Page 125 of The Hamptons Lawyer

“Martin.”

“Who gives a shit?”

“Well,” Jimmy says, “I had to try.”

“You tried,” Blum says. “Now get lost.”

“Just one last thing,” Jimmy says.

He takes off his Yankee cap and reaches for the subpoena on top of his head and walks across the room and hands it to Blum.

“You’ve been served,” Jimmy says.

Blum looks at the paper in his hand, the gray skin suddenly turning red, then up at Jimmy. In that moment, Jimmy sees the killer in Sonny Blum, in total.

“You’re a dead man,” Blum says.

“Maybe someday,” Jimmy says. “Just not tonight.”

NINETY-EIGHT

KATHERINE WELSH RESTS HER case on Friday.

She was planning to conclude by calling Claire Jacobson but is denied the opportunity. For once, almost like an early Christmas miracle, both Claire and her husband listen to me, and are finally persuaded about the risks of her appearing as a witness for the prosecution, and the potential damage to our case.

Before we leave the courthouse, Jacobson asks if I’m still planning to call Sonny Blum as my first witness on Monday morning. Neither Jimmy nor I had told Jacobson about Jimmy handing Blum his subpoena, but Sonny did, apparently both colorfully and profanely.

“I’m telling you,” Rob Jacobson says now. “This is a really bad idea.”

“Not your call,” I say.

“You still work for me.”

“Yeah, but it’s like they say in sports, Rob,” I say. “This ismyhouse.”

He finally gives up when Thomas McGoey tells him I’m right, and how important it is to establish that Hank Carson had bet, and bet big, with Sonny Blum, whether or not Blum tried to tell Jimmy that Carson paid up before he died.

Finally, Jimmy and Norma both announce that themeeting’s over, telling me to get the hell out of here, get in my car, go have dinner with my boyfriend.

Jimmy walks me out to the hall.

“I have to make one quick stop first,” I tell him.

I tell him where.

“What the hell for?” he asks. “You lose a bet?”

“Maybe I’m looking at it as penance for my sins,” I say.

“With just one stop?” Jimmy asks. “I need a place like that.”

Katherine Welsh has authorized a Garden City police captain to let me in to the Carson house.

“Why are you doing this?” Welsh had asked before I left the courthouse.

“Because whether or not you believe this, Katherine,” I said, “we want the same thing from this trial.”

“And what’s that?”