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SONNY BLUM WEARS A royal-blue sport jacket that appears to be a couple of sizes too big for him. Underneath is a black polo shirt buttoned to the collar.

“Thrift shop chic,” Norma Banks whispers to me after Blum has been sworn in.

I get up from my table when I’m ready to begin, walk toward him, stopping about six feet away.

He is staring at the jury box.

“Good morning!” I say brightly.

He seems startled by my voice as he turns to face me.

“Hi?” he asks tentatively, as if wary I might make a sudden move.

“My name is Jane Smith,” I say. “I am the attorney for the defendant, Mr. Jacobson.”

“Hi,” he says again.

“Could you state your name for the court?”

“What?”

“Your name, sir.”

“Sonny,” he says.

“Your full name, please.”

“Sanford Blum. But my friends call me Sonny.”

“And what is your occupation, Mr. Blum?”

“Excuse me?”

“What do you do for a living?”

The question seems to confuse him. At least he wants to act as if it has. But then this is all an act.

“I’m retired,” he says after a long pause. Then he smiles and turns back to the jury. “But you know what they say about being retired. You can never take a day off.”

“Good one, Mr. Blum. But would you mind telling the jury what your occupation was before retirement became your everyday job?”

“Waste management,” he says.

“Waste management,” I say, my voice in a lilt, as if I’ve found that information fascinating.

I nod at him and smile.

“But that’s not your occupation according to the federal government, isn’t that correct?”

“The government?” he asks, looking even more confused now, almost as if wondering where he is. I find myself wondering how much he has practiced this routine at home, in front of his lawyer and his boys.

“Yes, sir, the United States government,” I say. “Because it is their studied opinion that your life’s calling involved loan-sharking, racketeering, and bookmaking. And, honestly, Mr. Blum, that’s the short list.”

I leave him to ponder that as I walk back to my table, pull a thick sheaf of papers out of my bag, and hold them up for Sonny and the jury and everybody else in the room to see.

“Mr. Blum, I am holding in my hands just some of the documents involving court cases against you over the years, which I would be happy to submit into evidence,” I continue.

Another smile, this one smaller than before, plays across Blum’s face.

“Am I on trial?” he says.

“Oh, my, no,” I tell him. “I’m not here to convict you of past crimes, real or imagined. Just to establish that you’re a career hoodlum.”

“Objection!” Katherine Welsh says, up on her feet now. “Is there a point to all this, Your Honor, other than Ms. Smith insulting her own witness?”

“Sustained,” Judge Horton says. “Ms. Smith, you have established the witness’s bona fides, shall we say. Now we need to work on the relevance of this line of questioning.”

“Of course,” I say. “Totally understood.”

I theatrically toss the papers on my table.

“Let’s move on, Mr. Blum,” I say. “Did you know the deceased, Hank Carson?”

“Who?”

“One of the three people my client is accused of murdering,” I say, “along with Mr. Carson’s wife and daughter.”

“Can’t say I had the pleasure,” Blum says. “But sometimes I can’t even remember things I think I can still remember.” He puts out his hands, helplessly. “You know what they say? Getting old isn’t for sissies.”

“Did Hank Carson owe you gambling money at the time of his death?”

“Like some bet him and me made?” he asks. “Why would I bet with somebody I don’t know?”

“Despite what you say is your inability to remember things, Mr. Blum, isn’t it true that Hank Carson was a million dollars in debt to you at the time of his death?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Are you sure about that?” I ask.

I am walking now, across to where the clerk of the court is sitting, and reach for the plastic case with an old-fashioned compact disc inside.

“Your Honor,” I say, “as both you and Ms. Welsh know, this disc was already entered into evidence, before court began today, as Exhibit DX-1. And I would now like the court’s permission to play its contents on the large screen I’m going to ask the clerk to wheel out here, so the jury can see.”

“The court has already acknowledged that you can play it, Ms. Smith,” Judge Horton says.

“I just wanted it on the record, sir.”

I turn to Katherine Welsh. “Does esteemed counsel have any objections?”

“You and I both know they’ve already been lodged in chambers,” Welsh says, clearly resigned to what she knows is about to happen, unable to stop it.

The screen is wheeled to the center of the room. The clerk inserts the DVD into the laptop in front of her.

“May I?” I say to the clerk.

She nods.

Then I hit Play.