The revised ebook edition of Face Value is available at Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble's Nook Store, and Apple's iTunes Store. USA Today calls it "Absorbing," and says, "Multiple murders and delightfully complex characters help carry a plot that moves from a striptease bar to the guru's mysterious island retreat…A fine, intelligent story."   The followers of San Francisco quantum physicist and guru "Brother Mike" thought they were exploring their sexuality and spirituality when he guided them through videotaped group encounters. They didn't know the tapes would end up in the XXX sections of their video stores. Now one former devotee, an old friend of lawyer Laura Di Palma, has come to her new office for advice. Laura turns for help to her former partner, detective Sandy Arkelett. They haven't spoken since their falling out months ago. As their case careens from banks to porn parlors to a private fantasy island, they're forced to struggle with their own relationship. When Laura discovers multiple dead bodies in a strip club, she finds that new secrets have a way of getting old lovers killed.                     Face Value   By Lia Matera       Copyright 1994 Lia Matera   Electronic Edition 2011 978-1-937697-07-5     This ebook may not be re-sold, reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or non-commercial use.   First Simon & Schuster Edition 1994 First Pocket Star Edition 1995   This book has been revised from the print version. The story remains the same but some details have been changed or updated.             Face Value       Chapter One     I watched Steve Sayres walk into my office-warming party. Maybe he thought he was obliged, as senior partner of the firm I'd recently worked for, to pretend to wish me well. Maybe the sentiment was even sincere: after all, he'd gotten what he wanted. He'd turned my mentor, Doron White, against me. He'd gotten me fired a few months before my partnership vote. Sayres looked around, a smile curling his lips. The Law Offices of Laura Di Palma were on a half-empty floor of a renovated box. I shared a waiting room and two secretaries with a five-person public-interest law firm whose partners were long-ago radicals and whose associates did just enough workers' comp to keep solvent. My office, across the hall from theirs, was large but ugly, with industrial carpets and leased wood veneer furniture. It had a view of traffic creeping toward the freeway from Market Street. It was many blocks from the financial-district suites White Sayres & Speck occupied. My conference table and desk were spread with trays of cheese and cold cuts and crudités. Nothing fancy, nothing catered. The lawyers from across the hall were drinking so-so wine with good humor. They seemed pleased to have me as a neighbor. They doubtless approved of my last client. Dan Crosetti had been a bellwether activist accused of shooting his best friend, who'd turned out to be an undercover FBI agent. I'd lost my job over that case. Sayres had gone to Doron White, founding partner, previously my ally, and made his argument: I was doing pro bono work without the firm's consent. Crosetti's controversial politics might offend our corporate clients. And I had again placed the firm under the jeweler's eye of publicity. Doron had agreed. I'd made the firm a lot of money. I'd made the firm famous. But all it took was one refusal to back down, and I was out the door. I'd been forced to choose between what mattered and what looked good. I'd chosen not to become Steven Sayres. Crossing my unimpressive new office, Sayres wore his smugness like an expensive coat. He was tall and stylishly fit, his emaciated body pumped with stringy muscle. His face was lightly tanned, with lines of harried ill temper etched around his eyes and into his forehead. His graying hair showed comb lines, as if he'd just left the sauna. His suit looked custom-made, his usual dark blue with a wild tie now that no other kind would do. "Hello, Laura." He stopped farther from me than was strictly polite. I was glad. "Steve." I kept my tone friendly, but I didn't extend my hand. "I wondered if you'd open your own office. Frankly"—he glanced at my relatively ill-dressed neighbors, making lunch of cheese and cold cuts—"I couldn't have given you much of a reference if you'd tried to join one of the big firms here." I felt a smile chill my face. "A reference from you would have been superfluous, Steve. Everyone here knows me." "That's right." He slid his hand into his suit pocket. "And everyone here knows how Doron died." Doron White had suffered a series of anginas that severely damaged his heart. A late-night encounter with a friend of Crosetti's—an encounter in my then-office—had triggered Doron's final and fatal attack. A