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in his breast pocket.
    â€œGood morning, Mr. Parnell.”
    Almost imperceptibly, Parnell leaned back. “Good morning.”
    â€œYou’ve testified that my client’s sexual preference did not influence your decision to approve his firing. Is that correct?”
    â€œYes. It is.”
    â€œMy client was terminated last November, was he not?”
    â€œYes.”
    Lord moved to Parnell’s left, so that the jury to the right of him could see the witness’s expression and the movements of his body. “And you have also said that the specific grounds were his refusal to accept reassignment to a less important area than city politics.”
    Parnell folded his hands. “As presented to me by Mr. Halliburton, his editor.”
    â€œDid you ever discuss this situation directly with Mr. Cole?”
    â€œI did not.” Parnell touched one stem of his thick, horn-rimmed glasses. “I make it a point not to interfere in personnel judgments.”
    â€œYou are the newspaper’s publisher, aren’t you?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œAnd Mr. Cole asked to meet with you?”
    â€œYes.” Parnell stopped, as if hoping for another question, and saw that Lord waited. “I didn’t feel it would be a comfortable situation.”
    â€œUncomfortable for whom? Mr. Cole?”
    â€œFor both of us.” Parnell searched for a better answer. “And for me as an administrator.”
    â€œAt the point that you declined to meet him, were you aware that Mr. Cole was homosexual?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHow did you learn that?”
    â€œThrough a combination of circumstances.” Parnell considered his fingernails. “I suppose the fact that his divorce involved allegations of homosexuality confirmed certain tendencies in his writing.”
    Lord cocked his head. “Define tendency , if you would.”
    Parnell tented his fingers to his lips, a new, unhappy expression making the gesture vaguely like prayer. Lord made his first instinctive judgment: Parnell disliked some aspect of the position he was in, but did not yet hold this against him. He decided not to raise his voice. “Was my question unclear?”
    Parnell removed his glasses, cleaning them as he spoke. “What I detected was a concentration on so-called gay issues.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œAIDS disease, the relative lack of gays on the police force or in city government, violent crime against homosexual men. One of Mr. Halliburton’s complaints was that Mr. Cole had lost interest in other facets of his beat, as it were.”
    â€œMr. Parnell, if I suggested that the gay population here in San Francisco is close to twenty percent, would you dispute that?”
    Finishing his glasses, Parnell looked up. “No, sir.”
    â€œLarger than our Japanese community?”
    â€œI suppose so.”
    â€œAnd yet two years ago a Japanese-American reporter on your newspaper ran a series of articles on the Japanese sent to internment camps during World War II. Did you fire him for lack of objectivity?”
    â€œNo, sir.” Parnell sat straighter. “We initiated that series of articles.”
    â€œBut not Mr. Cole’s articles on the problems of gays?”
    â€œThat was his own initiative.”
    Lord paused as if something had just occurred to him. “Has it ever struck you, Mr. Parnell, that some nonobjective reporter should have worried about the Japanese a little sooner?”
    â€œObjection.” As three associates mimed rapt attention, John Danziger stood, white-haired and imposing. “Mr. Lord’s so-called question is a spurious attempt to draw parallels that don’t exist.”
    Watching Parnell, Lord saw that his pensive look had reappeared. Before Judge McIlvaine could do so for him, Lord responded carelessly, “I’ll withdraw the question,” then asked, “Mr. Halliburton had other complaints, did he