New York Lawyer
November 29, 2007

Sundown can’t come fast enough.

Fidgeting in the knobby wooden chair that serves as his throne, of sorts, at counsel table, Justin picks absently at the cuff of his pant leg, unable to get comfortable no matter which way he shifts his weight. It’s only a traffic violation – a night court special – but it’s a trial just the same and that familiar queasiness, that unavoidable sense of uncertainty, washes over him and threatens to steal away his last vestige of confidence.

It’s a nightly routine – almost five years now since he relocated to Alaska and began trying these late night fender-benders and old lady jaywalkings – but that doesn’t mean it’s gotten any easier. It’s true what they say, fear is the great motivator. Just once he wishes he could experience its absence, if only for comparison’s sake.

He takes deep breaths and scratches absently at the beard that irritates his chin and neck, knowing that no cognitive-behavioral mind tricks are going to quiet his frantic psyche. Nothing save the setting of the sun is going to instill the composure that he needs. Nothing but the burgeoning nightfall can supply him with that strength, the seeming invincibility, which has become his trademark in this backwater Eskimo town on the outskirts of nowhere.

As the Judge languidly makes his way to his own more comfortable throne behind the bench, Justin feels the sunset, intuits it the way a mother senses her child’s cries before she hears them. Despite the absence of windows in the sparse courtroom, he knows the precise moment that evening is upon them. As his adversary arrives, he feels the familiar surge of invulnerability course through him. He will not lose this case. Not tonight.

Snapping open his briefcase, his mind wanders back to a different time, a time before he relied upon the arrival of dusk to fuel his talent. To a time before hundred dollar-a-night court appearances, a time before he was forced to hide behind this beard, to disappear into this ice-encrusted shithole in order to survive. To a time when he was the golden boy, the Ice-Man, and the whole world seemed to be offering itself up to him on a silver platter.

Like any great trial lawyer, he remembers it down to the last detail.





“All hail the Ice-Man!!”

Justin grins sheepishly as the elevator doors open to reveal the mahogany floors that serve as Tilden’s fourth floor lobby. A throng of colleagues and co-workers have gathered in the limited space to greet him, so many, in fact, that their numbers obscure the ornate golden lettering of TILDEN, BERNER & CRANE emblazoned on the far wall. By virtue of the ruddy cheeks of his friends and the half-filled plastic cups dotting the coffee table, it seems the celebration has begun without him.

“Congratulations, Justin,” coos Marianna Piscetti, Tilden’s office manager and primary subject of gossip. She hugs him a little more tightly than office etiquette dictates and plants a soft kiss just below his left ear.

Justin, blushing, raises his hand, feigning humility. “Thanks guys, really, but it’s no big deal. It’s just one case.”

“No big deal?” booms a voice from the back of the room.

Justin winces at the sound of Mike Muzio’s baritone. Before he can escape, the two-hundred pound ball of Italian fire known as “the schmooze” is at his side, arm wrapped endearingly around Justin’s shoulders.

“No big deal, he says.” Muzio squeezes Justin as he addresses the room, relishing the role of ringmaster. “The man bags his tenth straight acquittal – a high-profile homicide case no less - and he wants us to believe it’s no big deal?” He pinches Justin’s cheek hard enough to leave a blemish. “Is this guy too good to be true or what?”

“Give it a rest, schmooze,” Justin groans.

“You know I hate it when you call me that, Eisner.” His thick brows arch as he sadistically pinches Justin’s thigh with one hand and raises his cup with the other. “Are we gonna get this guy drunk tonight or what? To the Ice-Man!”

“To the Ice-Man!” they salute in unison, raising their cups as Justin and Mike make their way through the well-wishers and between the glass doors that serve as the portal to the office’s main hallway.

“Dude,” Muzio intones as they stride purposefully down Tilden, Berner’s main thoroughfare, “you are on a roll like nobody here’s ever seen. All the big boys are talking about you like you’re the second coming.”

“I’m telling you, Schmooze, er, Mike,” Justin replies, “it’s mostly a lot of dumb luck. Good venues, good jurors, good witnesses.”

“Dumb luck?” Mike stops in his tracks, his deep voice rising. Not nearly as talented as Justin, he is justifiably offended by the false modesty. “Ice, dumb luck is when your adversary’s best witness gets hit by a bus the night before he’s supposed to testify. You just got a guy who suffocated his girlfriend AND her kid off by getting a jury to believe it was inadvertent. I don’t know what that is – supernatural, maybe – but it sure as hell isn’t dumb luck!”