group of beautifully outfitted people stepped into the room. They were White Sayres clients, formerly my clients—bank vice presidents, mostly. One, in-house counsel for Graystone Federal, waved at me before smoothing her Lauren Bacall hair. The others looked around, showing their surprise. No expensive paintings here, no tree-sized arrangements of exotic flowers. I watched Steve. A hot redness spread up his neck and over the slack skin of his jaw. Without motion or overt distress, he'd flamed into a fury. That's how it had begun with Doron, a sudden flush betraying his anger. The bank clients were upon us now, hand-shaking and well-wishing, smiling at Steve to show they approved of his magnanimous visit. Of course he'd known they'd come; of course he'd had to come, too. If I let him, he'd position himself as Daddy, looking in on his little girl. He'd minimize me because he hadn't been able to sabotage me. "Steve was just blaming me for Doron's death," I said. "And because Doron and I were close, and I resent it, I'm about to ask Steve to leave." Steve's face drained of color. Behind me, conversations stopped. Two of Steve's clients stepped back, as if my honesty might sully them. "I don't work for you anymore, Steve. I don't have to play this game. If you want to insult me, do it out loud for everyone to hear. Don't stand here looking gracious while you complain in my ear that you didn't get a chance to blackball me." He looked at his clients, formerly my clients. His brows were pinched into a mask of pitying chagrin. He used that face in court whenever he could. The clients had seen it there. But they had their own versions of it. I was the rule-breaker here. That's why I was on my own in an office unfashionably south of Market. That's what Dan Crosetti had done for me. I blessed him silently as I said, "I asked you to leave. Play cute for your clients somewhere else." "Well"—a bank VP turned the word into a hearty sigh—"actually, Steve, if you'll let me walk you back, I should be moving on." Steve continued looking sad and paternal. "Let me buy you lunch, Bill. Margaret, Harry, can you join us?" I took Harry's hand and shook it. Did the same to Margaret's. Bill didn't offer his. "Thank you so much for coming," I said. "It was good to see you." Margaret stared at me, openmouthed. Bill put his hand on Steve's arm. "Let's try the new place around the corner. Maybe they can still seat four without a reservation." Only Margaret seemed to hesitate, her skull-thin face crimped into a silent but… She finally joined the chorus of good-byes and good-lucks. I watched two major banks and a mortgage brokerage walk out my door. They would spread the word, no doubt: Laura Di Palma was being hysterical. Maybe radical. She'd been gone almost ten months, no one was sure where—not practicing law, having some kind of mid-life crisis or something. She hadn't gone back to big-firm practice. She'd gone solo—and not even at a good address. I turned to join the left-wing lawyers from across the hall. My practice, assuming I developed one in time to pay my lease and meet my small payroll, would not cut into Steve Sayres'. That was fine with me. "You look like you could use a glass of wine. White or red?" Dennis Hyerdahl, known for some colorful conspiracy theories, circa thirty years ago, handed me a plastic glass. "Red." Hyerdahl, slacks too low and tie too short over his middle-aged belly, poured the wine. One of the firm's associates, a small blonde in a linty black suit, grinned. "We've been looking forward to meeting you, to tell the truth." Pat Frankel's voice retained a hint of Larchmont, and her face was tanned almost to premature leatheriness. A sailor, probably. A preppy who'd taken a sharp turn left. "We heard you could be pretty, um, blunt." I'd gotten a lot of press defending a man who'd assassinated two United States senators. In the process of getting him acquitted, I'd developed a reputation for being aggressive. I supposed that's what she meant. I took a quick swallow. "In my business dealings. When it's appropriate." Hyerdahl laughed. "Blunt, I love it. God, yes, give me blunt." Frankel elbowed him. "Diplomacy is hardly your problem." "Oh, Ms. Tactful here. Did I not hear you call your client a whiner this morning? Hmmm? Patricia?" A joking wince. "Her organization. Besides, she's not my client." "Anymore, ha-ha." He seemed to have no desire to follow up, to check up. If I'd had a boss like that, I wouldn't be here now. "You know, Laura…" Frankel's eyes shined a manic blue. "I should refer her to you. If you do First Amendment stuff." "Yes." I do anything that pays the rent, right now. Anything that underwrites malpractice premiums and my share of Hyerdahl's common-area expenses, anything that pays for use of his law library