Circle Back

By David Lafaille

Denny Martel in Circle Back is thirty years old and several years into his career as a criminal trial lawyer. He has fought the good fight on hundreds of rape, robbery, and murder trials. The unrelenting stress of trial after trials has begun to take its toll. Denny’s romantic life has run into a dead end. Just as the prospect of an imminent burnout appears Denny is assigned the case of Jess Scolopendra, a beautiful woman accused of the brutal murder and dismembering of her husband Miles. As Denny assembles a defense, he is the target of Charlie Manson’s street posse and Jess’ sometimes mafia hit man boyfriend. Manson and his girls have been convicted and are facing death sentences. Bruno, the boyfriend has issues with Denny, some to do with Jess, others to do with an ex of Denny. All of this drama is set in the midst of the great Sylmar earthquake aftermath and the end of the Manson trial.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781669800149

David Lafaille

David Lafaille, the author, was a public defender for nine years in the 1960s and 1970s and founded the firm Lafaille, Chaleff and English, which was one of the preeminent criminal law practices in California. His criminal law experience includes numerous felony trials and over three hundred homicide cases. In 1969, the Los Angeles Public Defender’s office was the “firm” of choice for the best and the brightest trial lawyers and many legendary trial lawyers trained there.

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COPYRIGHT © 2021 BY DAVID LAFAILLE.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/02/2021

Xlibris

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Epilogue

1

The first blow came from behind. Stunned but conscious, Ron wheeled his soft trial lawyer body around to defend. To get him to the Chinatown crash pad used by the court battalion, Charlie’s girls promised him what he had been looking for a little action. Once there, Ron in his slightly shy and somewhat trusting way found the real Manson.

The second blow was directly on target spreading Ron’s pug nose across his flabby face and knocking out his front teeth. The coroner would later describe these injuries as consistent with the cause of death—falling, then drowning. The body suffered battering as it crashed into rocks and trees floating down Sespe Creek before lodging under a boulder. In fact, when discovered, there was not much left of Ron to examine and the conclusion was pure fiction.

Ron remained unconscious after the reds were forced down his throat to keep him out until he was drowned in the grimy bathtub. Bunny was given the honor. She held his head under the water. A bit of gurgling was the only evidence of his drowning.

Charlie had thought Ron was perfect to defend Leslie. He was soft, easily manipulated, and hungry for the limelight. Ron came out of UCLA Law, not a young highflier like several of his classmates in the Public Defenders Office. He was an older, slower, and unattractive talent adjacent guy. He languished in the Municipal Court unlike his rapidly advancing Superior Court brothers. He got stuck running errands and doing grunt work for his idol Paul Fitzgerald; he leaped at the chance to quit the PD and represent Leslie Van Houten.

Charlie decided Ron would do because he was so unspectacular and unprepared. Ron had never tried a felony let alone a death penalty case. Charlie wanted the attention and the ability to manipulate the lawyers and the direction of the defense. Only Paul Fitzgerald, a tough and seasoned defender, stood out as a real lawyer on the defense team. The court had appointed him. Charlie couldn’t stop it. All of the others were handpicked by Charlie for their various levels of incompetence, particularly his own lawyer Irving Kanarek. Kanarek was the running joke of the Superior Court. Charlie picked him because of his natural obstructionist attitude, one with no intellectual backup. Ron Hughes was growing a spine during the trial and began mounting a defense. Charlie didn’t like that.

As the trial proceeded, Ron developed into a truculent force. Ron’s defense maintained that Leslie had been manipulated by Charlie. Charlie ordered Ron silenced and what Charlie said was the law.

2

At 5:58 AM on February 9, 1971, Denny was deep in REM sleep. His final argument in a death penalty case was to a jury comprised of barnyard animals. As Denny directed his impassioned speech at the goat, he reckoned would be selected foreman; the wolf judge admonished him to wrap it up as it was close to the lunch break. The jury almost as one bleated its approval. Suddenly across the floor of the courtroom appeared a giant crack accompanied by a deafening bang and violent shaking.

The great Sylmar earthquake was starting 5.2 miles under the foothills just above the north end of the San Fernando Valley, its waves spreading across to LA proper and Malibu. In Northridge the VA Hospital was splitting apart, falling in upon itself killing 44 bedridden and staff alike.