“There was no evidence he strangled the girlfriend.”

“Yeah, sure,” Mike rolls his eyes, “but what about the kid? His fingerprints were all over his face and neck.”

“Like he told the jury,” Justin summarizes, entering his office and tossing his jacket on the back of his chair, “he was just trying to keep the kid quiet so the intruder wouldn’t hear them. Accidents happen.”

Muzio plops himself down into Justin’s guest chair. “Accidents happen,” he murmurs to himself in disbelief. “Accidents happen. Freaking genius!” he shouts, clapping his hands. “That ain’t dumb luck, Ice-Man, that’s pure, unadulterated, can’t-buy-it-in-a-store, can’t-teach-it-in-a-classroom, all-natural, one-hundred percent, Grade A, God-given talent, my friend.”

Justin shrugs, flipping on his computer. He appreciates the fawning, but like any mediocre trial lawyer, Schmooze has an irritating habit of making his point seven or eight times when once is enough.

“You’ve got the gift,” Muzio continues, leaning over the desk. “And the big boys know it.”

Justin looks up from the screen. “Were they talking about me?”

“On my mother, Ice, Uncle Miltie is freaking awed by you.” Mike leans in and lowers his voice, irrationally petrified that every associate office is bugged. “Mark my words, you are about to become the youngest partner in the history of this firm.”

“That wouldn’t suck, would it?”

“Nope,” Mike agrees. “Not so long as you take care of the guys who got you there.”

“Consider it done,” Justin laughs, rising to see him out. His voice softens as they stand in the doorway. “Seriously, Mike, thanks.”

“No problem, my brother. Just don’t forget we’re taking you out to celebrate tonight. Six sharp.” He leans in conspiratorially, leering.

“Gothic Gwen up in billing is bringing her kid sister. Twenty-one and ripe for fun.”

“You are so going to hell,” Justin shakes his head. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Closing the door, he takes a second to let it all sink in. His tenth straight acquittal. Partner before his thirty-second birthday. A trial attorney without a book of business making partner at his age? On sheer talent? It just doesn’t happen. Not when a quorum of affirmative votes is needed from a partnership full of miscreants, malcontents, malingerers and massive egos. It is simply too much to hope for.

Still, his heart races at the possibility, and before he knows it is happening, that familiar disorientation begins to overwhelm him. Powerless to prevent it, he feels himself begin to flush, then sweat, and finally, full-on panic sets in and he races to the door, squeezing the knob in a desperate attempt to blunt the fight-or-flight response from seizing control. Observing himself in the mirrored artwork hanging opposite his desk, he watches his face go from pink to red to pale and, at green, he grabs the trashcan beneath his desk just in time to catch the upchuck burning his throat on the way out of his mouth.

Exhausted, he flops into his desk chair, pulls the drawer open and pops two little orange pills onto his tongue.

Forget how many partners there are in New York under the age of thirty-five, he tells himself, how many suffer from frequent, full-fledged panic attacks at the mere thought of career advancement? Who else vomits every morning before leaving for the courthouse? Who besides him relies upon a daily cocktail of sedatives and MAO-inhibitors just to derive the strength to stand in front of a room full of people and make those strangers in that little box believe in his case the way he does?

There can’t be another. Not like him. Someone who endures all that and yet manages to try case after case and not only make sense, but win. If there’s another, he’d like to meet the guy and ask him how he does it without losing his mind. Or blowing his brains out.

Just as he washes the last bitter aftertaste of valium down his throat with the remnants of a warm bottle of Dasani, a knock resounds on the door.

“Justin?” a voice calls, as a familiar salt and pepper head appears in the opening.

“Come in, Mr. Tilden,” Justin replies, wiping his mouth and rubbing the moisture from his eyes. He quietly slides the desk drawer closed as the door opens all the way and Milt Tilden walks in.

“Well,” Tilden smiles, the creases at the corner of his eyes and the gray fringing his sideburns betraying his age. “Congratulations are in order, counselor.”

“Thank you, sir.” Justin replies, standing from his desk and extending his hand in gratitude. He hasn’t had time to check it for puke and silently prays it’s clean.

“You’re welcome.” Tilden takes a seat and crosses one leg over the other with the ease of a man who is in complete control of his surroundings. The King of the mid-sized fiefdom that bears his name.

