The old guy, Mr. Madnick, burst out laughing, choked on his laugh and coughed, spitting out words, "She… doesn't have a million dollars… She is dirt-poor. She is judgment-proof!"

"Well," Kathy bared her long, white crocodile teeth. "Maybe you guys want her to rot in prison? You're not gonna get her."

"No, we just…" Mr. Davidoff started, but Madnick interrupted him, "I don't mind. She is the kind of girl my mama cautioned me about. Never believe a redhead. Never."

My friend clenched her heavy fists. "You're an evil man to say that."

"Yep, you got that right, ma'am. I'm an old, evil, crazy, white man with zero tolerance for criminals and shouting bitches."

He hadn't even finished his little speech when my best friend, red-faced and sweating, opened her purse, pulled out a bunch of dollar bills and stuck them at the old guy's face, shouting, "Did you see that? You will never get that. This is not for you. You are a money grubbing… lawyer!"

"Kathy, no…!" I shouted, and moved, trying to get between them. The officer behind me grabbed my cuffed hands and jerked me back. My weight was about one hundred fifteen pounds and the cop weighed twice that much. I lost my balance and stepped on his foot, sending both of us falling back. He hit the ground with a terrible thud, and I landed on his stomach.

Meanwhile, uninterrupted, Kathy threw the money at the old guy's fat face. He turned around and opened his palm to slap her, when Mr. Davidoff jumped and pushed him away. The old guy's legs gave up, and he went down like a doomed tree in a hurricane. Falling, he swung his leg and tripped Kathy, who, trying to keep her balance, grabbed Mr. Davidoff. I saw everything while the police officer jerked me up. An enormous pang of jealousy came over me the second I saw my injured cognac prince hugging my best friend.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Kathy sang at his face with her sweet Northeast Philadelphia accent. For ten years, she had been happily married to her college professor, but at that moment, I started to worry about the stability of her marriage.

"It's perfectly fine," Mr. Expensive Vodka answered, trying to untangle his arms from her long gorgeous hair.

A terrible moan sobered us all. The officer pushed me ahead, and we all gathered around lifeless Joe, who was lying on his back with his eyes closed.

Mr. Davidoff kneeled in front of his older friend.

"Joe, are you okay? Do you need a doctor?"

The old guy responded with another gut-wrenching moan.

"He probably injured his spine. He can't talk," I said. Mr. Davidoff looked at me thoughtfully, obviously reevaluating his optimistic view of my mental health.

"He's your lawyer. He had better start talking, because that's what he does for a living."

As if hearing him, Joe opened his black eyes with eyelashes so long and thick they looked covered with layers of mascara and threw a dirty look at his friend. "How come you guys got to schmooze with these beautiful chicks and I didn't?"

Instead of locking us up for disturbance of the peace, the officer on duty gave us papers to sign and let us go. During the following two months, I saw Alexander Davidoff twice at the police station during the cross-examinations, once at the city court, and every weekend at my studio apartment, newly decorated with the bundles of freshly cut roses. By then, I discovered he was working for an international law firm, that his wife had left him and that his teenage daughter's name was Evana.

Two months later, on Christmas morning, I opened my eyes at eleven, because I had been working the night before. Looking out the window of my basement studio apartment, I saw two things that made me hysterical. First, my cab was nowhere in sight. Second, somebody's car was parked in my spot.