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I’VE MADE A TENTATIVE plan with Ben Kalinsky for a nice, quiet dinner for two.

But after I get home and take Rip for a long beach walk, I call Ben to tell him that I am totally deep-fried by the events of the day and am begging off.

“Plus,” I tell him, “I need to start resting up for all the big things I have planned for your birthday this weekend.”

“How big,” he says.

“Isn’t that your job, big boy?” I ask.

We both laugh. Even when I am as tired as I am tonight, and feeling more punk than I have since Sam Wylie gave me the good news about the tumor, Dr. Ben lifts my spirits and eases my soul.

But my stomach is feeling jumpy again, so dinner for me is a couple of scrambled eggs and dry toast. When I’ve finished and cleaned up, I once again try to call Claire Jacobson.

She is a recent addition to Katherine Welsh’s witness list, having waived spousal privilege, and I’ve left her several phone messages these past few days because I want to ask her why.

She hasn’t returned my calls, though, or the ones her husband has placed to her.

On top of that, Jimmy has driven a couple of times over the past week to the big house she once shared with Rob, only to discover that her blue Bentley was never in the driveway.

He got the vibe that the place is unoccupied.

Claire Jacobson has assured me, on multiple occasions, that she still loves her husband, even with the way he has humiliated her in every possible public way. But by now my experience with Mrs. Jacobson is that I trust her just slightly more than I do her husband.

Tonight I leave another message, asking her to please call me as soon as possible, that I really do need to talk to her before she is scheduled to appear in court in two days.

I am back into the kitchen, fixing myself a cup of Yogi bedtime tea that Sam Wylie has convinced me to try, when I hear my phone from where I left it in the living room.

I run for it hoping it’s Claire, just because I don’t want to be surprised by what she might say under oath, it being a long-established fact that I despise surprises in court.

But it isn’t Claire Jacobson calling me.

It is my ex-husband, Martin.

Always a joy.

“I’m in trouble,” Martin Elian says before I can even say hello.

“In that case, Martin,” I say, “you have probably reached this number in error.”

“Believe me,” he says, “if there was anybody else I could have called, I would.”

“I love you,” I say. “I do. But it’s been so long since I believed, well, it’s almost as if that never happened in the first place.”

“Listen to me! It’s serious this time!”

“It always is serious,” I tell him, keeping my own voice calm.

“But I’ve had an especially long day, one that has included the death of somebody who was scheduled to testify in my trial today.

So I am about to go to bed and hope tomorrow will be better.

And whatever your trouble is, I urge you to do the same. ”

“I need to see you,” he says.

“Where are you?”

“The restaurant.”

“You want to drive all the way out here tonight? Not happening.”

I hear traffic sounds at his end.

“Jane, listen to me! I am in fear of my life!”

His language, even in two languages, French and English, has always been dramatic, and occasionally overwrought. In fear of my life . Who talks like that?

He does.

“Is this about gambling, Martin?”

There is a pause.

“Yes.”

“How much this time?”

“Too much,” he says.

The traffic sounds become more muted now, as if he’s moved into an alley, or away from the street.

“It’s worse than it’s ever been before,” he continues. His voice, something I once thought was so much of his charm, because of the accent, sounds like a band about to snap. “Even signing over the paper on the restaurant might not be enough to get me out from under this time.”

Again, I keep my voice calm. “You promised the last time I loaned you money that it would be the last time I loaned you money,” I say.

Once a conversation like this would make me angry. Or annoyed. Now it just fills me with sadness, and even pity. He’s tried Gamblers Anonymous in the past, but it’s never stuck, maybe because his addiction is even more powerful than he’s able to comprehend.

What does make me sad is him still thinking I can be the one to fix him, even though we both know I can’t. I do love him, despite everything. And have tried.

And failed, repeatedly.

I’ve known only winning in my career as a trial attorney.

The opposite is true with him.

“Get help,” I say. “Find a GA meeting tonight, there’s always one going on somewhere in the city.”

“I need your help!” he says.

“I’m sorry, Martin. I truly am, because as much as you’ve hurt me, and you’ve hurt me a lot, I truly do care about you.”

I hear him rattle off something in French then, something that used to happen all the time when we were still together, and having another argument, either about his gambling or the other women.

When he finally stops, I say, “Can I ask to whom you owe the money this time?”

Another pause. This one is longer than the first, punctuated by another blast of a car horn.

“Sonny Blum,” he says.