Milt Tilden has been one of Manhattan’s most universally regaled trial lawyers for over thirty years, and though many now whisper that a great deal of time and trials has come and gone since he last deserved such accolades, there is no disputing that he is not only one of the New York Bar’s true dinosaurs, but one of its true legends as well. Ruthless and dogged inside the courtroom, he is affable, even paternal, outside it.

It doesn’t harm anyone to perpetuate the myth that Milt Tilden is still at the top of his game. No one has the heart to suggest otherwise. Not to his face, anyway.

“Justin,” Milt smiles his Uncle Miltie smile, so sincere it makes you feel guilty for ever having said anything behind anyone’s back. “How long have you been with the firm now?”

“Almost six years now, Mr. Tilden,” Justin’s mouth is suddenly as dry as sand. “Right after I finished my commitment at the Brooklyn DA.”

“Almost six years,” Milt muses, and Justin senses that Tilden is enjoying a private joke. “Well,” he leans forward and grins, displaying the unnaturally white shine of his recently bonded front teeth, “after six years, Justin, don’t you think it’s time you started calling me Milt instead of sir or Mr. Tilden?”

“Absolutely, sir, I mean Milt,” Justin exhales, both relieved and disappointed. He is surprised to find that a part of him expected the partnership offer to emerge from Tilden’s lips right then and there. “It’s just that, well, you’ve always been more of a mentor than a colleague to me. It would feel odd. I mean,” he fibs, “you’ve pretty much taught me everything I know.”

“Well, if that’s true,” Tilden intones, “then it seems the student has surpassed the teacher. That was quite a creative bit of lawyering you pulled off.”

“Honestly, sir,” Justin protests, “it was mostly the result of good luck and missteps by the prosecution. The evidence just seemed to fall into place in my favor.”

“Listen, Justin,” Tilden stands imperiously from his chair so that his lean, crooked frame hangs over the desk like a streetlamp, “I’ve been around this business long enough to know there’s no such thing as good luck. There’s just hard work and preparation and the ones who commit to it make their own luck. And you’re one of the guys who can do it. There are no happy accidents in litigation, just the rewards earned of talent and dedication. You should be proud of yourself,” he smiles, fiddling with the pencil holder on Justin’s desktop. “We certainly are.”

“Thank you.” Their eyes lock and Justin knows that Milt is waiting for him to ask the question that lingers unspoken between them. Justin also knows better than to ask it.

“You’re quite welcome,” Milt finally reassures, replacing the pencil holder and walking towards the door. “Oh, and Justin,” he turns back, “we’d like to display our gratitude if you’ve got a little time later on to sit down and discuss something with the partnership?”

“Uh, sure.” Justin’s heart triphammers in his chest despite the sedatives. “Uh, when…”

“Relax, it doesn’t have to be tonight,” Milt soothes. “I know all about your plans for this evening. The schmooze,” he frowns at the blunder, “I mean, Mr. Muzio, has been parading around the halls all afternoon making arrangements with every female employee in the office.”

“He’s got a twelve-gauge heart, Milt,” Justin offers apologetically.

“Yes, and a single-gauge brain, I fear. Sometimes I wonder why I keep him around. Comic relief, I suppose.”

“The clients love him,” Justin shrugs.

“Mind boggling, isn’t it? I guess it’s true what they say, Justin, clients are nothing more than morons with money.” He sighs - a long, tired exhale - and for a moment he is lost in his own thoughts, remembering another place or time or even another Milt Tilden. A man not that far gone yet irretrievable, like a balloon string floating just out of reach, growing smaller by the moment. Just as quickly the thought is gone, and he snaps back into the present, eyes brightening.

“Well, Mr. Eisner, you enjoy your well-deserved victory party tonight and what say you swing by my office around, say,” he winks, “ten or so tomorrow morning?”

“Sounds good, sir. Milt.” Justin chirps, offended by the eagerness in his own voice.

“Good man,” Milt smiles, easing the door shut behind him as he leaves. “We’ll be sure to make it worth your while.”



As the court officer seats the jurors and swears them in, Justin looks into their passive faces and smiles, his thoughts, like theirs, still far away from this dingy courthouse on the fringe of Juneau. As Judge Mantooth introduces himself in the deep guttural voice native to the parts and begins his preliminary charges, Justin reflexively begins lining up his number two pencils, one after the other, on the desk in front of him.

The sight of those pencils, the unmistakable electricity of nightfall, brings him back to another night five years earlier. The night after that auspicious meeting with Milt Tilden, so full of promise and promotion. The night – those pencils - that changed everything forever.



