Rage Factor by Chris Rogers Page B

she’d tossed there.
    “Wait up,” she said. “I want to share something—guess you could say it’s what keeps me chipping away from the sidelines.”
    Brenda eyed her warily, but ambled over to where Dixie knelt on the floor, drawing a big imaginary circle with her finger.
    “Throw a rock in a lake,” Dixie said, cradling the pebble in her palm, then tossing it to the center of the circle. “You’ll see ripples. Small, insignificant ripples. Scarcely noticeable.” She drew a second circle, smaller than her hand.“Toss that same rock in a puddle, and the ripples become great outward waves that turn everything to mud. Like that pebble, one evil man among the righteous is insignificant, a single dark shadow on a sunlit pool.”
    “Careful, preacher.” Brenda popped a chunk of nicotine gum in her mouth. “You’re sloshing pond water over your chic new footgear.”
    Dixie’s occasional metaphorical lectures, a persuasion technique learned from her Irish adoptive father, were an old joke between them from law school. Tedious or not, Dixie believed some things needed to be said.
    “Darkness,” she persisted, “is as much a part of nature’s scheme as you or me, or this rock. It’s not our job to eliminate all the shadows in the world, but to remain part of the light, part of the balance. Without us, the pool shrinks. The light dims. The ripples of darkness spread wider.”
    Brenda sighed, long, heavy, and defeated. “I get your belabored point. But I’m not sure our society has enough candlepower these days to brighten a broom closet.”
    Dixie scooped up the pebble and balanced it between her thumb and forefinger.
    “Benson, you’re one of the brightest spots in the whole system. Next to you, Lawrence Riley Coombs is like a single dust mote in a ray of sunshine.” She flipped the pebble off her thumbnail, caught it in the palm of her hand. “Insignificant.”
    The prosecutor frowned at the shiny black rock. After a moment, Dixie closed her fingers over it and shoved it into her pocket.
    They spent the next twenty minutes working out with free weights. Brenda seemed hell-bent on pressing as many pounds as the buff young men in the room. Only when she and Dixie were both thoroughly spent did they head for the showers.
    Dixie needed to get home. Parker would be pissed if she was late for dinner again, and she had to call Belle Richards for specifics on where to pick up the client’s kid tomorrow morning. But Brenda’s mood worried her.
    She fished some coins out of her pocket—a phone call would ease Parker’s mind.
    “Looks like the beer’s on me tonight,” she told Brenda. “Might be your last big chance to tie one on at my expense.”
    “Think I can’t beat you when your foot’s healed?”
    “I think there’s a Mexican beer at the Suds Club with my name on it, and I could use the company for an hour or so.”
    Brenda looked at her, not buying it. “I’ve lost cases before, Dixie. I’m not going to do anything crazy tonight.”
    Dixie gave her a thin smile. “Crazy is in the eye of the beholder, old friend.”
    The ADA stalled a second longer, then shrugged. “I suppose the Suds Club will be bubbling with gossip about my failing record of late. Might as well give them an honest target to aim at.”

Chapter Eight
    The mixture of odors at the Suds Club was like no other bar in town. The small brewery and pub sat alongside a laundromat, taking advantage of a captive clientele waiting for their clothes to dry. Like other lawyers, Dixie had started hanging out there not because she liked doing laundry but because the owner was a friend, another former prosecutor whose golden dreams of making a difference had tarnished. He and four other attorneys—who happened to also be musicians—had formed a band, calling themselves “The Convictions,” that played the club on weekends. Damned good vintage rock and roll. Tonight, a neon Wurlitzer provided music at a volume allowing easy