“Are the transfer papers ready?” I asked.

“Did the clerk confirm the judge signed the docket?”

“Docket,” Arthur said.

He took off his wire-rimmed glasses and wiped the lenses with the white cloth napkin he kept folded in his vest pocket.

In the corner of his yellow legal pad, in blue ballpoint, he had written Room 502 twice, one right under the other.

Sarah stopped tapping her phone and pointed the corner of its plastic case toward the double doors.

“Look, the clerk said Judge Vance had two protective orders ahead of us,” Sarah said.