“Sorry to hear that, buddy.”
Romero had grown up in Boyle Heights in a neighborhood ruled by a gang called Quatro Flats. He had the tattoos to prove it, if you could ever see his arms. It didn’t matter how hot a day it was, he always wore long sleeves when he was working. And when he represented a banger accused of a crime, he did more than defend him in court. He worked to spring the man from the clutches of gang life. To pull him away from gang cases was an act of stupidity that could only happen in a bureaucracy like the justice system.
“What do you want with me, Mick? You didn’t really come here to take Scales from me, right?”
“No, you get to keep Scales, Angel. I wanted to ask you about another client you had for a while earlier this year. Eli Wyms.”
I was about to give the details of the case as a prompt but Romero immediately recognized the case and nodded.
“Yeah, Vincent took that one off me. You got it now with him being dead?”
“Yeah, I got all of Vincent’s cases. I just found out about Wyms today.”
“Well, good luck with them, bro. What do you need to know about Wyms? Vincent took it off me three months ago, at least.”
I nodded.
“Yeah, I know. I got a handle on the case. What I’m curious about is Vincent taking it. According to Joanne Giorgetti, he went after it. Is that right?”
Romero checked the memory banks for a few moments before answering. He raised a hand and rubbed his chin as he did so. I could see faint scars across his knuckles from where he’d had tattoos removed.
“Yeah, he went down to the jail and talked Wyms into it. Got a signed discharge letter and brought it in. After that, the case was his. I gave him my file and I was done, man.”
I moved in closer to him.
“Did he say why he wanted the case? I mean, he didn’t know Wyms, did he?”
“I don’t think so. He just wanted the case. He gave me the big wink, you know?”
“No, what do you mean? What’s the ‘big wink’?”
“I asked him why he was taking on a Southside homeboy who went up there in white-people country and shot the place up. Pro bono, no less. I thought he had some sort of racial angle on it or something. Something that would get him a little publicity. But he just sort of gave me the wink, like there was something else.”
“Did you ask him what?”
Romero took an involuntary step back as I pressed his personal space.
“Yeah, man, I asked. But he wouldn’t tell me. He just said that Wyms had fired the magic bullet. I didn’t know what the hell he meant and I didn’t have any more time to play games with him. I gave him the file and I went on to the next one.”
There it was again. The magic bullet. I was getting close to something here and I could feel the blood in my veins start to move with high velocity.
“Is that it, Mick? I gotta get back inside.”
My eyes focused on Romero and I realized he was looking at me strangely.
“Yeah, Angel, thanks. That’s all. Go back in there and give ’em hell.”
“Yeah, man, that’s what I do.”
Romero went back toward the door to Department 124 and I headed off quickly to the elevators. I knew what I would be doing for the rest of the day and into the night. Tracing a magic bullet.
Twenty-eight
I entered the office and blew right by Lorna and Cisco, who were at the reception desk, looking at the computer. I spoke without stopping on my way to the inner sanctum.
“If you two have any updates for me or anything else I should know, then come in now. I’m about to go into lockdown.”
“And hello to you, too,” Lorna called after me.
But Lorna knew well what was about to happen. Lockdown was when I closed all the doors and windows, drew the curtains, and killed the phones and went to work on a file and a case with total concentration and absorption. Lockdown for me was the ultimate DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging on the door. Lorna knew that once I was in lockdown mode, there was no getting me out until I had found what I was looking for.
I moved around Jerry Vincent’s desk and dropped into the seat. I opened my bag on the floor and started pulling out the files. I viewed what I needed to do here as me against them. Somewhere in the files, I would find the key to Jerry Vincent’s last secret. I would find the magic bullet.
Lorna and Cisco came into the office soon after I was settled.
“I didn’t see Wren out there,” I said before either could speak.
“And you never will again,” Lorna said. “She quit.”
“That was kind of abrupt.”
“She went out to lunch and never came back.”
“Did she call?”
“Yeah, she finally called. She said she got a better offer. She’s going to be Bruce Carlin’s secretary now.”
I nodded. That seemed to make a certain amount of sense.
“Now, before you go into lockdown, we need to go over some things,” Lorna said.
“That’s what I said when I came in. What’ve you got?”
Lorna sat down in one of the chairs in front of the desk. Cisco stayed standing, more like pacing, behind her.
“All right,” Lorna said. “Couple things while you were in court. First, you must’ve touched a nerve with that motion you filed on the evidence in Patrick’s case.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“The prosecutor’s called three times today, wanting to talk about a dispo.”
I smiled. The motion to examine the evidence had been a long shot but it looked like it might come through and I would be able to help Patrick.
“What’s going on with that?” Lorna asked. “You didn’t tell me you filed motions.”
“From the car yesterday. And what’s going on is that I think Dr. Vogler gave his wife phony diamonds for her birthday. Now, to make sure she never knows it, they’re going to float a deal to Patrick if I withdraw my request to examine the evidence.”
“Good. I think I like Patrick.”