Denny’s little shack on the sand in Malibu rode out the giant quake creaking and moaning but not giving up its structural integrity. Denny’s bed slid across his room, hitting the opposite wall with a resounding thud. Although the quake lasted less than a minute, Denny thought it would never end. When at last the thrashing stopped, every nerve ending in his body coursed with electrical energy. Aware he had held his breath the entire time, Denny exhaled and drew in a huge draft of air. Easily a six, Denny muttered under his breath, I wonder where it was?

In fact the quake was 6.6 and centered in the San Fernando Valley just 15 miles away. Ancient habit urged him to cross himself, the man he had become would not allow it.

The quake was an oblique-thrust type. When the Pacific Plate had wrenched itself north along its border with the North American Plate in prehistory, it had caused the Pacific Plate to rotate in a clockwise fashion resulting in the Pacific Plate being perpendicular to the coastline in the area of the quake. The seismic waves propagated northward at first, probably saving much of the Malibu from taking a direct hit from the energy released. The intervention of the Santa Monica Mountains did the rest, the Malibu once again dodged a bullet.

Denny, oriented to connecting larger events in the world to his own small existence, figured the universe was trying to wake him up.

From what? he wondered.

It didn’t take long to come up with an answer, so swiftly were the events of his life swinging toward the uncontrollable.

Sliding into a pair of shorts, he went to the front window to assess the damage. The large window over the sand let in shards of new light emanating from the houses up and down the previously dark tiny community. A news report coming from a portable carried by neighbor Dave Kahn floated up as several shadowy figures trudged on the thin strip between the flat surf and the shacks up and down Dog Beach.

The radio announcer, near hysteria, reported breaks in freeway overpasses and many died at the VA Hospital. It appeared there had been nearly complete destruction of Olive View Hospital. The hospital had been renovated just a year ago. This shocking news brought home the fragility of life in LA and Malibu. This fact was not lost on the death penalty lawyer living on this slim strip of beach. Denny and everyone who lived here recognized the tentative nature of their skinny foothold on terra firma. Now more than ever their temporary hold on reality was threatened. For many, if not most, that was fine!

As the morning light slowly revealed the relatively intact collection of shabby shacks and houses, the locals were more and more amazed at how they had escaped disaster.

The tragic nature of what the restive earth had unleashed on the city was becoming clear. Sixty something people had died in the chaotic first few minutes after the twelve seconds long earthquake. Some on the freeway, some in pancaked, poorly constructed apartment buildings and most in hospitals near the epicenter where they lay helplessly.

After assessing the state of affairs several of the locals drove the canyons toward the Valley and the devastation dodging fallen boulders on the way. Some wanted to help friends and family; some just wanted to see. Denny dressed for court, unsure if the stories he had heard on the radio about the damaged or collapsed freeways would keep him from getting to the Hall of Justice in downtown LA.

3

Jess Harper Scolopendra, his client, was to be arraigned for killing and dismembering her husband, Miles Scolopendra. The case was set in Department 41 on the fourth floor of the old Hall of Justice next door to Charlie Older’s court, Department 40. There, another Charlie had already been convicted of murder a few days earlier. Older, one of the last of his breed, was presiding over the Manson case. Older had been a WWII fighter pilot. Older was no-nonsense, he was the law in his courtroom.

Because of the notorious nature of the Manson case, the lurid details of Jess’ case went largely unnoticed, Denny was grateful. As Denny picked his way through the emergency vehicles and cops racing to aid the injured and prepare the dead for burial, the city was starting to deal with the unfolding of the disaster, the scope of what had happened was emerging on the radio. Sixty known dead, at least 2,000 injured, hundreds of buildings destroyed or severely damaged. Most of the damage had happened in the valley but soil conditions had created zones of destruction in other places as the ground liquefied causing the structures above to collapse or move off their foundations. Olvera Street, just across the freeway from the Hall of Justice, the place where the original Pueblo of Los Angeles had been built, was the site of adobe buildings from the eighteenth century. Many of these suffered heavy damage if still standing.

Denny was secure that the old Hall, solid and thick, built in the twenties, would stand. As he parked under the Music Center, he saw that many others had not bothered to make the drive. Only half of the usual count of cars had shown. As he walked down Temple he could see the Manson encampment was still in place next to the entrance to the hall. Led by Squeaky Fromme, several other of the Manson girls not in the middle of the penalty phase for the murders, camped by the front door of the hall harassing lawyers and cops alike. Their leader and their sisters now faced the possibility of the death penalty. Denny was a favorite.

Stardust, the youngest, today said, Denny boy, wanna blow job?