“Hey, Ice, over here!”

Mike Muzio stands at the bar with a couple of girls Justin recognizes from billing, a half dozen empty mugs and shot glasses perched haphazardly on the countertop behind them. It can’t be twenty minutes after six and Schmooze already has three beers in himself and three more boilermakers in the women. Some guys clearly have talents that translate better outside of the courtroom.

Justin sidles up to the bar and smiles politely at the ladies as Mike hands him a cold Corona. The place is more dance hall than after-work pub - sweaty muscle-shirted guys gyrate to a deafening rhythmic pulse with bare-midriffed, twenty-something coeds just beyond the sleek, cramped bar area. As Justin opens his mouth to say something witty over the din, Mike abruptly tugs his shoulder, pointing his beer bottle at the entrance.

“Check it out,” he shouts in Justin’s ear, pointing at two approaching women. “Gwen.”

True to her name, Gothic Gwen looks like a refugee from a Marilyn Manson concert. A pretty girl, for some inexplicable reason she insists on painting herself up in what could only be described as makeup of the undead, with a skull and crossbones piercing in her left eyebrow and a black stud poking out of her right nostril.

The other girl, however, is something else altogether. A raven-haired, olive-skinned beauty, Gwen’s sister – or, at least, the girl Justin presumes to be Gwen’s sister – has none of the gothic pretensions of her older sibling. She is dressed to kill in a low-cut summer dress that accentuates every curve of her young, lithe body. The volume of the music seems to diminish as she walks towards the bar, every pair of male eyes in the club trained on her approaching form.

“Hi,” Mike blurts as the ladies arrive. He extends his arm across Gwen as if she is no more than a barstool, his eyes fixed solidly on her sister. “You must be…”

“Jasmine,” she replies, and Justin sees something flicker briefly in her irises, a momentary change of color. “And you must be the schmooze,” she says with just the right amount of dripping sarcasm.

“Yep.” Justin can practically see the air seep out of him, a tire with a newly punctured bladder. “Hi, Gwen.” Mike pecks her on the cheek, deflated.

“Hi, Mike,” Gwen smiles, returning the kiss, her nose stud scratching his cheek. “Congrats, Justin!” she shouts over the music.

“Thanks, I…”

“So,” Jasmine interrupts, sliding between Justin and her sister, her dark eyes shining. “You’re the infamous Justin Eisner. The Ice-Man, right?”

“Well,” Justin protests, thankful it is too dark for her to see him blush. “I don’t know about…”

“Gwen just raves about you, don’t you Gwen?” she eyes her sister warily. Gwen shrugs uncomfortably and something flashes, unspoken, between the siblings. “She thinks you’re the greatest lawyer since…well, I don’t know any great lawyers but she thinks you are just the shit, Ice Man.”

“Jazz…” Gwen steps forward.

“Well, are you, Ice-Man?” Jasmine teases, ignoring her sister’s entreaties. “Are you the shit?”

Legend claims that the beauty of Helen was such that even the most unyielding of men would quiver at her merest glance, but the reaction Justin feels upon looking into the liquid ink-pools of Jasmine’s eyes is quite the opposite. They actually seem to steady him, to strengthen his resolve. Her eyes are hypnotic, but they deliver a rush, like adrenaline.

I could topple Kingdoms with her beside me, he thinks crazily.

Schmooze breaks the abbreviated silence.

“Answer the lady, Ice. Are you the shit or what?”

Justin looks down into his half-empty beer for an answer, knowing he won’t find it there. The answer is in those eyes. In those eyes are the answers to everything.

“Yeah,” he responds easily, never taking his gaze from Jasmine’s. “I guess I am the shit, Gwen’s little sister.”

“Good,” Jasmine draws close enough to taste his gum. “I’m glad we got that worked out.” She tugs at Justin’s tie like a cat playing with string. “Do you dance, Mr. Shit, or is the Ice-Man too cool for dancing?”

Her knee presses against his thigh, and although it is crowded around the bar, he knows it is no accident.

“I’ve been known to tear it up a bit,” he exhales, trying to mirror her casual indifference.

Without hesitation, Jasmine plucks the beer from Justin’s hand and places it on the countertop behind him. Grabbing him by the tie, she begins to lead him out to the dance floor.

“Okay, Ice-Man, go easy on me now.” She grins a little more wickedly. “I wouldn’t want you to tear me up too quickly.”

