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I AM SITTING ON a bench in Amagansett Square with Rob Jacobson on Sunday morning, the day before the trial.

Technically, Amagansett Square is outside the perimeter allowed by his ankle bracelet, though tomorrow that perimeter will be expanded to include the courthouse in Mineola.

The dispensation I’ve gotten from his probation officer includes my promise—one officer of the court to another—to shoot my client if on the walk into town he tries to make a run for it.

“I assume you’re joking,” I was told by the probation officer.

“Ammmmm I?” I’d said in a singsong way.

Jacobson and I have both gotten iced coffees from Jack’s. I set mine down now in the grass in front of the bench.

“I’ve asked you on a number of occasions if you know Sonny Blum by something other than his truly shitty reputation,” I say. “And you have told me, every single time, that you do not.”

I get The Smirk now.

“Does anybody really know anybody else?” he asks.

“Rob,” I say, “here’s some free legal advice for a change: Please don’t fuck with me today.”

“No chance,” he says, “not after the way you turned me down yesterday.”

“Sigh,” I say.

“Come on, that was funny.”

I ignore him.

“McGoey told you that I plan to go after Blum,” I say. “And a few hours later, one of Blum’s people sends me a death threat through Jimmy.”

“Wait, listen to me—”

“No, you listen,” I say, cutting him off. “The only way Blum knows is if you went and told him. Which means you’ve been lying to me about him all along.”

“I didn’t tell him personally, okay ?” he says. “I just spoke to someone who can get a message to him.”

“And why would you even consider doing something like that?”

“Because we’ve had a deal, for a long time,” he says. “Sonny and me. And the deal is that when I come across something that could hurt him, I tell him. It’s that simple.”

“Who’s the person you told?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “All the way back to when my father was the one dealing with him, Sonny has wanted to be informed if I learn that his interests might be … compromised.”

“He owned a piece of your father, is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes,” he says, staring across the wide expanse of lawn.

“But let’s bring it back to you,” I say.

“About time,” he says.

I close my eyes and give a quick shake to my head.

“Tell me exactly what you told whoever this intermediary was,” I say.

“Just that you plan to call Sonny as a witness, if you can find a way to get a subpoena handed to him.”

“And what was the response?”

“That it can’t happen,” he says. “That because you work for me, I can’t allow it to happen.”

“And just when exactly did you plan to pass this information along to me?”

“I was told that I didn’t need to,” he says. “That someone else would deliver the message.”

A couple of pretty young women walk by. The right age to be right in what Rob Jacobson considers to be his wheelhouse. Tight bodies, swinging everything they have just enough as they pass us by. Both of them giving Rob the eye. Neither one of them seeming to have a care in the world.

As if they’re both going to live forever.

As they walk away, I watch them as wistfully as my client does.

Then I take out my phone and show him the picture of Beth Lassiter that Jimmy forwarded to me.

Jacobson doesn’t act shocked, or surprised, or even mildly upset.

“She owed Sonny a lot of money,” he says.

“So he has this done?”

“Sonny considers these object lessons.”

He shakes his head.

“Trust me on this, Jane,” he says. “You have to find another way to defend me and leave Sonny out of it.”

“And you trust me on this,” I say. “There is no other way.”

“Find one.”

“Why, so he won’t have us both killed before this trial ever gets near a jury?” I ask him.

We sit in silence for what feels like a minute.

“Only you,” he says finally. “For the time being, Sonny Blum has apparently made the determination that I’m still worth more to him alive than dead.” He pauses and then says, “But that could change. Things are transactional with Sonny, and always have been, with my father and now me.”

“So I might not be worth more to him alive,” I say.

“Pretty much.”

Rob Jacobson turns to me now on the bench, his face serious, The Smirk wiped completely away, and gently takes both my hands in his.

“You need to understand something, Jane,” he says. “McGoey’s not just here to be second chair. He’s here to be a backup plan.”

“A backup plan?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“Please do,” I say.

“In case you don’t live to the end of the trial,” he says.