They had never once met the one who did the work.

He had also forgotten something, or more likely never registered it, because he had never listened to me closely enough to file it away.

His company’s merger — the one that would make him regional president, the one his whole future was staked on — required an independent ethics certification before it could close.

There was an outside attorney supervising that certification, a man whose firm had been retained precisely because it had no ties to anyone involved.

That man was my former law partner.

I had built cases beside him for eight years.