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Keller steered a middle course, one that made him acceptable to both the prosecution and the defense He made the cut He was on the jury

And so was Gloria Dantone

At nine the nextwith the other lucky thirteen Both sides had gotten through opening argue declared a recess for lunch Automatically, Keller and Gloria drifted apart from the others in the exodus froht to the Saigon Pearl, where they both ordered the daily special

They’d talked about the weather on the way to the restaurant, and how fresh the air was co for the food to co to say "We’re not supposed to discuss the case," she said "In fact I’ lunch together"

"The judge didn’t say we couldn’t"

"No Can we talk about the other jurors?"

"I don’t know We’re not supposed to talk about the lawyers, or e thought of their opening arguments"

"How about their clothes? How about their hairstyles?"

She rolled her eyes, and Keller got the e that Gloria didn’t much care for the prosecutor’s clothes, or the way she did her hair The woth, worn back off her face-see what looked to him like fairly standard women’s business attire, but Keller knew his li at clothes and hairstyles, any heterosexual e full of stamps He missed the fine points

"I wonder what they talk about during those bench conferences," he said "But I have a feeling we’re not even supposed to speculate"

"A couple of ti"

"Really?"

"So I tried not to listen, and that’s like trying not to think of so, like a white rhinoceros"

"Huh?"

"Go ahead," she said "Try not to think of one"

There were a lot of things they couldn’t talk about, but that left them the whole world outside of the courtroo the book, and she told him a story about one of the senior partners at her fir an affair with a client They didn’t run out of conversation

At one-thirty they were back in the jury box The assistant DA as trying the case began presenting witnesses, and Keller concentrated on their testie adjourned for the day

The next day, Friday, he was sorry he’d finished his book Everybody told you to bring so to read while you waited to see if you drew a case What they didn’t tell you was that you were just as much in need of diversion after you’d been i bench conferences-it wouldn’t look good if a juror whipped out a paperback the ot in a huddle-but there were plenty of other opportunities

"In e said around ten o’clock, and he and the tyers were gone for twentytheir absence, and one of theain

"I think Mr Bittner may have nodded off," he said at lunch, and Gloria said theor he’d

"But we’re probably not supposed to talk about it," she said, and he agreed that they probably weren’t

During the afternoon there were a couple e and the attorneys stayed in the courtroom but the jury had to leave The bailiff escorted them to another room, where they all sat around a table as if to deliberate the verdict But they had nothing to ponder, and they were under orders not to discuss the case, and they were seated too close together to have private conversations a themselves, so all they could do, really, was sit there That hen a book would have coe sent them home for the weekend Keller, who’d packed a briefcase with a clean shirt and a change of socks and underwear, went straight to Penn Station

Twenty-one

The previous weekend Keller had stayed at a hotel near the train station, but he’d come across a bed and breakfast in Fells Point that looked inviting and was certainly ht before, and checked in a little after nine It was alht when he called White Plains from a pay phone around the corner

"I’m in Baltiot to be so to do in Baltimore-"

"Not this weekend I don’t"

"Oh?"

"Our friend left town She’s on the Eastern Shore"

"Aren’t we all? Isn’t New York on the eastern shore, and Baltimore, and all points in between?"

It was a section of Maryland, he explained, a sort of peninsula on the other side of Chesapeake Bay And that’s where Irene Macna

"At which time you’ll be in a stuffy old courtroo toher the trial’s all wrapped up"

"How could that happen? It didn’t even start until yesterdayNot this time, huh?"

"No"

"Was it a purse snatcher, Keller? Are you going toto him?"

"I’ain, Keller"

"Is there so with the connection? I said-"