and secretaries, his Xerox machines and voice mail. Even on the cheap, opening a practice had depleted my savings and exhausted my credit. "She actually has an interesting case." Frankel leaned against the desk, coattails nudging the Brie. "I just got a little impatient with her. She's part of a group I did some pro bono work for, but eons ago. She's still back in the Call-Me-Ms-Tibbs era of feminism, as if we haven't moved way beyond— No, I should shut up and refer her to you. Let you make up your own mind. I've definitely got baggage on this one." In commercial practice, one did not acquire baggage. It was impossible to care that much about a bank. I looked around my new office. It wasn't the dramatic array of red leathers and accent pieces my last one had been. It lacked a view of flower vendors and street quartets and scrubbed stone high-rises. But these people were across the hall now, not Steve Sayres. And I chose my own cases. There were things I missed too much to think about. But those were the early days under Doron's wing, when I'd been thrilled with the status and the responsibility. It had gone inalterably sour. That had happened to a lot of lawyers, except they remained in their purgatory of overwork and underappreciation. Thank you, Dan Crosetti.     Chapter Two     My windows and door were open to create a breeze. I poured sweating curls of cheese into a trash bag and brushed crumbs off the desktop. I was watching a videotape on a television hidden in a corner cabinet. It was a compilation of news footage about the two cases that had put me on the map. It had arrived gift wrapped with a "Congratulations on Your New Job" greeting card. The card was bare of salutation or comment and was signed simply "Aunt Diana." I was sure she hadn't made the tape herself. "Uncle" Henry (my father's many-times-removed cousin, as close to him as a brother) had probably forgotten it with his post-divorce leavings. Though Diana would ordinarily have loved gloating about a famous relative, she loathed me. She couldn't be overt about it—I added to her stature, after all. Hence, a gift not of her making and a merely civil card. I tossed the card into the garbage. She could have added a line about her son. Hal and I had grown up in mutual dislike and conflict. When we fell in love decades later, we discussed little. Any subject might become a mine field. We spent four hard years together. Three months ago he left. Just gave up and left. Without a word. Not then, not since. Funny I could miss him so much and yet find life without him a relief. I'd traced him to Alaska, to an arty little nowhere called Homer. Diana might have let me know whether the family had heard from him. On my television screen, I explained a defense strategy to reporters who'd consistently mischaracterized it. The image in the box didn't match the one in my mirror. The mirror gave me back a slim woman, obviously of Italian descent: nose a little large, lips full, Joan Crawford brows over green eyes, few white hairs among the brown. But the Dorian Gray on my television, from just five or six years ago, looked disconcertingly better. Unflatteringly strident and sometimes icy, yes… but clearly younger. I listened to my explanation of what reporters insisted on calling the "television syndrome" defense: that television creates a reality more powerful than personal experience. I watched, ignoring my argument as my self-image took a battering. A voice interrupted. "Laura? I took a chance on finding you in." . "Margaret." I was surprised to see Graystone Federal's in-house counsel at my door. She'd registered in my consciousness this morning only as part of a group I'd written off. "Do you have time right now?" Her gaunt face seemed unnaturally tight. Not a face lift? She was close to forty, around my age. Surely she was too young? She blinked rapidly, anchoring a smooth wave of hair behind her ear. "Please come in." I clicked off the television, letting the videotape wind on. I'd seen enough. I motioned Margaret into a cheap chair. There were round aluminum trays on my desk, bare of their supermarket cold cuts. I placed them on the floor. "Is this social? Or a bank problem?" I tried not to get my hopes up. She probably couldn't hire co-counsel without a vice president's approval. And Graystone's VP, as far as I knew, was a White Sayres loyalist. "It's a personal problem." She was seated now, as long and flat as a ribbon in the hard fabric chair. With her belted knit dress and sleek forties hair, she looked like a fragile film-noir heroine. I remembered her as having an edge-of-her-seat, health-club vitality. Her languidness surprised me. "Tell me about it." I sat back, expecting to hear about a botched lease or a minor car accident. "For the record"—she