Denny was well known to them since he had been appointed to represent Patty Krenwinkle initially until the PD chief of trials Mark Harter decided Paul Fitzgerald was the more senior death penalty lawyer and reassigned the case. Paul used defense of Krenwinkle as his ticket out of the office a few months later. Ron Hughes took on Leslie Van Houten and did the same thing.

An LAPD photographer would record them every day, as would a Paris Match photojournalist. This ragtag bunch was seemingly harmless without their murderous leader. Charlie, however, still communicated with them through Kanarek, his hapless lawyer, and Ron Hughes. Charlie figured he could get any conviction reversed on the basis of lack of effective counsel. Kanarek was regarded by the criminal bar as incompetent, if not crazy. Charlie was not stupid.

Hey, Denny, you are pretty enough to eat, yelled Bunny Apodaca I’d fuck you right here, pretty boy!

Denny just smirked and said nothing; he knew to engage with this smelly bunch in any way was to be put in danger. Just a few months earlier, his fears had been realized when Ron Hughes disappeared supposedly on a camping trip during a hiatus in the trial. Ron had not been seen since. Everyone knew he was dead and that he had been offed by the family.

Since Denny’s life was threatened nearly every month by victims and defendants with proven ability to follow through on their threats, he thought, I’d rather sleep with a rattlesnake than you Bunny. Denny’s connection to the family went back to his time in San Francisco in 1966 when he represented Angela Bartoli in his first homicide case. Angela, known as Angel, had been a Manson girl.

Prudence was something new for Denny; it really started with the switch blade he just avoided in the men’s room across the hall from Department 45. Victor Lil’ Vic Valdez didn’t like the way Denny cross-examined him. Then there was the dead body lying at the foot of the stairs at his Malibu shack. Celia Duveen had laid waste Frank Costello intending to do Denny instead. Both Celia’s sister Cheyenne and Frank had been clients. Celia had been a lover. Frank himself had homicide in mind when Celia happened upon him as he arrived to shoot Denny for Denny’s daring to take credit for saving Frank. Celia peppered him with slugs from her little Beretta.

Only happenstance had saved Denny that time, happenstance and luck. Misapprehension of Denny’s intent was not his fault but being involved with a beautiful but obviously dangerous woman was his doing. Denny vowed not to make that mistake again.

Just then rickety elevator number 3 stopped at the ground floor and out stepped Abigail Cohen on her way to 111 N. Hill the Superior Civil Courthouse. Abby, a stunning twenty-eight-year-old, was dressed in a fitted tweed suit, white blouse, and high heels none of which obscured her spectacular figure. She ran Municipal Court Trials for the Public Defender. The elevator operator in his shabby green county issue uniform emblazoned with the plastic name tag reading Marcus Portnoy announced the arrival

First floor, sheriff’s information and Broadway entrance make way for Abby the public defender’s best and sexiest.

Shut up, Marcus! Abby demanded. Flushing at the sight of Denny, Abby clutched the stack of case files she held for the morning calendar to her spectacular breasts. The half-assed attempt to cover her lushness with the Givenchy suit had failed miserably.

«Morning, Counselor" Denny said with a smile.

Abby momentarily uncomfortable at two men reacting to her at the same time, one simple annoyance and the other, exciting felt her files slipping. Recovering her equilibrium and her files, she flashed her best don’t-mess-with-me smile at Denny and continued through the front door of the hall but not before looking over her shoulder to catch Denny’s following stare. They were playing a dangerous game; she was married. Denny had a rule against dating married women. He had never broken it. Abby her shining intelligence and pent-up sexuality were testing his resolve.

Denny muttered to himself as Marcus pulled the folding gate closed. She’s really something, huh, Denny?

Denny just nodded, knowing his conflict was showing.

Four, Marcus, said Denny, leaving discussion a non-option.

Marcus, knowing Denny, therefore, knowing better, checked the call panel and seeing no action rotated the crank floor dial to four and slammed shut the safety gate. Marcus, the year-old gay black man in charge of ferrying the tormented souls of this purgatory-like zone knew the secrets of them all. His impeccable ability to assess what was really happening in his fiefdom and razor wit made him the unofficial town crier.

Denny braced himself for the mayhem certain to swirl around Department 40 as the elevator creaked its way to the fourth floor. His attempt to quiet his mind was met with the picture of Abby turning toward him a quizzical look on her face as if to say, It’s inevitable. Why fight it?

Fuck! Denny blurted out.

Marcus smirked as he called out, Four-three rings, lots of clowns, a few elephants. and pulled the door open revealing a roiling mass of press, public, and Charlie groupies.

