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gratitude in her voice he felt his chest get tight. Dammit, if there were just something he could do! There wasn’t, not till tomorrow at seven, but the anticipation of it was so strong he couldn’t go back to sleep.
    He got up at six, and, to Lovelace’s surprise, made her breakfast. She had been asleep when he came back from the lockup. “Get her out?” she asked.
    “I couldn’t; bond hadn’t been set.”
    “I thought she got stopped on a brake tag… she called right after you left.”
    “That might be why they stopped her, but she’s in for bank fraud.”
    Lovelace brushed red-blonde hair from her eyes. “My God. What did she do?”
    “She says she doesn’t know. Want me to make you some grits?”
    “Sure.”
    They ate in near silence. Isaac’s stomach was in knots, with worry about Terri and regret that Lovelace was leaving. As always when she left, Lovelace seemed sad too. In a way, it would have been better if he’d let her sneak away in her taxi, but in another way, he wanted to prolong their time together. He understood why people hated good-byes, though he found them indispensable.
    Eventually, they got through theirs, with promises to see each other soon, and Isaac got out the phone book. First he called every lawyer specializing in criminal defense who also had a listed home number. Not one of them answered the phone, and he didn’t blame them; with that kind of clientele, he wasn’t sure why they were even listed. Next, he started calling their offices. Finally, he found one open, that of a Mr. Alvin Puglia. He poured it all out to the receptionist. “Listen, I have an emergency. A friend’s been arrested, and she’s going to be in court at ten o’clock. Could I please speak to Mr. Puglia?”
    The lady couldn’t have been nicer. “Oh, my goodness. I’m afraid he’s not in yet.” She paused, and Isaac could see her looking at a clock. “He’s usually in by now. Shall I have him call you?”
    “Could you, please? My name’s Isaac James.”
    Isaac hung up, feeling anxious. He needed to move around. He went to take his shower and, to his surprise, found that a normal shower wasn’t enough.
    “Oh, no,” he thought. “There isn’t time for this.” But there was no way around it. He had to stand in the shower until the hot water ran out.
    He called the lawyer’s office again, and still Puglia wasn’t in. So, very carefully, he dressed for court. He had no tie and, in fact, no summer sport coat. He had a tweed one, for winter, but it was boiling outside. What to do? Had to wear it. No choice. He couldn’t go to court in shirtsleeves. Terri deserved better than that.
    It was after nine. Once again, he called Puglia. He still wasn’t in. Isaac wondered if he should try to get another lawyer but decided it was too late. He’d have to go to court alone. Somebody had to be there.
    “Listen,” he said to the receptionist. “I’ll call from the courthouse. Can you tell me where it is?”
    She hollered the question to someone else in the office, neglecting to put her hand over the receiver. That nearly blew out Isaac’s ears, but then she came back all soft and pleasant. “Four-twenty-one Loyola.”
    He hustled on over on his scooter, and when he got to Section J, out of breath, only minutes to spare, the judge wasn’t in and wasn’t scheduled to go on the bench.
    “There must be some mistake,” he said, and at almost the same moment saw the sign that said Civil District Court. A criminal lawyer’s office had sent him to the wrong court, wrong courthouse, wrong part of town.
    “You want magistrate’s court,” the clerk told him. “Over on South Broad. Near the police station.”
    Once there, he asked and was directed a second time to the wrong court and finally arrived at ten fifteen to find that there was no Section J. He was winded by now, carrying the sport coat over his shoulder, his shirt nearly soaked through.
A tie
, he thought,
would have killed me. And the stress