fixed me with bright eyes— "I'd like to hire you. I'd like you to be my lawyer." For the record: telling me the lawyer-client privilege was kicking in. "My fee is ten percent lower than what I billed at White Sayres. Is that all right?" "Yes." "I'll have an agreement typed up and sent to you. This consultation is on me." "Thank you." Something in her voice startled me. I didn't know how to read it. Fear? Shame? "I've been walking around with this for days, not knowing who to contact. I couldn't imagine going to any of the firms here. I know so many people." She knew me. Why was I different? "The rumor is you went off to Seattle or someplace, Laura. Is that right?" "Northern California. Up near the Oregon border." "And you didn't practice at all?" "My… cousin was sick. I stayed with him." It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the truth. Hal was related, but not to a degree that mattered in a lover. And though he'd battled right-side weakness from a war injury, that wasn't what we'd hoped to heal, up there. "And you didn't go back to White Sayres. I guess I need to think you've been going through this lawyer thing like the rest of us." "Lawyer thing?" "Did you see in California Lawyer that seventy percent of the lawyers they polled hate their careers and want to leave?" "No. I've been out of the loop." "You're lucky. I haven't had a real vacation in seven years. If Graystone had its way, I'd do nothing but work. Work and work out—all the firms give gym memberships now. So we'll look good, look healthy; so the stress won't show. Maybe outsiders can't tell. But it's clear to all of us, isn't it?" I was a little off balance. "That lawyers aren't happy?" "We've given away all our free time for as long as we can remember—all the things we cared about: family life, political commitment, travel, spirituality. We put all that energy into work. And working out so we'll be fit enough to work so much. You know what I mean?" Her voice spiraled in pitch. This was obviously a problem she was far from solving. "There really is a kind of seven-year itch in this profession, Laura, don't you think? About the time we make partner we realize that all the stuff that really mattered to us? It's so far behind us we can't even see it in the rearview mirror anymore. I know at least a dozen lawyers who couldn't take it, who ran off to climb mountains in Nepal or become roofers or something." "Those people come back." If anyone knew that, it was me. "End up working as hard but for less money." "I know. I know that. That was part of it. I've known for a long time I was unhappy, but I didn't want to drop out, give it all up. I also didn't want to do a midlife crisis kind of thing. I didn't want some silly consolation prize—a red Beamer or a sailboat or a trip. I wanted something real." I didn't like the sound of that. It's easy to think the things you don't have are more "real" than the things you do. Some are, most aren't. I'd found that out the hard way with Hal. She continued, "I was raised a Lutheran. They always told us, 'work hard and judge not.' But 'judge not' was just an aphorism on a plaque. What they really meant was 'be like us because we're good.' You weren't supposed to think or question beyond that. It's perfect training for being a lawyer. Work and conform. Nonconformity is sin." Welcome to mass culture. But then, I guess ideas are made profound by their relevance to your situation. This had nothing to do with me. "I found a teacher, a real spiritual master." She lost her look of dull enervation. Her cheeks suffused with color. "A master?" Growing up under Hal's mother's thumb, I'd longed for the day I could be free. I couldn't conceive of wanting a master. "I can tell that offends you." "No." "You can be honest, Laura." Not if it meant being personal. "You found a master," I prompted. "He's wonderful. Totally unlike anyone else. I heard about him through a case I had. One of our debtors was a devotee. I started hanging out with the group, and suddenly it was like I was back in college. All-night conversations, brilliant people discussing the philosophy of science and the nature of reality." She clenched her fists and stared at them. "This part's hard. I don't want to go into the philosophy and all that. Not that it isn't up-and-up—it's very scientific. He's a physicist, quantum physics, on the cutting edge of computers and holographic-universe stuff. But that's just detail." I was glad my client was a lawyer. I didn't have to sift chaff. "In terms of why I'm here"—she reddened, looked increasingly uncomfortable—"we got into exploring various aspects of ourselves. 