Denny took a quick breath and stepped into the melee in front of Department 40.

Almost immediately Denny was spotted by Bill Long, the LA Times crime reporter who had made his bones covering the Night Slayer, Denny’s serial killer client of a couple of years ago. Bill had an inside track on the story as it broke from Denny who had figured out how the Slayer worked before he had been arrested. Bill, fascinated by his uncompromising friend, wondered if Denny had insight into the phenomenon that was Charlie and his rag tag gang. Denny, unknown to Bill, had intimate contact with Charlie and his girls going back to the mid-sixties in San Francisco though Bill was aware of Denny representing Patty Krenwinkle now on trial with Charlie.

Denny’s girlfriend Angel his first criminal client had been the replacement for Susan Atkins, coffin girl in Anton LaVey’s act in 1966 San Francisco. Angel had been a Charlie girl and traded info on him in exchange for not being prosecuted for killing her boyfriend. Denny had negotiated the deal with the DA.

Angel would have been a material witness for the DA when the DA came after Charlie. Angel disappeared and the murder case fell apart. Charlie drifted to LA with some of his girls, including Susan Atkins. Charlie was going to be a pop star. Denny was well acquainted with Charlie’s manipulative and murderous ways. Paul Fitzgerald used Denny’s extensive background with the family to frame his defense. Denny’s advice to Paul was Be careful that little shit will get after you or Ron. Charlie still controls the ones on the outside, specially Squeaky. She’s the most dangerous.

Hey, Denny. What’s up? yelled Bill, separating himself from the scrum.

Just working my cases, Bill, trying to stay out of trouble, said Denny as he tried to escape into Department 41. Bill grabbed Denny’s elbow while blocking the entrance to 41.

Why do I suddenly have the feeling you know something? Why do I have the feeling you are in the middle of the shit?

You’re reaching, Bill, a reporter casting around for any lead no matter how speculative.

You just confirmed what I had an instinct about. You are one slick sonuva bitch. What the fuck are you talking about, Bill? I’m just on my way to court.

I’ll check in with you later counselor—after I have done some research.

Good luck with that, Denny growled, pulling away.

Denny knew he would have to keep the relationship with Bill greased with information he didn’t necessarily want to give up. Bill had been useful on several occasions. The back channel info about attitudes, charging, informants, and many other unobtainable insights came from Bill. Denny knew those channels ran both ways, and the practitioners on both sides saw the opportunity and the downside. Denny had been the victim of disinformation but when right the info was critical. For now he was on notice that he would have to open up in a way to Bill that he didn’t want. Opening the back door to 41, Denny was greeted by a torrent of abuse from the bench.

Good to see you, Counsel. Nice to see you in the minor leagues with the big show just a few feet away. Denny instantly knew that Dave Fritz had been into the Budweiser early that day. Sure enough, Dave was enjoying an open can of Bud and an unfiltered Lucky Strike as he sat astride the bench his wrinkled robe open, beer belly protruding as he waited for his bailiff to call court to order. Rather than wait, he began himself.

Be seated and come to order, Department 41 of the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles is in session. Me, the almost Honorable David Fritz, judge presiding.

Banging his ever-present gavel, the notorious legend and burnt-out former death penalty DA put out to pasture on the bench, called his personal circus to order. It wasn’t as if the court’s business didn’t get done, it did in a bizarre, hilarious and efficient manner. Dave did not share the spotlight as he did the amusement. If the DA and defense counsel could roll with the nonstop jokes and pokes at the system and tragedy that lived in Department 41 they would be treated to a justice unique to it. Dave Fritz’ version of the absurdity of life and death issues that passed in front of his bench was actually a finely tuned satirical review of life itself. Denny pictured Moliere.

The thing that saved Dave from removal by the judicial council was the fact that his brand of justice was eminently fair and he was sharp on the law. His rulings were rendered in a dry style replete with citations to cases and precedent from an unerring source. That source being the encyclopedia perched atop Fritz—his head. How this seemingly addled and semi-drunken man in the disheveled, ash-flecked robe was able to support his legal theories with authority never ceased to amaze Denny himself a bona fide student of the law.

Addressing Denny, Dave picked him out of a plentiful choice of lawyer victims in his first calendar call.

What can I cheat you out of this morning, Counsel?

Denny was not in the mood to play this morning having exhaustingly replayed his frayed love life far into the previous night, interrupted by the shaking quake.

