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something everybody
     knew anyway. But denial is not just a river in Egypt. It’s the syntax and currency of every politician who gets his hand stuck
     in the cookie jar.
    “So?” I said. “Political scandal is nothing new.”
    “Not that! This!” He pointed to a story below the fold. It said that a wiener stand, Big Duke’s, one that had been a Valley
     institution for forty years, was closing down. Lost lease.
    “That’s the tragedy?” I said.
    “Look around you. Do you have eyes? Do you have any sense of history? What do you see, just outside these doors? Coffee Bean
     & Tea Leaf! Quiznos! Chipottel!”
    “I think you mean Chipotle.”
    “What is that? What’s a cheap outlay anyway?”
    “It’s a type of jalapeño chile, dried—”
    “That’s not the point! It’s the death of individuality, that’s the point! When I grew up out here, there were mom-and-pops
     all over the Valley. You knew the people who ran the stores. They didn’t hire the latest high school dropouts to stand behind
     a computerized cash register pushing buttons that add and subtract for them. You had to do your own adding and subtracting.
     It made you human. There is no humanity left, none. The canary is dead, and we’re next.”
    With that he turned around and billowed back behind the coffee bar. I went back to my legal research. And it occurred to me
     Pick and I were more closely related than I thought.
    He did not have a corporate headquarters to help him. Or to answer to. And I was trying to defend clients without the resources
     of a big law firm behind me.
    But I didn’t want one. Because canaries died in law firms, too.
    Once, when I was a new associate at Gunther, McDonough, I was in the kitchenette in our office getting a drink of water. One
     of the partners wandered in.
    It was strange, because he was the kind of man who never wandered anywhere. He was the quintessential go-getter, a creature
     of constant motion. Exactly the kind of high-powered lawyer who makes it big in the kind of high-powered law firm I’d joined.
     He made many hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. I wanted to be him.
    He was not wearing a tie. But he always wore a tie. He was always, in fact, impeccably dressed.
    No tie, and the first three buttons of his shirt were undone.
    He looked at me, and looked sick.
    “Are you all right, Mr. Henry?” I said.
    His look changed not one bit. “How long have you worked here?” he said.
    “About six months.”
    He laughed. Which jolted me, because he never laughed. “You know how many years I’ve been here?”
    “No.”
    “Twenty-two. Twenty-two years I been coming in, day after day.”
    And then his eyes grew dark, as if gazing over the desolation that is lost youth. “Why am I doing this? I should be on my
     boat. I should be out on my boat.”
    Before I could say anything else he turned and walked away.
    I finished my water and threw away the cup. As I walked out of the kitchenette to return to my office, I looked down the long
     hallway.
    Mr. Henry was there, ambling slowly toward the other end of the building. I watched him. Every so often he would reach out
     and tap the wall with his hand.
    One month later he was dead.

19
    M ONDAY MORNING I drove to the Hollywood courthouse.
    Carl and his mom and brother were waiting for me outside Department 77. The three of them took up an entire bench, with Mom
     in the middle. Parts of Carl and Eric drooped off the ends of the bench.
    They stood up as one to greet me.
    Carl was dressed in the same tie and coat he had on at the arraignment. He had his lucky Dodgers hat on. Fine. We could use
     any luck that was hanging around.
    “Do I have to take the stand or anything?” Carl said.
    “No,” I said. “I’m just going to argue some law to the judge.”
    “What law?”
    “The Constitution of the United States.”
    “That covers drunk driving?”
    “Stupid,” Eric said. “All them founding fathers were drunk. Of course it covers