“I hope he gets the break. What’s next?”
Lorna looked at the notes on her steno pad. I knew she didn’t like to be rushed but I was rushing her.
“You’re still getting a lot of calls from the local media. About Jerry Vincent or Walter Elliot or both. You want to go over them?”
“No. I don’t have the time for any media calls.”
“Well, that’s what I’ve been telling them but it’s not making them happy. Especially that guy from the Times. He’s being an asshole.”
“So what if they’re not happy? I don’t care.”
“Well, you better be careful, Mickey. Hell hath no fury like the media scorned.”
It was a good point. The media can love you one day and bury you the next. My father had spent twenty years as a media darling. But toward the end of his professional life, he had become a pariah because the reporters had grown weary of him getting guilty men off. He became the embodiment of a justice system that had different rules for well-heeled defendants with powerful attorneys.
“I’ll try to be more accommodating,” I said. “Just not now.”
“Fine.”
“Anything else to report?”
“I think that’s—I told you about Wren, so that’s all I have. You’ll call the prosecutor on Patrick’s case?”
“Yes, I will call him.”
I looked over Lorna’s shoulder at Cisco, who was still standing.
“Okay, Cisco, your turn. What’ve you got?”
“Still working on Elliot. Mostly in regard to Rilz and some hand-holding with our witnesses.”
“I have a question about witnesses,” Lorna interrupted. “Where do you want to put up Dr. Arslanian?”
Shamiram Arslanian was the gunshot residue authority Vincent had scheduled to bring in from New York as an expert witness to knock down the state’s expert witness at trial. She was the best in the field and, with Walter Elliot’s financial reserves, Vincent was going
with the best money could buy. I wanted her close to the downtown CCB but the choice of hotels was limited.
“Try Checkers first,” I said. “And get her a suite. If they’re booked, then try the Standard and then the Kyoto Grand. But get a suite so we have room to work.”
“Got it. And what about Muniz? You want him in close, too?”
Julio Muniz was a freelance videographer who lived in Topanga Canyon. Because of his home’s proximity to Malibu he had been the first member of the media to respond to the crime scene after hearing the call out for homicide investigators on the sheriff’s radio band. He had shot video of Walter Elliot with the sheriff’s deputies outside the beach house. He was a valuable witness because his videotape and his own recollections could be used to confirm or contradict testimony offered by sheriff’s deputies and investigators.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It can take anywhere from an hour to three hours to get from Topanga to downtown. I’d rather not risk it. Cisco, is he willing to come in and stay at a hotel?”
“Yeah, just as long as we’re paying and he can order room service.”
“Okay, then bring him in. Also, where’s the video? There are only notes on it in the file. I don’t want the first time I look at the video to be in court.”
Cisco looked puzzled.
“I don’t know. But if it’s not around here, I can have Muniz dub off a copy.”
“Well, I haven’t seen it around here. So get me a copy. What else?”
“Couple other things. First, I got with my source on the Vincent thing and he didn’t know anything about a suspect or this photo Bosch showed you this morning.”
“Nothing?”
“Nada.”
“What do you think? Does Bosch know your guy’s the leak and is shutting him out?”
“I don’t know. But everything I was telling him about this photo was news to him.”
I took a few moments to consider what this meant.
“Did Bosch ever come back and show the photo to Wren?”
“No,” Lorna said. “I was with her all morning. Bosch never came in then or after lunch.”
I wasn’t sure what any of this meant but I couldn’t become bogged down with it. I had to get to the files.
“What was the second thing?” I asked Cisco.
“What?”
“You said you had a couple other things to tell me. What was the second thing?”
“Oh, yeah. I called Vincent’s liquidator and you had that right. He’s still got one of Patrick’s long boards.”
“What’s he want for it?”
“Nothing.”
I looked at Cisco and raised my eyebrows, asking where the catch was.
“Let’s just say he’d like to do you the favor. He lost a good client in Vincent. I think he’s hoping you’ll use him for future liquidations. And I didn’t dissuade him from the idea or tell him you usually don’t barter property for services with your clients.”
I understood. The surfboard would not come with any real strings attached.
“Thanks, Cisco. Did you take it with you?”
“No, he didn’t have it at the office. But he made a call and somebody was supposed to bring it in to him this afternoon. I could go back and get it if you want.”
“No, just get me an address and I’ll have Patrick pick it up. What happened with Bruce Carlin? Didn’t you debrief him today? Maybe he’s got the Muniz tape.”
I was anxious to hear about Bruce Carlin on several levels. Most important, I wanted to know if he had worked for Vincent on the Eli Wyms case. If so, he might be able to lead me to the magic bullet.
But Cisco didn’t answer my question. Lorna turned and they looked at each other as if wondering which one of them should deliver the bad news.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Lorna turned back to me.
“Carlin’s fucking with us,” she said.
I could see the angry set of her jaw. And I knew she reserved that kind of language for special occasions. Something had gone wrong with Carlin’s debriefing and she was particularly upset.
