Jimmy’s jaw tightened. For a second, the mask slipped—not the showman, not the joke-teller, but the raw nerve underneath. “No,” he whispered. “That’s what kills me. He’s not wrong. But he’s not right, either. I just… I want to do this the right way. For once.”

His brother Chuck’s words from the night before still hummed under his skin like a low-voltage wire: “You’re not a real lawyer, Jimmy. The law is sacred. You’ve just been cutting corners with a smile.”

Tonight, Jimmy wasn’t going home to his cramped apartment above the laundry room. He wasn’t going to visit Chuck’s fortress of solitude, either.

Instead, he drove to the Dog House.

The hum of the empty passenger seat was his only witness.

“I’m honest,” Mike said. “It’s rarer.”

Mike set down his glass. “I knew a guy once. Wanted to be straight. Wanted to provide for his family. Did everything by the book. You know where he is now?”

Jimmy pulled out a wrinkled dollar bill and left it on the table. “Thanks for the existential crisis. Same time next week?”

Mike’s eyes lifted, cold and patient. “You want advice or a drink?”