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background would help."
    Rusty shrugged. He wasn't happy. He felt he was being shopped around.
    "Well?" she asked.
    "You mean my non-existent alibi?"
    "Don't tell me you were alone on Wednesday night?"
    "That's my life now. Basically me and myself."
    "Where?"
    "I share an apartment on Hudson."
    "Roommate?"
    "She's a nurse. She works nights."
    "And you work fast."
    He looked like he had tried to answer this question before many times. "She's just a friend. Isn't this the 21 st Century? A time where a guy can have a female buddy?" She looked down and wrote neatly in a leather-covered legal pad. "Looks like you don't buy it. Let me try again. We have separate rooms. I've known Beth for years and believe me, she needs me like a hole in the head."
    His lawyer still didn't look convinced.
    "OK! She's gay. She left her husband and I make a convenient cover. And because we have different schedules, we hardly see each other."
    "You don't understand," she said. "I wish you were part of a threesome or a foursome that night. Or a goddamn orgy. The more collaboration, the better. Did you call anyone?"
    "I wish I had. I wish I would have picked up the phone and called ABC Prime Time Live and asked to speak to Sam Donaldson. But, I was watching a movie and I have this thing about not being disturbed during a movie ...”
    "I remember. Too bad. What was the movie?"
    "You've got to ask that?"
    "Sooner or later someone will."
    "Great. Slam dunked by fate again. Listen, I'm a big fan of the classics. You know, Jimmy Stewart, Kate Hepburn, Myrna Loy... "
    "You were watching The Philadelphia Story ?"
    "I wish. This night of all nights, I decided to rent something...different.  The title was not that memorable. I think it was called something like Motorcycle Mama's from Hell. "
    Jayne frowned. "Did you have popcorn?"
    "Is the prosecutor going to ask me this? Are they going to check stomach contents?"
    "It goes to an old story that everyone learns in law school." She tried again. "Did you have popcorn?"
    "Redenbacher’s. Salt, no butter. So what's the story?"
    "It's always the little lies that catch people up. Not whether they did the nasty deed or not - but what shirt they were wearing that day. What they had for breakfast. Did they have popcorn or not while they watched the show? People tend to have a hard time remembering the little details they make up as they go along. Easy to trip them up in front of a jury. I prefer butter. Lots of it."
    "You don't look like the 'lots of butter' type."
    "High metabolism. Now, right off, we've got an alibi problem. Ludd's death was placed at between 8:00 to 9:00 PM on Wednesday night. And you can't corroborate where you were. See any neighbors?" He shook his head. "No?  Damn. Well - think about it. Now we have to deal with the evidence!"
    "Evidence?"
    "What do you know about Ludd's murder?"
    "From what I've heard on the radio, he was found in his car at the President’s Club. They didn't say how he was killed."
    "They withheld that."
    "How'd they get around Kozak?"
    "Kozak?"
    "Yeah. He seems to have a pipeline to the local press. He's always got his face on the front page. They must be all over him for the details. A whole street full of reporters attacked me as they were stuffing me into the back seat of the police car."
    "Christ! That can't be a coincidence. Did you say anything stupid?"
    "Probably. It's too late to change my basic nature."
    She looked him in the eyes and shook her golden curls at him. "I missed the news. They can use anything you say, Rusty. You know that. "
    "You're saying I should wrap my coat over my head like those other bozos? I didn't do anything. "
    "Since when does that have anything to do with anything ?"
    "I love the law."
    "If Kozak is up to his old tricks again, Dimbrowsky will have an aneurysm."
    "Dimmy again?" Rusty put his head down on the interview table. Dimmy was the nickname of Walter Dimbrowsky, one of the cities most aggressive prosecutors. The same prosecutor