'Energies,' Brother Mike calls them. Especially negative energies, you know, things we get hung up on that become insidious. That become the basis for actions that should be independent of them." I waited. "Go on." "A lot of us had… problems involving sexuality." I hoped I wasn't going to hear tales of orgies and forced pairings. I hoped I wasn't going to hear about yet another guru with Rolls Royces and love slaves. "Brother is very scientifically advanced. He believes technology is our window to the psycho-physical universe." She blinked at me, biting her lower lip. "So everything we did in terms of exploring our sexual problems we, um, did on videotape. Then he reimaged the film on his computer." "Reimaged? As in 'to image again'?" "That's right. He changes it using graphics and animation programs. It's very powerful. He alters it in ways that are absolutely knockout in terms of showing us things about ourselves. It's astounding, really." "What does he do? Fuzz out your faces or put different heads on your bodies or something?" "Nothing that overt. It's more changing our expressions, imaging-in our auras. They're like magnetic fields. He puts them in to show their actions and interactions." I looked at the well-dressed bank lawyer sitting across from me. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Sex videos with reimaged auras. And this was her idea of "real." "I gather some sort of problem developed?" She shrank back into the chair. "He's released them." "The videos?" "Yes. For distribution. Someone I know saw them at a video rental place. In the adult room. I guess they had a shelf labeled 'Amateur,' and there they were. I went and looked. There's a dozen of them. I rented one. I'm on it." "Recognizably? Or did the reimaging change you?" "I think I'm recognizable. I think my facial expressions"—her cheeks looked scalded—"might have been changed. But not enough. Or at least, I don't think so." "Has he changed other people's expressions?" "I'm not sure. It's such an intense experience. My memories of it are subjective. And the tapes he showed us"—her hands clutched the wool on her lap—"they had a point. The reimaging revealed things about us. Whereas the tape I rented was just the sex. No auras, nothing." "Does he narrate the tapes? Is there a plot?" She shook her head. "The one I saw was just our session." "Did you sign any kind of release?" "Yes. But I never thought Brother was going to distribute the tapes. I thought the release was a formality. There are quite a few lawyers in the group—I assumed they'd advised him to be cautious, that they were protecting him. I didn't think twice about it." People assume lawyers are more careful than others about signing contracts. I've never found that to be the case. "Do you have a copy?" "Not with me. I don't even know..." "If you want to enjoin distribution of the tapes? Seek money damages?" "I guess I want to know what my options are. Until I do, I'm afraid to talk to Brother. He always makes sense to me, really speaks to me. You know, on a deeper level. And before that happens… Well, I'd like someone who doesn't feel that way about him to find out why he's doing this. Because I know he'll make me think it was a good thing for him to do." "And you don't feel that way now. You feel betrayed." She sat very still. "Brother wouldn't betray me." But he would distribute pornographic videos of you. "Tell me the name of the video rental store, and fax me a copy of the release later today. I'll get back to you tomorrow with a report on what I saw on the videos and an opinion of the release. Then we'll decide what you want me to say to this Brother. How would that be?" Her face crumpled. "This is very difficult for me." "If you'll authorize the expense, I'd like to associate-in a private detective so we can get a little background information on the guru and on the extent of the video distribution. It could make a difference in terms of how you want to approach this. Information is strength." "I don't want a battle, Laura." "You've been a bank lawyer long enough to know the stronger your position, the less likely you are to have to fight." "Unless it turns into an ego thing." "True. But you don't want that to happen. And I want what you want." She looked at me. She knew my track record. She also knew my weakness. There were times I could have settled things more quickly by being less aggressive. "I'll try to be careful not to screw up your spiritual relationship," I promised. "But my main objective will be to get what you decide you want. If that's an injunction against distribution, I'll make that my priority. That's why you need a lawyer. You've got a master-devotee relationship with this person. You start out from a position of supplication, so you know you're not going to put your best interests first. Not without objective advice." "The videos are at that place on Twenty-fourth near Army. I'll fax the release