"The Lincoln Lawyer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Connelly Michael)THREEIn the hallway outside the courtroom I turned my cell phone back on and called my driver to tell him I was coming out. I then checked voicemail and found messages from Lorna Taylor and Fernando Valenzuela. I decided to wait until I was in the car to make the callbacks. Earl Briggs, my driver, had the Lincoln right out front. Earl didn’t get out and open the door or anything. His deal was just to drive me while he worked off the fee he owed me for getting him probation on a cocaine sales conviction. I paid him twenty bucks an hour to drive me but then held half of it back to go against the fee. It wasn’t quite what he was making dealing crack in the projects but it was safer, legal and something that could go on a résumé. Earl said he wanted to go straight in life and I believed him. I could hear the sound of hip-hop pulsing behind the closed windows of the Town Car as I approached. But Earl killed the music as soon as I reached for the door handle. I slid into the back and told him to head toward Van Nuys. “Who was that you were listening to?” I asked him. “Um, that was Three Six Mafia.” “Dirty south?” “That’s right.” Over the years, I had become knowledgeable in the subtle distinctions, regional and otherwise, in rap and hip-hop. Across the board, most of my clients listened to it, many of them developing their life strategies from it. I reached over and picked up the shoebox full of cassette tapes from the Boyleston case and chose one at random. I noted the tape number and the time in the little logbook I kept in the shoebox. I handed the tape over the seat to Earl and he slid it into the dashboard stereo. I didn’t have to tell him to play it at a volume so low that it would amount to little more than background noise. Earl had been with me for three months. He knew what to do. Roger Boyleston was one of my few court-appointed clients. He was facing a variety of federal drug-trafficking charges. DEA wiretaps on Boyleston’s phones had led to his arrest and the seizure of six kilos of cocaine that he had planned to distribute through a network of dealers. There were numerous tapes-more than fifty hours of recorded phone conversations. Boyleston talked to many people about what was coming and when to expect it. The case was a slam dunk for the government. Boyleston was going to go away for a long time and there was almost nothing I could do but negotiate a deal, trading Boyleston’s cooperation for a lower sentence. That didn’t matter, though. What mattered to me were the tapes. I took the case because of the tapes. The federal government would pay me to listen to the tapes in preparation for defending my client. That meant I would get a minimum of fifty billable hours out of Boyleston and the government before it was all settled. So I made sure the tapes were in heavy rotation whenever I was riding in the Lincoln. I wanted to make sure that if I ever had to put my hand on the book and swear to tell the truth, I could say in good conscience that I played every one of those tapes I billed Uncle Sugar for. I called Lorna Taylor back first. Lorna is my case manager. The phone number that runs on my half-page ad in the yellow pages and on thirty-six bus benches scattered through high-crime areas in the south and east county goes directly to the office/second bedroom of her Kings Road condo in West Hollywood. The address the California bar and all the clerks of the courts have for me is the condo as well. Lorna is the first buffer. To get to me you start with her. My cell number is given out to only a few and Lorna is the gatekeeper. She is tough, smart, professional and beautiful. Lately, though, I only get to verify this last attribute once a month or so when I take her to lunch and sign checks-she’s my bookkeeper, too. “Law office,” she said when I called in. “Sorry, I was still in court,” I said, explaining why I didn’t get her call. “What’s up?” “You talked to Val, right?” “Yeah. I’m heading down to Van Nuys now. I got that at eleven.” “He called here to make sure. He sounds nervous.” “He thinks this guy is the golden goose, wants to make sure he’s along for the ride. I’ll call him back to reassure him.” “I did some preliminary checking on the name Louis Ross Roulet. Credit check is excellent. The name in the “That’s good. Anything else?” “Not on that. And just the usual so far on the phone.” Which meant that she had fielded the usual number of calls drawn by the bus benches and the yellow pages, all from people who wanted a lawyer. Before the callers hit my