Could, Your Honor, call number five on the calendar People v. Scolopendra? The matter is here for arraignment, the defendant is present in court and waives reading of the information and statement of rights, enters a plea of not guilty to the one count of violation of Section 187 of the Penal Code, murder in the first degree, and a denies the enhancements and use allegations and asks the court to set this matter for 1538.5 and 998. At that moment Fritz’ long time bailiff appeared out of the lockup with a shackled prisoner in an orange jump suit.

Gauging Denny’s lack of interest in playing this morning Dave glumly acceded.

In the matter of People v. Scolopendra, Ms. Scolopendra being present in court represented by Deputy Public Defender Dennis Martel, the court accepts a waiver of the reading of the charges and a recitation of rights and enters a plea of not guilty to the charge of 187 PC and a denial of the enhancements and use allegations. This matter is set for March 1, 1971, for a bail hearing, motion to quash the search and dismissal of the charges. Bail is set in the amount of $200,000, defendant is remanded.

Please come to Sybil Brand, Mr. Martel. I need to talk to you, pleaded Jess Scolopendra, the defendant.

Denny nodded as the bailiff guided Jess to the lockup. Denny had not even looked at his client until that moment. As he turned, he caught a glimpse of her tawny figure and bearing. Denny quietly said, Holy shit! to himself, recognizing suddenly that Jess Scolopendra was a full-on beauty.

Bill had slipped in the back door as the bailiff announced the Manson trial was delayed until the afternoon. What he failed to say was that Charlie had tried to stab his guard with a homemade shiv and had received a thumping from the guard and the rest of his sheriffs’ detail. The news would come out in the paper tomorrow. The guards had done a professional job and there were no visible bruises or bumps on Charlie. Charlie was denied medical help because that was the way it was.

The Manson case was a black hole swallowing every bit of attention that the press and public had. Bill’s series on the daily drama provided by Charlie and his girls only added to the ghastly details of the murders of Sharon, Abigail, Voitek, Steve and Jay. Bill was sharing the byline with two other Times reporters. Bill hated sharing; it was as if he was a cub reporter. As Bill watched, he realized the Manson trial was nearly over and he was going to have to return to his regular beat, the day-to-day crime in LA. Denny had provided Bill with colorful highlights between the daily grist of the ugly detailed run-of-the-mill mayhem and murder and the occasional high-profile case.

Those pieces were written about the drama that was Denny’s life both in and out of the courtroom. Denny’s brush with death at the hands of the beautiful Celia Duveen who mistakenly assumed Denny was sleeping with her nineteen-year-old sister had been pure luck on the part of both Denny and Celia. Frank Costello, a real killer and former client of Denny’s, arrived at Denny’s little place at the beach intent on shooting Denny when Celia, also armed, came for a confrontation with Denny over her coke-fueled misunderstanding about Denny and Cheyenne, her sister. Frank leveling his little .25 at Denny coincided with Celia’s own reaction to seeing Denny embracing Cheyenne at Denny’s front door. Thinking she had discovered her worst fears, her man cheating on her with her own sister, Celia reached for her Beretta. Celia didn’t know at that moment what she was going to do with the black beauty but pulled it anyway. Just then Frank raised his piece. Celia found a way to answer the call for action and fired three times before Frank got off a round and he fell, mortally wounded, back onto the sand.

Bill’s three-part piece on the unfolding of the drama got him a nomination for a Pulitzer for local reporting, and Denny’s was the unwelcome notoriety. Sleeping with the sister of a client while not specifically verboten was frowned upon by the office, a matter that Denny considered his business and not within the authority of anyone to comment. His view on this may not have changed by now, but he was much less likely to risk exposure because of the aversion to controversy. Denny had become more careful. With Denny, careful was a relative term.

4

The VW van pulled up to a turnout in the Sespe Wilderness fifty miles north of Ojai. The thin parking indent in the twisty road was twenty feet above the raging Sespe Creek, swollen and churning from a passing storm. The bank was steep here and ran down a hill into the belly of the creek Perfect, said Hank to Bunny.

They called her Bunny for no reason. Hank slid open the side door, revealing the still mass that had been Ron Hughes under a pink wool blanket with a silky fringe. Hank rolled the body onto the shoulder and with a half kick, half push launched Ron down the embankment. As the body rolled, it caught on a bush just above the raging creek

Fuck, yelled Hank. He was a pain in the ass alive and still is, said Hank as he shimmied down the bank almost falling into the rushing water.

Let the pig go he’ll disappear down the creek into no man’s land and they will never find the body, chimed in Bunny.

