A pizza-delivery man was a surprise visitor to the conference room. “Who ordered the pizza?” he asked.

Everyone exchanged confused looks, but the pizza-delivery man was already walking over to Northcutt.

Looking at the pizza-delivery man, I got an eerie feeling. He had skin the same walnut-brown as Fatima’s, had a moustache and goatee that was the same black as Fatima’s hair, and was dressed all in green. All in green—green denim jeans, green high-top sneakers, a green ballcap (turned around backward), and a green nametag pinned to a green polo shirt. That nametag said “Ashnadim,” and his polo shirt had “Jinn’s Pizza” printed on it.

Now Ashnadim was standing behind Northcutt’s chair. Ashnadim said to Northcutt, “You look like someone who orders lots of pizza.” Before Northcutt could reply, Ashnadim dropped his green pizza bag atop the blowjob pictures that I’d left on the table.

But Ashnadim, instead of opening the pizza bag and taking pizza boxes out, gestured with both hands. Everyone but Ashnadim and I turned their head in order to stare straight ahead with a blank expression.

Ashnadim, meanwhile, had instantly changed his clothes: Now he was wearing loose green silk pants, a green sash like a cummerbund, a buttonless green vest, and a green turban that was cinched in place by an emerald. The green pizza bag, meanwhile, had disappeared.

Ashnadim bowed to me and said, “Greetings, Marvin Harper, O Wisher Of Six Wishes. I am Ashnadim, chief of the Tribe of the Green Djinn. Twice you have shown kindness to our bound sister Fatima, for which the Green Tribe is grateful.”

I said, “Well, it’s always good to have friends, but what are you here for, Ashnadim?”

“You did make wish for only modest wealth, but our bound sister Fatima did choose to grant to you the great wealth of your Uncle Warren. The Green Tribe is proud of Fatima and her generosity. But these three evildoers do plot to steal Fatima’s gift for themselves. The honor of the Green Tribe is at stake, so I have come to mete out punishment.”

“Hold on,” I said. I pointed to blank-staring Cassandra. “Read the memories of this one. I am sure that she has a good heart, and that she has done as much good today as she could.”

Ashnadim moved to stand behind Cassandra, then reached his hands around her to touch her forehead.

Seconds later, he withdrew his hands. “It is as you say. She took this work to help people who have been wronged. But this one threatens to ruin her life if she doesn’t help him in his evils.”

Then Ashnadim stepped behind Aunt Esther, and put his fingertips on her forehead. “But before I make justice, I will know why this woman would steal from a good man and a kinsman.”

Seconds later, Ashnadim pulled his hands away in surprise. He then gestured, and a basketball-sized scrying ball appeared in front of his face. While looking at the big scrying ball and gesturing, Ashnadim asked in a distracted voice, “Your Uncle Warren, whose wealth you and she are fighting over, he was Fatima’s previous master?”

“Yes,” I said, unable to guess where this was going.

“And his second wish was that he could touch the back of a woman’s hand, and—”

“And that wish definitely worked, let me tell you.”

Ashnadim nodded distractedly. A few seconds later, the scrying ball popped away.

Ashnadim pointed to the conference table by my chair, and a big book popped there. The book looked like either a photo album or a scrapbook.

Ashnadim said, “You will find this interesting.”

Ashnadim gestured, and the book opened itself. Now I was seeing photos of Uncle Warren in his sixties, being sucked-off by 1980s-era cuties.

Then a green-smoke rectangle appeared above one page, drawing my attention to two photos in particular.

“Holy shit!” I exclaimed.

The two photos carried a common caption: “My hot grand-niece Esther, April 1985.”

Twenty minutes later, hypnotized Cassandra was sitting next to hypnotized Aunt Esther, and hypnotized Northcutt was sitting in Cassandra’s former place. Basically, Ashnadim had done a cut-and-paste of lawyer knowledge from Northcutt to Cassandra. Now I was asking Ashnadim to show mercy.

I said, “This is enough. Cassandra now has the lawyer knowledge, all the official records say it’s she who is the lawyer, and it’s she who has the big house and big car now. The world will be a better place for her being the lawyer, not him, and Northcutt’s been demoted to legal assistant. She’s been rewarded and he, punished. No more, show him mercy.”

“No, mortal Marvin,” Ashnadim said. “I have read all his memories, in order to edit them, and his mind is vile. It is like memory-reading a rat. I am showing mercy—this one still has his manhood and his liver.”

Ashnadim thought for a few seconds, summoned his scrying ball, consulted it, sent it away, then briefly touched the foreheads of Aunt Esther and Northcutt. Then Ashnadim gestured.

On the conference table in front of me popped a four-by-six color photo of Northcutt and Aunt Edith fucking on a black couch.

I asked, “What is this?”

“Poetic justice,” Ashnadim replied.

“Is it real?” I asked. “Or a magic fake?”

“Both,” he replied. “He and she did have sex, and that’s how things looked then. But neither had a camera.”

“What do you intend to do with this ‘could be real, but isn’t’ photo?”

“Watch and find out,” Ashnadim said. He flicked his wrist, and the fake photo vanished in a poof of green smoke. Then he said, “The fun is about to begin.”

Ashnadim backed up into a corner of the room, gestured with both hands, and then everyone in the room awoke from their trances.

