door behind us opened with a protracted metallic screech, and we turned to face our client.
    I didn't know what exactly I'd been expecting, but Lorenzo Tate was not it. Perhaps more than anything I'd expected someone intimidating, and Lorenzo certainly wasn't that. He was relatively short, for one thing,