In a way I will miss the fat fuck he had no hope and no clue what was going on. Charlie can be hard sometimes, Bunny reminisced.

We did what we had to. We did what Charlie said. It was a bad time for Ron to grow a set of balls and a bad time for him to challenge Charlie. Hank said.

If I tried, I would have died instead of Ron and Charlie would just have found someone else to do it.

Grabbing a wild flower from the bank, Bunny threw it into the water and watched as it bobbed its way downstream in the wake of Ron’s bloated body rapidly disappearing as it bumped and careened down the swollen stream. Both Bunny and Hank assumed the water would carry the body into the wilderness downstream. Neither counted on the whirlpool which took Ron down and wedged him under a boulder a mile away. The flood-water receded forty-eight hours later, and a hiker spotted him a month later and called the sheriff.

The coroner ruled the death accidental as the ambiguous evidence of trauma had long since disappeared with most of Ron’s soft tissue and organs. The coroner would not have tested the water in Ron’s lungs or examined the traumatic injuries to see whether they were sustained before or after death anyway; it was too much trouble. Whatever clues there might have been to the cause of death didn’t matter when the coroner fit the cause to a preordained conclusion.

Stardust had followed in Hank’s pickup, and Bunny and Hank piled in, leaving Ron’s van to be discovered. The press said Ron had been camping but disappeared. Denny and those who knew about Charlie knew what actually had happened.

5

Abby did not have her mind on the calendar. Judge Clarence Red Stromwall knew it. Abby slowly checking her calendar to determine if a pimping and pandering case was ready for trial Red, the chauvinist, barked at her.

Hey, Counsel, is that Marcelled, pompadoured, ALLEGED pimp gonna go to trial or not? I have a big calendar and lunch with the PJ.

What Red was actually referring to was the lunch-time screening of a seized Candy Barr porno for the sixth floor Muni. Court judges. Red was famous as a former Hat Squad dick and his appetite for porno, particularly those starring Candy Barr.

The Hat Squad homicide detectives out of Parker Center were LAPD legends. All of them 6 feet 5 inches 250 pounds or bigger. They bashed heads and kept the peace in central. All had served in Korea and wore stingy brim fedoras. They kept baseball bats in their unmarked cars. Since there were few guns on the street in the fifties, their brand of justice was applied without fear of running across armed resistance.

Red had been an honored member of the squad and still acted after Pat Brown put him on the bench as if he was on the street. No smart-ass Jewess was going to screw up his little party replete with cigars, bourbon and the luscious Candy at lunch.

Abby returned from a fevered reverie to her calendar.

Ready for trial, Your Honor. We expect about two days with a jury.

Cummon’, Counsel, I’ll accept a plea to a trespassing and sentence Lavon to a week, credit for time served, six months unsupervised probation.

Why that’s eminently fair your honor give me five minutes to discuss this with my client.

The court will take a five-minute recess. I’ll expect to take the plea when I return. In the meanwhile, I look forward to counsel having the rest of the calendar in focus before the noon break.

Yes, Your Honor.

Red looked delighted at Abby’s call as he hauled his battered hulk of a body from the chair down the three steps to the door of chambers. Red snuck a look over his shoulder at Abby—he hadn’t missed the body under the modest suit she always wore to court. It was this same body that tore at Denny’s consciousness. Denny made Abby’s intellect her most compelling asset while Red found her simply a pain in the ass. Women no longer were obliged to defer to Red’s kind of guy, but nobody had been able to get that across to him or the rest of the disappearing real men.

Abby’s agitation in Red’s court stemmed from the little encounter with Denny at the hall. Being a law review editor and Order of the Coif at Stanford Law had prepared her to argue constitutional issues with anyone. Her year in the office had taught her how to handle the Reds of the world. She wasn’t prepared for someone like Denny. He was the guy who had graded the con law questions for the bar exam and now he had had five years in felony trials, hard-bitten and tough in a way that her husband Randy would never be. Randy had been her boyfriend since eighth grade; they married first year of law school. Randy was also law review at Boalt Hall in Berkeley. They lived in San Mateo and commuted. Their life had been based on the imperatives of wealthy Beverly Hills families. Abby was burning with the need to break out. Sex with Randy was stale, safe, and boring. Denny, in her mind, represented the life she yearned for. He was tough, a constitutional scholar, trial lawyer and when he looked at her, it read adventure, intelligence and sex. He could change her life. She knew he was hungry for her; his look made her crazy. Abby felt the woman in her had to be recognized and turned loose. She