to you. And if you really think a private detective is a good idea, go ahead." "I'm sure it's a good idea. He'll charge us what he charges White Sayres, okay?" When she nodded, my stomach cramped. I knew who I'd contact. I hoped he'd return my call, this time. "The other thing I wanted to tell you…" It was closer to a question than a statement. "One of the main people that got us—I don't know how to put this—sexualized, I guess is the best word… The main person who sort of got us all into this, who got Brother into this? You know, stirred us up sexually so Brother ended up having to help us get through some of our stuff?" She clasped and unclasped her hands, speaking to the wall behind me. "I've had a relationship with her." "A relationship? Of what nature?" She told the spot behind me. "Romantic." "Okay. Is she also in the tapes?" "Yes." "Have you talked to her? Do you know how she feels about the distribution?" "I think... I'm afraid..." Margaret finally met my eye. "I think distributing the tapes might have been Arabella's idea." "Does that complicate things for you? Are you still in the relationship? Afraid this could jeopardize it?" "Arabella is, um, a sex worker. So she has a lot of relationships." "A sex worker? Is she a prostitute?" "An exotic dancer. At The Back Door." I nodded. A sex club with a reputation for being hipper than the blinking-nipples-on-billboards places on Broadway. "You say your relationship's romantic. Does that mean more than sexual?" "Yes." Her voice was husky. "And when you say she has a lot of relationships, do you mean serious or just sexual?" "Both. She's very attractive on many levels. And not monogamous. And I don't—" She was getting upset, short of breath. "I don't want to lose her. I don't want to lose Brother, either." "But you don't want to be recognizable on videos available to the public. I'll do my best." I wondered if I should offer her a tissue or some wine. I wondered if I should pat her shoulder. Corporate practice had been easy in that regard. My two criminal cases had presented more emotional complications than all my business cases combined. I'd never been good at dealing with emotion, mine or anyone else's. I was relieved when Margaret stood to leave. She fumbled in her briefcase for a moment, pulling out a flier. It was triple-folded blue paper. One side read fight censorship. The words jostled a collage of faces and bodies, some famous, many nude. "Arabella's probably going to perform at this benefit. She starts work right afterward." Margaret handed me the flier without looking at me. "The Back Door's giving up its main room for a couple of hours. If you need to speak to her or just want to see her? Maybe Brother will show up, I don't know. It's tomorrow night. I probably won't be there." "Thank you." I took the flier. "I'll speak to you again before then. I may want to go. It'll depend on what's on the tapes, and what you decide you'd like me to do." She seemed broken, without will. I hoped it was a result of stress and confusion. I hoped it didn't go deeper. I hoped this guru hadn't shaken her confidence. She was in-house counsel for a bank, after all. She couldn't afford to get too docile. She looked me in the eye. "It's tearing the lesbian community apart, did you know that?" "Your guru?" She pointed to the pamphlet. "That. You'll see, if you go." She hurried out of my office. I opened the pamphlet. "Reclaim sexuality! Reclaim erotica! Reclaim America!" it read. "Join us in speaking out against censorship. Join us for a very special show at The Back Door Theater." Tearing the lesbian community apart? I wondered what she meant. I noticed my hand was shaking. But that had nothing to do with Margaret's problem. It had to do with the call I was about to make.     Chapter Three     "Sandy?" I couldn't keep the edge out of my voice. The last time we'd talked, we'd quarreled. Sander Arkelett, private detective for White Sayres & Speck, among others, had been my lover for a while. Four years ago, I'd left him for Hal. He'd been a good sport, considering. But then three months ago, he'd come to visit me. He'd let me know he hadn't forgotten, hadn't given up. Then he'd mistaken my feelings for another man—a man he criticized as too young for me, too uneducated, too much part of a different world. When Hal walked away, no doubt Sandy assumed it was because of that man. Ironic considering Hal left me because of Sandy. He'd gone without a word… after I'd spent days shutting him out to work with Sandy. That's how far apart we'd drifted. I hadn't spoken to Sandy since I'd returned to San Francisco. I'd called him. I'd left messages. But he hadn't phoned back. Until now, my reaction had been, Well then, the hell with you. "It's Laura." This was the first time I'd called