The Punishing Game by Nathan Gottlieb

office where two four-hundred-pound brothers sat behind desks eating chocolate from massive glass bowls. They were consuming it in inhuman portions. It was sickening to watch. Even for me.”
    Cullen smiled. “That’s saying something. What crime did the fatsos commit? Poison candy?”
    As he stuffed the last of the dog into his mouth, Boff shook his head. “The Czars did something a bit more sinister.”
    “Like what?”
    “A rival started cutting into the Czars’ grip on the industry, so the fatsos—as you called them—allegedly paid someone to tie up the rival in his bed and set the bed on fire. Five days later the rival died from burns over eighty percent of his body.”
    “They killed someone over friggin’ candy bars?”
    “Son, it was a multi-million dollar business.” Boff stopped walking. “Ah, here we are.”
    Entering the building through a security door, they emptied their pockets in a wire basket and passed through a metal detector. Cullen made it through, but Boff buzzed.
    “Step over here, sir,” an officer said.
    Boff turned to Cullen. “This happens to me all the time.”
    “It’s probably the metal in your brain,” Cullen said.
    The cop ran a hand-held detector down Boff’s body until it buzzed by his left knee.
    “Roll up your pants, sir.”
    As Boff complied, he said to Cullen, “Metal screws. I had major knee surgery in college.”
    The cop ran the detector over Boff’s bare knee. It buzzed. “Okay,” he said, “you can go on.”
    After they had collected their stuff from the wire basket, Boff led Cullen down a corridor toward the courtroom.
    “Why did you need knee surgery in college?” Cullen asked.
    “Blew the knee out in my senior year while playing basketball. I was a star on the Kean College varsity in Jersey.”
    Cullen looked skeptical. “I find it hard to imagine you were coordinated enough to play basketball.”
    Boff smiled smugly. “Actually, my friend, even losing most of my senior year after surgery, I still set the Kean career record for most rebounds. I also set Division III records for most rebounds. And I had feelers from the Knicks to come to their summer camp as a free agent. But in those days if you had knee surgery, you were never the same.”
    Cullen still was dubious. “It’s hard to see you as part of a team.”
    “What can I say? I was still idealistic back then. Worse than you are today. They even named me captain because I was so committed to the team.” He glanced at a couple doors and kept walking. “The lawyer we’re going to see was our team’s point guard and best defender. Dave went from defending the other teams’ best players to defending society’s worst criminals. Go figure.”
    As they approached the courtroom, a man wearing a dark pinstripe suit headed their way.
    Boff’s face lit up. “Ronnie Burk! It’s great to see you again.”
    “Fuck you, Boff.” Burk spit on the floor but missed Boff’s foot. He kept walking.
    “Who was that ?” Cullen asked.
    “An assistant D.A.”
    “I gather you crushed one of his cases.”
    “Actually, it was three straight. Burk was going to run for D.A. and had his party’s backing. But after the third case that I helped whip him on, the Daily News did a number on him. The paper ran a large front page picture of Burk at the prosecution table with his hands covering his face after the jury returned a not guilty verdict. Someone on the copy desk who must’ve been a Springsteen fan wrote the headline.” He paused and smiled. “ BORN TO LOSE. ”
    As Boff opened the doors to the courtroom, exceptionally cold air hit them. Cullen tugged Boff’s arm. “Why’s it like an icebox in here?” he asked.
    “Judges don’t like to sweat.”
    Boff chose a bench toward the back, where they sat down and listened while the prosecutor questioned a witness. After several minutes, Boff had a pretty good grasp of what Galloway’s client was accused of. “Extortion,” he whispered to Cullen. “The