“How so?”
“Well, he never showed up at two like he said he would. Instead, he called at two—right after Wren called and quit—and gave us the new parameters of his deal.”
I shook my head in annoyance.
“His deal? How much does he want?”
“Well, I guess he realized that at two hundred dollars an hour he wouldn’t make much, since he was probably going to bill only two or three hours tops. That’s all Cisco would need with him. So he called up and said he wanted a flat fee or we could figure out things on our own.”
“Like I said, how much?”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
“You gotta be fucking kidding me.”
“My words exactly.”
I looked from her to Cisco.
“This is extortion. Isn’t there a state agency that regulates you guys? Can’t we come down on his shit somehow?”
Cisco shook his head.
“There are all kinds of regulatory agencies but this is a shady area.”
“Yeah, I know it’s shady. He’s shady. I’ve thought that for years.”
“What I mean is, he had no deal with Vincent. We can’t find any contract. So he’s not required to give us anything. We simply need to hire him and he’s setting his price at ten grand. It’s a bullshit rip-off but it’s probably legal. I mean, you’re the lawyer. You tell me.”
I thought about it for a few moments and then tried to push it aside. I was still riding on the adrenaline charge I’d picked up in the courthouse. I didn’t want it to dissipate with distractions.
“All right, I’ll ask Elliot if he wants to pay it. Meantime, I’m going to hit all the files again tonight, and if I get lucky and crack through, then we won’t need him. We say fuck you and are done with him.”
“Asshole,” Lorna muttered.
I was pretty sure that was directed at Bruce Carlin and not me.
“Okay, is that it?” I asked. “Anything else?”
I looked from one face to the other. Nobody had anything else to bring up.
“Okay, then, thank you both for all you’ve been putting up with and doing this week. Go out and have a good night.”
Lorna looked at me curiously.
“You’re sending us home?” she asked.
I checked my watch.
“Why not?” I said. “It’s almost four thirty and I’m going to dive into the files and I don’t want any distractions. You two go on home, have a good night, and we’ll start again tomorrow.”
“You’re going to work here alone tonight?” Cisco asked.
“Yeah, but don’t worry. I’ll lock the door and I won’t let anybody in—even if I know him.”
I smiled. Lorna and Cisco didn’t. I pointed to the open door to the office. It had a slide bolt that could be used to lock it at the top of the doorframe. If necessary I would be able to secure both outside and inside perimeters. It gave new meaning to the idea of going into lockdown.
“Come on, I’ll be fine. I’ve got work to do.”
They slowly, reluctantly, started to make their way out of my office.
“Lorna,” I called after them. “Patrick should be out there. Tell him to keep hanging. I might have something to tell him after I make that call.”
Twenty-nine
I opened the Patrick Henson file on my desk and looked up the prosecutor’s number. I wanted to get this out of the way before I went to work on the Elliot case.
The prosecutor was Dwight Posey, a guy I had dealt with before on cases and never liked. Some prosecutors deal with defense attorneys as though they are only one step removed from their clients. As pseudocriminals, not as educated and experienced professionals. Not as necessary cogs in the winding gears of the justice system. Most cops have this view and I can live with it. But it bothers me when fellow lawyers adopt the pose. Unfortunately, Dwight Posey was one of these,
and if I could’ve gone through the rest of my life without ever having to talk to him, I would have been a happy man. But that was not going to be the case.
“So, Haller,” he said after taking the call, “they’ve got you walking in a dead man’s shoes, don’t they?”
“What?”
“They gave you all of Jerry Vincent’s cases, right? That’s how you ended up with Henson.”
“Yeah, something like that. Anyway, I’m returning your call, Dwight. Actually, your three calls. What’s up? You get the motion I filed yesterday?”
I reminded myself that I had to step carefully here if I wanted to get everything I could out of the phone call. I couldn’t let my distaste for the prosecutor affect the outcome for my client.
“Yes, I got the motion. It’s sitting right here on my desk. That’s why I’ve been calling.”
He left it open for me to step in.
“And?”
“And, uh, well, we’re not going to do that, Mick.”
“Do what, Dwight?”
“Put our evidence out there for examination.”
It was looking more and more like I had struck a major nerve with my motion.
“Well, Dwight, that’s the beauty of the system, right? You don’t get to make that decision. A judge does. That’s why I didn’t ask you. I put it in a motion and asked the judge.”
Posey cleared his throat.
“No, actually, we do this time,” he said. “We’re going to drop the theft charge and just proceed with the drug charge. So you can withdraw your motion or we can inform the judge that the point is moot.”
I smiled and nodded. I had him. I knew then that Patrick was going to walk.
“Only problem with that, Dwight, is that the drug charge came out of the theft investigation. You know that. When they popped my client, the warrant was for the theft. The drugs were found during the arrest. So you don’t have one without the other.”
I had the feeling that he knew everything I was saying and that the call was simply following a script. We were going where Posey wanted us to go and that was fine with me. This time I wanted to go there, too.