his work number. I guess I'd known I could reach him there. I tried to put the resentment away. "Sandy, God damn it. Say something." A slow exhalation. "Howdy." Still coming on like a laid-back cowboy, a just-folks Gary Cooper. "You knew I was back." I left you enough messages. "Yuh. Office down in SoMa, I hear." "Only a little south of Market." "Least you're back in business. I was glad to learn." Then why didn't you return my calls, you sanctimonious, paternalistic son of a bitch? "That's why I'm calling. I'd like to hire you." "Go on." "There's a guru here in town—I don't even have his full name yet. His followers call him Brother." A brief silence. "I know about him." "How?" "Previous investigation." He couldn't tell me about the investigation, but maybe he could tell me what he'd learned about Brother. That would save my client money, keep my fee low and make me look good. "I have a client who's involved with him. I need background on him. Unless you have a conflict." "Depends who your client is. What the problem is." "Her name is Margaret Lenin. She did some kind of sex-therapy sessions with him. She let him videotape them. Now the tapes are available in at least one video rental place." "Smooth move. She suing?" "She doesn't know yet what she wants to do. I haven't seen the release she signed, and I don't know what his plans are in terms of distributing the videos." "Well." I could hear him breathe into the mouthpiece. "I don't see a conflict on my end. But I don't know." I waited awhile, and then I said, "I'm not with McGuin. I never was, and I never wanted to be. And that's not why Hal left. You were way out of line about all that. I'm not letting it get in my way—you're the best, so I want to hire you." I waited a little longer. "But don't get me wrong, Sandy. I think you were a real dick." "That your idea of an olive branch?" I hung up. It all came back—disapproving bastard, treating me like a kid. Worse, like his ex-wife. When the phone rang a minute later, I knew it was him. I waited for one of the secretaries across the hall to put the call through. "All right," he said, a little extra Louisiana in his voice. "You want me, you got me."         To read the rest of Face Value, please go to Amazon's Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble's Nook Store, or Apple's iTunes Store.           Praise for Lia Matera's Laura Di Palma Series     "Di Palma is one of the smartest, most open-minded sleuths in the lawyering trade... [Matera] writes with intelligence and feeling about issues that still hurt and people who still care." New York Times "Compelling... Matera writes with passion about debts to old lovers and old causes." New York Daily News "Sharply written, brilliantly observed." John Leonard, NPR's "Fresh Air" "Absorbing... A fine, intelligent story." USA Today "Laura Di Palma is one of the most compelling characters in recent mystery fiction… Ms. Matera deserves the high accolades for this extraordinary, thought-provoking book." Baltimore Sun "Tight plotting, good characterizations, and page-turning suspense... make Matera one of the best contemporary mystery novelists... Highly recommended... Matera is too good to miss." Booklist "Reading a Lia Matera novel is a lot like drinking a superb brandy: velvety, mellow, a bit dizzying and with a bite that stays with you a long time... She leaps to the forefront of the remarkable vanguard of women...who have redefined the modern mystery." Cleveland Plain Dealer "A complex and very likable detective." Newsday "Di Palma certainly belongs in the same league as Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone and Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski when it comes to brains, determination, and guts. A sure winner." Booklist "A welcome respite from the mystery-by-formula crowd." Kirkus Reviews "Lia Matera…is often compared with Sue Grafton and Sarah Paretsky. However, Matera has her own distinctive voice. Her off-beat plots, quirky style and hard-to-pin-down characters make for a novel both unique and entertaining." San Diego Union "More proof that some of the leanest, most tough-minded prose is coming from women... With emotional zingers throughout and no easy answers." Kirkus Reviews "Lia Matera just keeps getting better…telling a story of heroes who will never receive medals or popular glory. Matera tells this tale with passion and integrity." Sarah Paretsky              Books by Lia Matera   Laura Di Palma Novels   The Smart Money The Good Fight A Hard Bargain Face Value Designer Crimes   Willa Jansson Novels   Where Lawyers Fear To Tread A Radical Departure Hidden Agenda Prior Convictions Last Chants Star Witness Havana Twist   Short Story Anthologies   Counsel for the Defense and Other Stories Irreconcilable Differences