radar they had to convince Lorna that they could pay for what they wanted. She was sort of like the nurse behind the desk in the emergency room. You have to convince her you have valid insurance before she sends you back to see the doc. Next to Lorna’s phone she keeps a rate schedule that starts with a $5,000 flat fee to handle a DUI and ranges to the hourly fees I charge for felony trials. She makes sure every potential client is a paying client and knows the costs of the crime they have been charged with. There’s that saying, Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Lorna likes to say that with me, it’s Don’t do the crime if you can’t pay for my time. She accepts MasterCard and Visa and will get purchase approval before a client ever gets to me. “Nobody we know?” I asked. “Gloria Dayton called from Twin Towers.” I groaned. The Twin Towers was the county’s main lockup in downtown. It housed women in one tower and men in the other. Gloria Dayton was a high-priced prostitute who needed my legal services from time to time. The first time I represented her was at least ten years earlier, when she was young and drug-free and still had life in her eyes. Now she was a pro bono client. I never charged her. I just tried to convince her to quit the life. “When did she get popped?” “Last night. Or rather, this morning. Her first appearance is after lunch.” “I don’t know if I can make that with this Van Nuys thing.” “There’s also a complication. Cocaine possession as well as the usual.” I knew that Gloria worked exclusively through contacts made on the Internet, where she billed herself on a variety of websites as Glory Days. She was no streetwalker or barroom troller. When she got popped, it was usually after an undercover vice officer was able to penetrate her check system and set up a date. The fact that she had cocaine on her person when they met sounded like an unusual lapse on her part or a plant from the cop. “All right, if she calls back tell her I will try to be there and if I’m not there I will have somebody take it. Will you call the court and firm up the hearing?” “I’m on it. But, Mickey, when are you going to tell her this is the last time?” “I don’t know. Maybe today. What else?” “Isn’t that enough for one day?” “It’ll do, I guess.” We talked a little more about my schedule for the rest of the week and I opened my laptop on the fold-down table so I could check my calendar against hers. I had a couple hearings set for each morning and a one-day trial on Thursday. It was all South side drug stuff. My meat and potatoes. At the end of the conversation I told her that I would call her after the Van Nuys hearing to let her know if and how the Roulet case would impact things. “One last thing,” I said. “You said the place Roulet works handles pretty exclusive real estate deals, right?” “Yeah. Every deal his name was attached to in the archives was in seven figures. A couple got up into the eights. Holmby Hills, Bel-Air, places like that.” I nodded, thinking that Roulet’s status might make him a person of interest to the media. “Then why don’t you tip Sticks to it,” I said. “You sure?” “Yeah, we might be able to work something there.” “Will do.” “Talk to you later.” By the time I closed the phone, Earl had us back on the Antelope Valley Freeway heading south. We were making good time and getting to Van Nuys for Roulet’s first appearance wasn’t going to be a problem. I called Fernando Valenzuela to tell him. “That’s real good,” the bondsman said. “I’ll be waiting.” As he spoke I watched two motorcycles glide by my window. Each rider wore a black leather vest with the skull and halo patch sewn on the back. “Anything else?” I asked. “Yeah, one other thing I should probably tell you,” Valenzuela said. “I was double-checking with the court on when his first appearance was going to be and I found out the case was assigned to Maggie McFierce. I don’t know if that’s going to be a problem for you or not.” Maggie McFierce as in Margaret McPherson, who happened to be one of the toughest and, yes, fiercest deputy district attorneys assigned to the Van Nuys courthouse. She also happened to be my first ex-wife. “It won’t be a problem for me,” I said without hesitation. “She’s the one who’ll have the problem.” The defendant has the right to his choice of counsel. If there is a conflict of interest between the defense lawyer and the prosecutor, then it is the prosecutor who must bow out. I knew Maggie would hold me personally responsible for her losing the reins on what might be a big case but I couldn’t help that. It had happened before. In my laptop I still had a