“Jazz. Don’t.” Gwen steps in front of her kid sister. Justin, amused, gets the impression that Gwen is actually trying to protect him.

“Butt out, Gwen,” Jasmine snarls, and her dark eyes somehow seem to grow darker. “Go play with the Schmooze or something.”

Justin shrugs at Gwen and Mike apologetically and allows himself to be pulled into the scrum. Two-tiered and teeming with young bodies, the dance floor is alive - a living, breathing, writhing aquarium of light and color and flesh, all moving and sweating and grinding to a beat that steadily pulsates up and down their nerve endings.

Jasmine leans into Justin’s ear as they begin to move and shouts, “So, what makes you the Ice-Man?”

“Confidence,” he hollers back above the blaring techno-beat, telling her what he thinks she wants to hear. “I feel at home in the courtroom. Like I’m in complete command. I guess I just don’t get nervous.”

Jasmine abruptly stops dancing and takes Justin’s face in her hands, searching for something in his eyes. He tries to avert his gaze but something about her touch, her stare, draws him in, almost against his will. It’s as if she is reading his soul.

“You’re lying.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re lying,” she says matter-of-factly, freezing him with her penetrating stare. “You don’t have to lie to me, Justin. Be honest. Tell me what makes you such a great trial lawyer.”

“Fear,” he blurts out before he can stop himself. “Fear motivates everything I do. Fear of failure. Fear of losing. Fear of being exposed or discovered or revealed for what I really am.”

“Which is what?” she asks gently. “Tell me what you are.”

“Afraid,” he replies. “A frightened little boy playing in a grown-up world. I’m constantly afraid somebody’s going to find me out.”

“I can help you with that,” she smiles, and before he knows it’s happening she is kissing him hard, passionately. He can taste her tongue, sweet and salty, flicking in and out of his mouth. “Take me somewhere. Now,” she breathes, pressing herself against him.

“Where?”

“Anywhere but here,” she demands.

With little more than a wave to Gwen and Mike – pointedly ignoring the virulent look of disapproval on Gwen’s face – they are out the door and down the street and panting, breathless and excited, in the lobby of Tilden, Berner in mere moments. With a quick swipe of his electronic key they are striding down the main hallway, exchanging nothing save furtive glances, until they reach his office.

“How old did you say you are, again?” Justin sits on the edge of his desk and loosens his tie.

“I didn’t,” Jasmine yanks the tie out from his collar and unbuttons his shirt. “But I’m legal, if that’s what you’re worried about. My sister and I are very different people, that’s all. People think because Gwen’s a certain way, I’m going to be the same. Gwen chooses to express herself by the way she dresses.”

“And you?” Justin runs his hands through her luminous hair.

“I think actions speak louder than clothes.” She pulls off his shirt as he reaches behind his neck to remove his chain.

“Is that a cross?” Jasmine recoils.

“Not exactly,” he smiles, reaching dramatically into his undershirt and pulling out the chain. “Ta-Da!”

“A Star of David!” she grins, her features relaxing. She cradles the trinket in her palm.

“My mom gave it to me when I was thirteen,” he explains, “the whole becoming a man thing. Why, you have something against crosses?”

“No, of course not,” she frowns. “It’s just…my folks are so pious. Hooking up with a guy I just met, a big cross hanging in my face, it would be kind of…”

“Weird, I get it,” he sympathizes. “The whole Catholic school girl thing.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, good,” Justin kisses her, reaching around to unbutton her dress. “For a second there I was worried maybe you were a vampire or something.”

“Mmmm, you were right,” she murmurs, slowly licking his neck. “I am a vampire.” She reaches for his belt, drawing him in with her bottomless eyes. “Only it’s not your blood I’m after.”

As she climbs onto his lap, Justin swipes the desktop clear of his knick-knacks and figurines, pens and pencils scattering in every direction.

“Poor baby,” Jasmine whispers in his ear as they begin to touch. “It must be such hard work putting up all those walls and barriers. To always be pretending.”

“You have no idea,” he sighs.

“But I do,” she insists. “I used to be the same way. Pretending I was somebody I wasn’t, always trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations.”

“What did you do?” he asks between warm kisses.

“Someone came along at the right time and taught me how to free myself from the bondage of self-doubt and worry. I no longer care.”

She pulls herself closer, so that the tips of their noses nearly touch. He thinks he can almost make out the silhouette of something indefinable, something potent, deep beyond the pupils of her eyes.

