“I proved him a liar but John made him look like a fool. All the time Ewell was on the stand I couldn’t dare look at John and keep a straight face. John looked at him as if he were a three-legged chicken or a square egg. Don’t tell me judges don’t try to prejudice juries.”

“John Cusack is standing over there.”I followed his incredulous gaze to where a man very like Mr. Cusack did indeed stand, smoking a cigarette as he leaned against a building. I sighed.“That’s not John Cusack. That’s Jerome.”“Seriously?”“Yup. I told you he looked like John Cusack.”“Keyword: looked. That guy doesn’t look like him. That guy is him.”

“John Loengard, the picture editor at Life, always used to tell me, ”If you want something to look interesting, don’t light all of it.”

“Fathers are always so proud the first time they see their sons in uniform," she said."I know Big John Karpinski was," I said. He is my neighbor to the north, of course. Big John's son Little John did badly in high school, and the police caught him selling dope. So he joined the Army while the Vietnam War was going on. And the first time he came home in uniform, I never saw Big John so happy, because it looked to him as though Little John was all straightened out and would amount to something.But then Little John came home in a body bag.”

“The Duke [John Wayne] was a massive figure. He looked like a heavy piece of hauled lumber, and it didn't seem like any man could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.”

“And you work for that demon, right? The one who looks like Matthew Broderick?”“John Cusack,” I corrected. “He looks like John Cusack.”“Whatever.”