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you.”
    â€œOf course it’s all right with me,” said Jaywalker. “But it brings us to another issue.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œWell,” said Jaywalker, “you’ve been around long enough to know that the chances of beating a direct sale case aren’t very good.” A direct sale meant one in which the buyer was an undercover cop or agent, as opposed to an observation sale, where the authorities claimed to have witnessed a transaction between a seller and a buyer, both of whom were civilians.
    Barnett nodded but didn’t say anything. Not only hadhe been around long enough to know that Jaywalker was speaking the truth, but his record of guilty pleas suggested he understood the odds.
    â€œSo,” continued Jaywalker, “it might be a good idea if we spent a few minutes talking about the facts of your case.”
    â€œFair enough,” said Barnett.
    â€œWhy don’t you tell me what happened.” It wasn’t a question on Jaywalker’s part so much as an invitation. Nor was it something he always asked of a defendant, particularly in a sale case. Strange as it may sound, sometimes a lawyer and client talk about everything but the facts. There are times, for example, when they both know the defendant has done precisely what he’s accused of but on the one hand doesn’t want to lie to his lawyer or come right out and admit his guilt on the other. So without ever saying so, they agree to ignore it and spend their time dancing around it, the elephant in the room. Or, in this particular instance, the elephant in the cell.
    Again, Barnett took his time before answering. When finally he did, he spoke only four little words. They added up to neither an admission of guilt nor a denial, but rather an explanation for his behavior. In no way did they amount to a legal defense, the way they might have had he said, for example, that he’d been forced into doing what he’d done, or coerced, or that he’d been insane at the time, or that he hadn’t realized that it had actually been heroin he’d sold to the undercover agent.
    Believe it or not, Jaywalker had once won a case on just such a theory. His client had been making a living by “beating” his customers, selling them supermarket-bought spices at marijuana prices. When the cops had examined the evidence they’d bought back at the station house, they’d realized they too had been victimized. Sothey’d simply sprinkled some of their own emergency stash into the ounce they’d bought, enough to convince the police chemist. But not the jury. Not once had Jaywalker insisted upon having an independent analysis conducted. The sample came back two percent cannabis, eighty percent oregano and eighteen percent basil. Highly aromatic stuff, perhaps, but hardly the kind to get high on.
    No, Alonzo Barnett’s four words of explanation fell far short of that standard. And when he uttered them, they initially struck Jaywalker as being not only legally worthless but pretty insignificant in terms of moral culpability, as well. Then again, he was at something of a disadvantage. For as he listened to them, he had yet to hear Alonzo Barnett’s story. He had absolutely no way of knowing just how fertile with possibility the words were, or how in time they would germinate, take root, sprout and grow into a full-fledged defense, the likes of which Jaywalker would never have dared to even dream about, sitting there in the pens of 100 Centre Street, back on that Thursday morning in May of 1986.
    â€œI did a favor,” is all Alonzo Barnett said.

4
    No good deed
    T he fact that he took a moment to think before answering a question in no way meant that Alonzo Barnett couldn’t tell a story. He could, and for the next half hour he spoke almost without pause or interruption. So articulate was he and so riveting was his story that Jaywalker dared to break into it only once or