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hooking up. We’re both tired, and I’m in no mood to let mental exhaustion make me do something I’ll regret.”
    “Exactly.” Ben tilted his head back. “Though I promise you no one has ever regretted it.”
    “Lisa, wake up!” Ben said, shaking her awake.
    “Wha?” she said as she sat up on the red sofa. “What time is it?”
    “It’s seven-thirty. I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about this defendant. What if Hollis denies the stay because we did a crappy job? That means we killed him.”
    “We didn’t kill anyone. We did the best we could and we made a sound recommendation.”
    “You think so?”
    “Definitely. We did what we thought—”
    The phone rang.
    Ben jumped for it. “Hello? Hi, Justice Hollis. Did you get the fax okay?” Ben fell silent and Lisa slapped his arm, trying to elicit a reaction. “No, we understand,” Ben said. “Yes, we know the process. Okay. I guess we’ll see you in a month or so. Have a good day.” Hanging up, Ben paused, looking at Lisa with a blank stare. “That’s five votes! We got stayed!” he screamed.
    They embraced and jumped around the office, chanting, “We got stayed! We got stayed!”
    “I can’t believe it!” Lisa said. “What else did he say?”
    “He said he enjoyed our memo. He said the argument was persuasive, our analysis was sound. He said we used the word ‘moreover’ too much, but he thought we were right on point. He’s already called the governor’s office in Missouri. We just have to make all the preparations to hear the case.”
    “I can’t believe it.”
    “And y’know what the best part was? Hollis actually said, and I quote, ‘These trial courts are a fuckin’ pain in the keister.’”
    “Hollis said ‘fuckin’?”
    “Right to me,” Ben said with a wide smile. “This is a great fuckin’ day.”

Chapter 3
    STANDING IN FRONT OF ARMAND’S PIZZERIA, BEN enjoyed the cool late October breeze. As summer officially ended, so did Washington’s unbearable humidity. Without his jacket, and with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, Ben relished the quiet that blanketed the area. Already forgetting the green of summer, he stared at the brown and orange hue that decorated the trees along Massachusetts Avenue. Relaxed, he waited for his lunch companion. After a few minutes, he felt a tap on the shoulder. “Ben?”
    “Rick?” Ben asked, recognizing the voice of Justice Hollis’s former clerk. Rick wore an olive-green suit and a paisley tie. His most noticeable features were his eyes, puffy and slightly bloodshot. With thin, blond hair that was combed to perfection, Rick was tall and rangy and older-looking than Ben had anticipated. “It’s nice to finally have a face to put with your voice,” Ben said as they shook hands. “After all the advice you’ve given me in the last two months, I figured it was time to find out what you look like.”
    “Same here,” Rick said as they walked into the restaurant. “So how has Hollis been treating you?”
    “He’s fine,” Ben said as they sat down at a table in the corner. “It’s been about a month and a half since he got back from Norway, so I think I’m finally used to his idiosyncrasies.”
    “He can be extremely odd, don’t you think? I never understood why he would write only with pencils. Do you think he’s allergic to pens?”
    “I think that’s just part of his personality,” Ben said. “In his mind, nothing is written in stone; it’s all changeable. I just wish he wouldn’t eat the erasers from his pencils.”
    “He still does that?” Rick laughed. “That used to make me sick.”
    “It’s one thing to eat a clean eraser. I’m all for clean erasers. But he gnaws on the dirty ones. One time I saw him erase half a sheet of paper. There was rubber fallout all across the paper and the eraser itself was pitch-black. He put that sucker right in his mouth and started chewing. It came out with nothing but metal showing. His teeth were all black, it was