“I can teach you how, Justin. If you want me to. I can help set you free.”

“You’re serious?” he asks. “No fear – just like that?”

“Just like that. If it’s what you truly want.”

Something in her expression, in those eyes, convinces him, as if he has always known she would come.

“Ok,” he replies. “Show me.”

Jasmine pushes long strands of hair away from her face and repositions herself in his lap.

“Ok,” she instructs, “now close your eyes and hold me really tight.”

“My pleasure,” he grins, wrapping his arms around the curve of her back and drawing her near as she reciprocates.

“Ready?” she breathes.

“Yeah. What are you … ?”

“Shhhhh…”

Jasmine begins to put concentrated effort into Justin’s neck, licking and kissing him with an intensity nearly feverish in pitch. His hands make their way around her body as the licking and kissing becomes tasting and nibbling, and the feeling is so pure, so perfect, that he is content to relinquish full control.

“That’s it,” Jasmine commands, nibbling on his neck a bit harder. He wonders how he will explain the inevitable hickey at the partnership meeting. “Let it go. All that fear. All that pain. Gone. You never have to be afraid again.”

He actually feels his anxiety releasing and then something in his skin gives, little more than a papercut, but it hurts just the same. He feels the warm trickle of blood escape from his neck.

“Hey,” he tries hard not to offend her, “what are you…”

Before he can finish his question she is on him with animal fury, tearing at the wound in his neck like a hungry shark locating its prey. Blood begins to flow more copiously, and as he strains to pull away, Justin sees that Jasmine casts no reflection whatsoever in the mirrored artwork on the wall. It’s as though she is invisible.

“What the fuck…” he exclaims, trying vainly to push her off. Jasmine, resolute, stares into his face and grins, blood shining off of her parted lips and gleaming like dew on her exaggerated canines.

“You’ll be a God, Justin,” she promises, diving back into his gash. Her eyes shine, luminescent in the pitch-black office. “Never to feel fear. Only to be feared.”

The word no forms on his lips but never makes its way out of his mouth, his resolve ebbing in proportion to the outflow of his lifeblood. Desperately aware that any hope of survival is rapidly fading, Justin grasps around his desk for the one thing he can get a grip on, and musters his last ounce of strength to plunge it violently into Jasmine’s chest.

“You bastard!” she shouts in disbelief, leaping out of his lap. Three number two pencils protrude from her chest, where a dark black stain is beginning to spread. For a moment, Justin moves forward to apologize, but the sight of her blood-smeared fangs and black eyes causes him to retreat.

“I’m sorry,” he offers lamely from behind his desk. “You were…I was…I don’t want to be a vampire, for chrissakes!”

“You have no idea what you’ve done,” Jasmine whispers, the color beginning to drain from her cheeks. As she slumps to the floor, her fangs withdraw and her eyes return to their normal shade.

“You are so screwed,” she mutters with her last breath, dying on his awful turquoise carpeting. Justin watches and waits for at least a minute, but nothing happens. Jasmine just lies there on the floor, beautiful, peaceful and very much dead.

“That’s it?” he shouts at her corpse, incredulous. His neck wound is throbbing. “‘You are so screwed?’ You aren’t going to melt or disappear or explode or anything? You can’t just die there, looking normal!” he insists, kicking her gently in the ribs. “People are going to think that I…”

A quiet cough emanates from the hall and Justin looks up to see Mike Muzio standing in the dark, just outside the doorway.

“Gwen sent me up after you,” his voice trembles as he stares at the body. “Is she … did you…”

“It’s not what it looks like, Mike. She was a vampire.” The words sound ridiculous. “I swear.”

Mike looks again at Jasmine’s perfectly normal features and then back at Justin. “A vampire?”

“Yes, a vampire,” Justin cranes his neck to reveal the gash. “She bit me. She was trying to kill me, or make me undead. Whatever they do.” He senses this is not one of his most persuasive arguments. “I swear to God, Schmooze, she was sucking the blood right out of me!”

Muzio steps back, deeper into the darkness of the Tilden, Berner hallway.

“I wasn’t here, Ice.”

“Neither was I, Mike,” Justin replies, a silent pact ratified between them. He hurriedly throws scattered personal items into his briefcase and bolts for the door.

“Good luck, man,” Schmooze’s voice trails off as Justin disappears into the firm’s corridors.

“Yeah, thanks,” Justin mutters to himself in the shadows. “You too, brother.”