The DA's Svengali

" 'If you stay,' " Millstein recalls Hallinan saying as they negotiated this summer, " 'you can do all those things and put your stamp on ... how the office is run.' "

Millstein adds: "I'm trying hard not to create a management sense of loyalty to me. I don't want it to be about my personality. Otherwise, when I leave, it will fall apart."

A District Attorney's Office that would fall apart -- without the No. 2? Whether Hallinan truly needs Millstein to hold things together could only be answered by the latter's departure. But, to be sure, the DA has benefited from Millstein's ascendance in at least in one regard. Since the dark days of spring, Millstein has managed to draw much of the political heat away from his boss.

"I'd rather have them mad at him than me," says Hallinan, candidly. "He is feisty.