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kilowatts.
    “Maybe I shouldn’t want a lawyer on my team who wants to be famous.”
    “Every criminal lawyer in this town wants to be famous.”
    “What about Oscar Quesana?”
    “It’s too late for him. He’s achieved the enviable status of ‘respected,’ and that’s as far as it’s going to go for him. Ever. Besides, I’m more telegenic. A five-foot-five pert size six looks great on camera. So the guys in the press, and maybe even some of the girls, will find me very interesting indeed. Even more so when they discover I’m a natural blonde who dyes her hair black. And their interest in me will translate into a favorable interest in your story.”
    “My story? I don’t have a story. Except that I’m not guilty and I didn’t do it. What possible story do I have beyond that? That I was home alone Sunday night? That I watched a re-mastered DVD of The Maltese Falcon ? Because that is God’s truth.”
    “Well, we’ll need a better story than that. Because the DA is going to be sitting in the courtroom weaving a scarf that says ‘guilty’ in both English and Spanish.”
    “Courtroom? Shit, I haven’t even been arrested, let alone indicted.” I was feeling agitated. “I mean they’ve got nothing. Nothing.” If I were the kind of person who pounded things, I would have pounded the dashboard.
    Jenna turned her head and gave me a quick, eyebrows-arched look before focusing again on the road ahead. “Robert, you don’t read the newspapers you subscribe to, and you don’t watch television. You don’t surf the Net. You don’t have a Facebook account, and you’ve probably never even heard of Twitter.”
    “I know about Twitter. I just don’t use it.”
    “Whatever, you’ve mostly missed the brave new world of crime stories.”
    “I think I’ve even missed the brave old world of crime stories, Jenna.”
    She laughed. “I don’t doubt it. But here’s the scoop. These days, the police and the DA need to solve high-profile killings pronto. DA’s don’t get reelected if they don’t solve them before the next election, and police chiefs don’t get reappointed by the mayor if they’re not solved. There’s an election for DA in six months, and the Chief’s first term is up in nine. He wants a second term. So right now you’re what they call second-term security.”
    By now my agitation had dissolved into a petulant mutter. “They’ve got nothing.”
    “They think they’ve got a lot. They’ve got opportunity. They’ve got you tied physically into the crime by the blood on your suit coat. If you decide to return the coin to Simon’s estate and then the police find the e-mails, they’ll also have a plausible motive.”
    “I still think it’s a dumb motive.”
    “Well, I don’t think so. And my gut tells me that they do have something more. Or they wouldn’t have leaked to the Times that you’re a person of interest.”
    “Like what?”
    “I don’t know. We need to find out. Maybe it has to do with that ‘vator’ thing I heard them talking about.”
    We never finished the conversation, because a white news van suddenly pulled alongside us, a TV camera poking out its window. Jenna saw it, too.
    “Don’t turn your head!”
    It was hard not to turn my head, but I obeyed. I was trying to be a good client. The van was still alongside. I could see it in my peripheral vision.
    “Robert, grab my cell. In the glove compartment!”
    I opened the glove compartment, rummaged for the phone, extracted it, and handed it to her. She punched in a number.
    “Who are you calling?”
    “The news director for KZDD. That’s their goddamn van.”
    I heard a click as someone answered.
    “Hey, Mike. Jenna James. . . Uh huh. Well, I’m representing him. . . Yeah, it is hard to believe. Fun stuff, huh? Hey, I have a small request . . .” Then she laughed and said, quite sweetly, really, “Tell your fucking news van to get away from my car?”
    I could not help but notice that she had used the vocal