motion to disqualify from the last case in which we had crossed paths. If necessary, I would just have to change the name of the defendant and print it out. I’d be good to go and she’d be as good as gone. The two motorcycles had now moved in front of us. I turned and looked out the back window. There were three more Harleys behind us. “You know what that means, though,” I said. “No, what?” “She’ll go for no bail. She always does with crimes against women.” “Shit, can she get it? I’m looking at a nice chunk of change on this, man.” “I don’t know. You said the guy’s got family and C. C. Dobbs. I can make something out of that. We’ll see.” “Shit.” Valenzuela was seeing his major payday disappear. “I’ll see you there, Val.” I closed the phone and looked over the seat at Earl. “How long have we had the escort?” I asked. “Just came up on us,” Earl said. “You want me to do something?” “Let’s see what they -” I didn’t have to wait until the end of my sentence. One of the riders from the rear came up alongside the Lincoln and signaled us toward the upcoming exit for the Vasquez Rocks County Park. I recognized him as Teddy Vogel, a former client and the highest-ranked Road Saint not incarcerated. He might have been the largest Saint as well. He went at least 350 pounds and he gave the impression of a fat kid riding his little brother’s bike. “Pull off, Earl,” I said. “Let’s see what he’s got.” We pulled into the parking lot next to the jagged rock formation named after an outlaw who had hid in them a century before. I saw two people sitting and having a picnic on the edge of one of the highest ledges. I didn’t think I would feel comfortable eating a sandwich in such a dangerous spot and position. I lowered my window as Teddy Vogel approached on foot. The other four Saints had killed their engines but remained on their bikes. Vogel leaned down to the window and put one of his giant forearms on the sill. I could feel the car tilt down a few inches. “Counselor, how’s it hanging?” he said. “Just fine, Ted,” I said, not wanting to call him by his obvious gang sobriquet of Teddy Bear. “What’s up with you?” “What happened to the ponytail?” “Some people objected to it, so I cut it off.” “A jury, huh? Must’ve been a collection of stiffs from up this way.” “What’s up, Ted?” “I got a call from Hard Case over there in the Lancaster pen. He said I might catch you heading south. Said you were stalling his case till you got some green. That right, Counselor?” It was said as routine conversation. No threat in his voice or words. And I didn’t feel threatened. Two years ago I got an abduction and aggravated assault case against Vogel knocked down to a disturbing the peace. He ran a Saints-owned strip club on Sepulveda in Van Nuys. His arrest came after he learned that one of his most productive dancers had quit and crossed the street to work at a competing club. Vogel had crossed the street after her, grabbed her off the stage and carried her back to his club. She was naked. A passing motorist called the police. Knocking the case down was one of my better plays and Vogel knew this. He had a soft spot for me. “He’s pretty much got it right,” I said. “I work for a living. If he wants me to work for him he’s gotta pay me.” “We gave you five grand in December,” Vogel said. “That’s long gone, Ted. More than half went to the expert who is going to blow the case up. The rest went to me and I already worked off those hours. If I’m going to take it to trial, then I need to refill the tank.” “You want another five?” “No, I need ten and I told Hard Case that last week. It’s a three-day trial and I’ll need to bring my expert in from Kodak in New York. I’ve got his fee to cover and he wants first class in the air and the Chateau Marmont on the ground. Thinks he’s going to be drinking at the bar with movie stars or something. That place is four hundred a night just for the cheap rooms.” “You’re killing me, Counselor. Whatever happened to that slogan you had in the yellow pages? ‘Reasonable doubt for a reasonable fee.’ You call ten grand reasonable?” “I liked that slogan. It brought in a lot of clients. But the California bar wasn’t so pleased with it, made me get rid of it. Ten is the price and it is reasonable, Ted. If you can’t or don’t want to pay it, I’ll file the paperwork today. I’ll drop out and he can go with a PD. I’ll turn everything I have over. But the PD probably won’t have the budget to fly in the photo expert.” Vogel shifted his position on the window sill and the car shuddered under the weight. “No, no, we want you. Hard Case is important to us, you know what I mean? I want him out and back to work.” I watched him reach inside his vest with a hand that was so fleshy that the knuckles were indented. It came out with a thick envelope that he passed into the car to me. “Is this cash?” I asked. “That’s right. What’s wrong with cash?” “Nothing. But I have to give you a receipt. It’s an IRS reporting requirement. This is the whole ten?” “It’s all there.” I took the top off of a cardboard file box I keep on the seat next to me. My receipt book was behind the current case files. I started writing out the receipt. Most lawyers who get disbarred go down because of financial violations. The mishandling or misappropriation of client fees. I kept meticulous records and receipts. I would never let the bar get to me that way. “So you had it all along,” I said as I wrote. “What if I had backed down to five? What would you have done then?” Vogel smiled. He was missing one of his front teeth on the bottom. Had to have been a fight at the club. He patted the other side of his vest. “I got another envelope with five in it right here, Counselor,” he said. “I was ready for you.” “Damn, now I feel bad, leaving you with money in your pocket.” I tore out his copy of the receipt and handed it out the window. “I receipted it to Casey. He’s the client.” “Fine with me.” He took the receipt and dropped his arm off the window sill as he stood up straight. The car returned to a normal level. I wanted to ask him where the money came from, which of the Saints’ criminal enterprises had earned it, whether a hundred girls had danced a hundred hours for him to pay me, but that was a question I was better off not knowing the answer to. I watched Vogel saunter back to his Harley and struggle to swing a trash can-thick leg over the seat. For the first time I noticed the double shocks on the back wheel. I told Earl to get back on the freeway and get going to Van Nuys, where I now needed to make a stop at the bank before hitting the courthouse to meet my new client. As we drove I opened the envelope and counted out the money, twenties, fifties and hundred-dollar bills. It was all there. The tank was refilled and I was good to go with Harold Casey. I would go to trial and teach his young prosecutor a lesson. I would win, if not in trial, then certainly on appeal. Casey would return to the family and work of the Road Saints. His guilt in the crime he was charged with was not something I even considered as I filled out a deposit slip for my client fees account. “Mr. Haller?” Earl said after a while. “What, Earl?” “That man you told him was coming in from New York to be the expert? Will I be picking him up at the airport?” I shook my head. “There is no expert coming in from New York, Earl. The best camera and photo experts in the world are right here in Hollywood.” Now Earl nodded and his eyes held mine for a moment in the rearview mirror. Then he looked back at the road ahead. “I see,” he said, nodding again. And I nodded to myself. No hesitation in what I had done or said. That was my job. That was how it worked. After fifteen years of practicing law I had come to think of it in very simple terms. The law was a large, rusting machine that sucked up people and lives and money. I was just a mechanic. I had become expert at going into the machine and fixing things and extracting what I needed from it in return. There was nothing about the law that I cherished anymore. The law school notions about the virtue of the adversarial system, of the system’s checks and balances, of the search for truth, had long since eroded like the faces of statues from other civilizations. The law was not about truth. It was about negotiation, amelioration, manipulation. I didn’t deal in guilt and innocence, because everybody was guilty. Of something. But it didn’t matter, because every case I took on was a house built on a foundation poured by overworked and underpaid laborers. They cut corners. They made mistakes. And then they painted over the mistakes with lies. My job was to peel away the paint and find the cracks. To work my fingers and tools into those cracks and widen them. To make them so big that either the house fell down or, failing that, my client slipped through. Much of society thought of me as the devil but they were wrong. I was a greasy angel. I was the true road saint. I was needed and wanted. By both sides. I was the oil in the machine. I allowed the gears to crank and turn. I helped keep the engine of the system running. But all of that would change with the Roulet case. For me. For him. And certainly for Jesus Menendez.
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