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HARRINGTON GETS UP FROM the table and walks out of the bar without looking back at us.

“You believe him?” Jimmy asks.

“Which parts?”

“The murders,” he says. “Or should I say, the first ones?”

“Let’s say I don’t not believe him, not to sound too doubly negative.”

“But say it’s true,” Jimmy says. “If it is, we are officially defending somebody who’s been murdering people since he was a teenager. And getting away with it.”

“Practice makes perfect?” I say.

Jimmy puts his face in his hands and rubs it with his fingers. When he looks back up at me his old cop eyes search my face hard.

“Gun to the head time,” he says.

“There must be a better way to put that.”

“I’m being serious.”

I say, “So am I.”

“Do you think he’s a killer?”

“No.”

“Even after what Harrington just told us?”

“Even then.”

“You must have a pretty good reason.”

“The best,” I say. “I don’t want him to be a killer.”

Jimmy gets Kenny’s attention and mouths “Scotch.” Kenny emerges from behind the bar with a glass and a bottle of Dewar’s. Jimmy does the pour himself. It’s a good one.

“From the time I started working for you,” Jimmy says, “you’ve told me that once you decide to defend somebody standing up on a murder charge, there’s one question you never ask: whether or not they did it.”

I don’t respond right away. It’s late and I’m not in the mood to have this conversation right now. And I’m starting to feel slightly nauseous again, which could mean another long, bad night once I get home and get into bed.

But Jimmy always finishes what he starts.

“You told me the reason you didn’t ask,” he continues, “is because when it came to you putting up the best defense you had in you, it didn’t matter one way or the other.”

I reach across the table then, cover his hand with mine, and give it a quick, affectionate squeeze.

Then proceed to tell him the exact same thing I told Paul Harrington before he walked out of the bar.

“I lied,” I say to Jimmy Cunniff.