No, the chances that Miss Shelly Thomas might be a Wasp were remote. But what was she? During jury selection he had elicited from her the information that she was an art director, which apparently meant some kind of designer, for the Prischker & Bolka advertising agency in Manhattan. To Kramer that suggested an inexpressibly glamorous life. Beautiful creatures scampering back and forth to taped New Wave music in an office with smooth white walls and glass brick ... a sort of MTV office . . . terrific lunches and dinners in restaurants with blond wood, brass, indirect lighting, and frosted glass with chevron patterns on it ... baked quail with chanterelles on a bed of sweet potato and a ruff of braised dandelion leaves ... He could see it all. She was part of that life, those places where the girls with brown lipstick go! ... He had both of her telephone numbers, at Prischker & Bolka and at home. Naturally he couldn't do a thing while the trial was in progress. But afterward . . . Miss Thomas? This is Lawrence Kramer. I'm -- —oh! you remember! That's terrific! Miss Thomas, I'm calling because every so often, after one of these major cases is completed, I like to ascertain what it is exactly that convinced the jury -- —a sudden stab of doubt . . . Suppose all that happened was that she lost the case for him? Bronx juries were difficult enough for a prosecutor as it was. They were drawn from the ranks of those who know that in fact the police are capable of lying. Bronx juries entertained a lot of doubts, both reasonable and unreasonable, and black and Puerto Rican defendants who were stone guilty, guilty as sin, did walk out of the fortress free as birds. Fortunately, Herbert 92X had shot a good man, a poor man, a family man from the ghetto. Thank God for that! No juror who lived in the South Bronx was likely to have sympathy for a foul-tempered nut case like Herbert. Only a wild card like Miss Shelly Thomas of Riverdale was likely to have sympathy! A well-educated young white woman, well-to-do, the artistic type, possibly Jewish . . . She was just the type to turn idealistic on him and refuse to convict Herbert on the grounds that he was black, romantic, and already put upon by Fate. But he had to take that chance. He didn't intend to let her slip by. He needed her. He needed this particular triumph. In this courtroom he was in the center of the arena. Her eyes had never left him. He knew that. He could feel it. There was already something between them . . . Larry Kramer and the girl with brown lipstick.

The regulars were amazed that day by the zeal and aggressiveness of Assistant District Attorney Kramer in this nickel-and-dime Bronx manslaughter case.