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to the client than it was going to be to his wife.
    After the successful conclusion of his first murder trial — defending former Superior Court Judge Andy Fowler — Hardy had been surprised to find himself something of a property in the small world that was San Francisco's legal community.  Trial lawyers — men and women who were good on their feet in front of a jury — were, it seemed, in great demand.  Even in the large corporate firms, the final outcome of all the work done by offices full of bean counters and number crunchers, library rats, technical brief writers and legal strategists, paralegals and lesser staff often came down on the shoulders of the person in the firm who could convincingly present it all in front of a judge or jury or both.
    Since most corporate attorneys rarely if ever saw the inside of a courtroom, many firms hired trial lawyers the way baseball teams purchased designated hitters — the role was limited, but if it came up it was far preferable to having the pitcher come to the plate with the game on the line.
    Because of the sensational nature of Judge Fowler's trial and of Hardy's own role as an unknown, underdog, first-time defense attorney, it seemed that Hardy had unwittingly been auditioning for half the firms in the Bay Area.  When the verdict came down in his client's favor, his phone had started ringing.
    Another event that had coincided with the end of Fowler's trial had been the birth of Hardy's and Frannie's son, Vincent.  So for the first month Hardy had begged off many of the interviews, pleading his new fatherhood, Frannie's desire to have him at home for a while.
    Now, three months later, he had visited eleven firms, riding elevators to plush offices in his only three-piece suit, going out to fine lunches with men and women with whom he felt no connection whatever — nice people, sure; smart, well-turned out, confident, financially secure, socially aware, all of the above.  But no one to whom he was drawn as a human being.
    Seven of the firms had offered him positions, with salaries ranging from a low of $83,000 to a high (Engle, Matthews & Jones) of $115,000.  All of the offers put him well onto the partner track, crediting him with up to six years of previous service.  This meant that within, at the most, another three years (and at the least, one), he would become a partner in any of the seven firms and could expect annual compensation in the realm of $300,000 to $500,000.
    Frannie had brought an insurance settlement to their marriage.  Hardy, aside from the fees in the Fowler trial that had run to low six figures, owned a one-quarter interest in the Little Shamrock bar.  Their house payment was under six-hundred dollars a month.  So Frannie and Hardy were not hurting.  Nevertheless, the kind of money the big firms were waving in his face was not pocket change, was even tempting.
    Their house in the Avenues was already, with the addition of the two children, starting to feel pinched.  The could see moving up; they'd even discussed it casually after Hardy had received the first couple of invitations.  It had become more or less understood that Hardy would choose one of the firms, get a linear job, be an adult.
    But he just hadn't been ready to commit to any of the firms — something better might come up, some people he felt better about being associated with.  So in the interim he borrowed an empty office and paid a nominal rent in the building owned by David Freeman, which was where he had been, essentially twiddling his thumbs, when David Freeman himself had called up with the Jennifer Witt referral.

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    "It's probably going to be a fair amount of money," Hardy said.
    "But it's another case .  It's not a job."
    "And I'm not even really on it.  It's Freeman's case."
    "But there's something here for you."
    Hardy's hands, crossed in front of him at the table, came open.  "Maybe.  There might be."
    Frannie was trying