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'What about him?'

'I thought you might want to drop the charges. It turns out he's hired a really good lawyer. And the lawyer's found a bunch of witnesses who've officially stated you came on to Sweet.'

'He hit me with his guitar.'

'That's true, but I thought you might not want it to go public about the sex thing.'

'What sex thing?'

The witnesses said you wanted to have sex with Sally.'

That's a lie. I was just busting his balls.'

'It's not going to sound like that at the trial.'

Trial?'

'Well, he's got this lawyer now. And all the witnesses...'

'Shit.'

I looked at my watch. 'If you move fast and make a phone call you can stop the process before it gets out of control. Probably your father-in-law would be upset to learn that you propositioned a transvestite.'

'Yeah,' Lula said. 'That's like a double cheat. You were gonna cheat with a guy in a dress. Father-in-laws hate that.'

'What's the name of this hotshot lawyer?' Sklar asked.

'Albert Kloughn.'

'And he's supposed to be good? I never heard of him.'

'He's a shark,' I said. 'He's new to the area.'

'So what's your interest in this?' Sklar asked me.

'Just being a friend, Marty. Since we went to school together and all.'

And I left the showroom.

Lula and I didn't say anything until we were out of the lot.

'Girl, you can lie!' Lula yelled when I turned the Buick onto

Broad. 'You are the shit. I almost gave myself a hemorrhoid trying not to laugh back there. I can't believe how good you can lie. I mean I've seen you lie before, but this was like Satan lying. It was inspired lying.'

Four

I drove two blocks up Broad and pulled into a Subway shop.

'This is a good place to eat lunch,' Lula said. They got them low-carb sandwiches. And they got them low-fat sandwiches.

You could lose a lot of weight eating here. The more you eat, the more you lose.'

'Actually, I chose Subway because it was next to Dunkin' Donuts.'

'Friggin' A,' Lula said.

We each got a sub. And then we each got six doughnuts. We sat in the car and ate the sub and the doughnuts in silence.