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messages. She just started her second year of law school at Hastings. I can’t wait for her to graduate so we can make her managing partner, a roleshe is already performing for the most part. I’m not much for administrative details, although Rosie gets me to do my time sheets every day under penalty of death. Rolanda is a petite woman in her late twenties. Her father is Rosie’s older brother, Tony. “You looked good on the news,” she says.
    “Thanks. Could you page Pete? We’re going to need him.” My younger brother used to be a cop. He got into trouble a few years ago when he and some of his cohorts got a little heavy-handed when they broke up a gang fight. It cost him his badge. He’s still bitter about it. Now he’s a PI. I use him as the lead investigator on many of my cases. He’s going through a tough time. He and his wife split up about a year ago. Their divorce was just finalized. He’s bitter about that, too. I feel for him. I’ve survived an acrimonious divorce. It doesn’t help that I introduced him to his ex-wife.
    Rolanda hands me the phone. “He’s holding,” she says.
    “Mick,” Pete says, “you need some help with Skipper’s case?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He says he has to take a few more pictures of a man who is going to pay a lot of alimony to his soon-to-be ex-wife. If you live in San Francisco and you decide to cheat on your spouse, you would be well advised to keep a close eye out for Pete.
    I walk into Rosie’s office. She’s on the phone. “No,” she says, “he hasn’t come back from the Hall of Justice.” A small white lie. “I’ll have him call you.” She hangs up and looks at me. “Turner Stanford. He says he’s issuing a blanket denial of any wrongdoing by Skipper. He expects you to do the same.”
    “Sounds like a good idea. Any other messages?”
    “Ann called. She expects you to get the charges dropped by the close of business tomorrow.”
    “I’ll take care of it,” I say with a grin.
    “I knew you would. Did you find out anything from Roosevelt?”
    “Not much.” I pause and say, “I may need a little help with the case. Are you busy for the next six or eight months?”
    “I’ll check my calendar,” she tells me.

4
FERNANDEZ AND DALEY
“Fernandez and Daley specializes in criminal defense in federal and state courts. The firm offers personalized service at competitive rates. For immediate assistance twenty-four hours a day, dial 1-800-CRIM-LAW.”
—S AN F RANCISCO YELLOW PAGES.
    When I worked at Simpson and Gates, we had a conference room that was about a hundred feet long and housed a polished rosewood table and eighty chairs. At Fernandez and Daley, our “conference room” consists of two card tables pushed together in the middle of the exercise mats in the old martial arts studio. Rosie and I are sitting there on folding chairs at five o’clock the same day. Bruce Lee glares at me from a faded poster.
    Our third lawyer, Carolyn O’Malley, walks in through the doorway from the old women’s locker room. “You two look like something the cat brought in,” she chortles. I’ve known her since we were kids. As with most aspects of my life, we have some baggage. We dated for a couple of years when we were in college. We almost got married. Almost is the operative word. We split up when Carolyn decided to go to law school in L.A. More precisely, Carolyn broke up with me. Although I concluded long ago that our relationship was little more than a youthful infatuation, she was, in fact, the first woman who ever broke my heart. When Carolyn cameto work for us, Rosie expressed some concerns that I still had feelings for her. I reassured her that I had no intention of trying to reheat that soufflé. Carolyn has been divorced twice and is the single mother of a rebellious teenage son. Still, I do wonder sometimes how things would have worked out if we had stayed together.
    “We have a new case,” Rosie