To everyone else in the room, only seconds had passed since I’d pointed out that “cocksucking strippers” would cause a media circus if Aunt Esther’s challenge to the will went before a judge.

Lawyer-Cassandra tapped the pornographic pictures of Sherry and Virgilia. Then Lawyer-Cassandra turned to Aunt Esther and said, “Losing a case is no big thing, but losing a case amid a firestorm of adverse publicity, that could be disastrous for the firm.”

Then she continued, “Therefore I’m dropping you as a client. I’ll stop billing as of now.” She glanced at her watch, then wrote something down. “However, if you wish to drop your challenge to the will, I’ll file that paperwork at no charge.”

“What a wimp,” legal assistant Northcutt muttered.

Someone knocked on the conference-room door. A woman in her forties stepped into the room; I recognized her as another legal assistant at Dodd’s firm. She looked around the room, and her eyes widened when she looked in Northcutt’s direction. Then she said, “Um, Mr. Dodd?”

“Yes?”

The interrupting legal assistant actually tripped over a leg of my chair, because now she was staring at Aunt Esther as she walked. “Mr. Dodd, um, I found this by the copier, and I recognized Ms. Farnetti’s assistant, and—you should see this.” The woman dropped Ashnadim’s fake photo in front of Mr. Dodd.

“What the hell?” Mr. Dodd said. Then he said, “Louise, go back to the copier and copy this. If someone is on the copier, bump them off! This is A-1 priority. Then bring the copy and the photo back here as fast as you can move. Now go!”

Louise grabbed the fake photo and hurried from the room.

Meanwhile, Aunt Esther was glaring at Lawyer-Cassandra. “You’re dropping me as a client? Then I’ll just have to find someone else to take my case, won’t I? Someone who isn’t a goody-two-shoes, and is willing to get his hands dirty.” Aunt Esther started gathering up various papers and her purse, clearly intending to walk out of the room.

I looked at her. “Continuing this would not be wise for you.” I moved the open photo album over to Mr. Dodd, got his nodded approval (after his eyes nearly popped out from surprise), and then I carried the photo album around to the other side of the table. I dropped it in front of Lawyer-Cassandra.

“You were a blonde in 1985,” I remarked to Aunt Esther.

She promptly went ballistic. ”What? How dare you keep these! This is blackmail. I won’t let—”

Aunt Esther made to grab the photo album off the table. But before my aunt’s hands could touch anything, Cassandra’s hands zoomed out to grab Aunt Esther’s wrists. The two women struggled for a second or two, then Lawyer-Cassandra said, “Mr. Harper, help me!”

I grabbed Aunt Esther’s forearms, and easily pulled her hands away from the photo album. Meanwhile, Lawyer-Cassandra shoved the photo album to the other side of the conference table.

Aunt Esther was screaming at me, “Let go of me! I’ll have you arrested, I’ll sue you—”

I shook my head. “When I’m merely following your lawyer’s instructions? I think not.” Then my expression got harsh. “If I’m brought to court, these photos are coming to court. Are you sure you don’t want to drop your challenge?”

“Fine!” Aunt Esther said. “It’s dropped!” Then she glared at Lawyer-Cassandra. “No charge for the paperwork—I’m holding you to that!”

Legal assistant Northcutt looked at me and said, in tones of theatrical disappointment, “I had no idea that our former client is a woman of such loose morals.”

That’s when Louise stepped back into the room. She glanced at Northcutt and Aunt Esther, hurried over to Mr. Dodd, and dropped the photo and photocopy in front of him. Then she hurried out of the room.

No sooner had the door shut, but Mr. Dodd reached as far as he could reach, to hand the photocopy to Lawyer-Cassandra. But then his gaze shifted to Northcutt. “Mr. Northcutt, I am reporting you to the state bar association for ethics breach. I hope to God they pull your legal-assistant certificate.”

The supposed photo, of Northcutt and Aunt Esther having sex, started the two of them yelling at each other. Each claimed some variation of “I was forced into the sex,” and each called the other something like “a slimy blackmailer.”

After a minute of this, Lawyer-Cassandra raised her hand. “Wayne, you’re fired. The front receptionist will have your final check next Friday. David, may I have contact information for your employee who found the photo, to stave off a ‘wrongful termination’ lawsuit?”

Mr. Dodd gave Louise’s contact info to Lawyer-Cassandra, then said, “Bridget, please escort Mr. Northcutt directly to his car.”

As Northcutt waddled out of the room with downcast gaze, I was the only person in the room to see Ashnadim wink at me from his corner of the room.

When I got near my car, I discovered Ashnadim waiting for me. He was again dressed as a pizza-delivery man. I said, “Northcutt was demoted, then fired, and Aunt Esther was merely neutralized. Thank you for showing mercy to them.”

Ashnadim nodded. “I was merciful to them. That’s why I numbed their genital skins for only twelve lunar cycles.”

“Um, that’s ‘merciful’?”

“Indeed, young Marvin. The traditional djinn punishment for misdeeds like theirs is to force a clitorectomy on the woman and to geld the man. But this twelve lunar cycles of numbness is but temporary—those two will scarcely notice it. But for his sake, I hope that the fat one does not get his male part caught in his zipper—it might be a long time before he takes notice.”