Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

I had just found out he had made the deal with McReynolds. I got mugged before I could even register a protest.
    “You better run this down for me, Cisco.”
    “I can’t really do that yet. That’s why we’re in the car.”
    “Then talk to me. What’s going on? I’m in the middle of trial here.”
    “Okay, you told me you didn’t trust Dahl and that I should check him out. I did. I also had a couple of my guys start to keep an eye on him.”
    “By your guys you mean Saints?”
    “That’s right.”
    Once upon a time, long before he married Lorna, Cisco was with the Road Saints, a motorcycle club that was somewhere on the spectrum between the Hell’s Angels and the Shriners’ clowns on wheels. He managed to retire from membership without a criminal record and now maintained an association with the club. For a long time I did, too, serving as house counsel and handling various traffic, brawling and drug offenses that distracted the membership. That was how I had first met Cisco. He was running security investigations for the club and I started using him on the criminal cases that came up. The rest was history.
    On more than one occasion over the years Cisco had enlisted the Saints on my behalf. I even credit them with saving my family from potential harm when I was involved in the Louis Roulet case. So it was not a surprise to me that he had called on them again, except that he hadn’t bothered to clue me in.
    “Why didn’t you tell me this?”
    “I didn’t want to complicate things for you. You had the case to worry about. I was handling the two dirtbags who messed you up.”
    By messed up he meant more than physically. He was keeping me out of things because he knew that sometimes the psychological beating you take is worse than the physical. He didn’t want me distracted or looking over my shoulder.
    “Okay, I get it,” I said.
    Cisco reached inside his black-leather riding vest and pulled out a folded photograph. He handed it to me and I waited until I stopped at the light at Roscoe before I looked. I unfolded it and saw a picture of Herb Dahl getting into a car with the two black-gloved assailants who had so expertly put me down on the floor of the parking garage by the Victory Building.
    “Recognize them?” Cisco asked.
    “Yeah, it’s them,” I said, anger rising in my throat. “Fucking Dahl, I’m going to kick his fucking ass.”
    “Maybe. Turn left here. We’re going to the compound.”
    I looked over my shoulder and squeezed the car into the turning lane just as the light changed and I got the signal. We headed west and I had to flip down the visor against the dropping sun. By compound I knew he meant the Saints’ clubhouse, which was near the brewery on the other side of the 405 Freeway. It had been a while since I had been there.
    “When was that photo taken?” I asked.
    “While you were in the hospital. They didn’t—”
    “You’ve been sitting on this since then?”
    “Relax. I wasn’t checking with my guys every day, okay? They also didn’t know about your ass getting kicked. So they saw Dahl with these guys, took a couple of pictures and never showed them to me because they didn’t print them out for more than a month. It was a fuckup, I know, but these guys aren’t pros. They’re lazy. I take responsibility for it. So if you need to blame someone, blame me. I saw the photo for the first time last night. The other thing is my guys told me they didn’t get it with the camera but they also saw Dahl give both of these assholes a roll of cash. So I think it’s pretty clear. He hired them to kick your ass, Mick.”
    “Son of a bitch.”
    I was seized with the same sense of helplessness I had felt when one of the assailants had pinned my arms and held me while the other one hit me with his gloved fists. I felt sweat popping on my scalp. And sympathetic pain throbbed in my ribs and testicles.
    “If I ever get a chance to—”
    I stopped and looked across the seat at Cisco. He had a slight smile playing on his face.
    “Is that what this is? You have these two guys at the clubhouse?”
    He didn’t answer but he kept the smile.
    “Cisco, I’m in the middle of a trial and now you’re telling me the guy who has his fingers in my client’s pie is the one who set me up for that… that assault? I don’t have time for this, man. I have too much—”
    “They want to talk.”
    That shut my protest down quick.
    “Did you interview them?”
    “Nope. Waiting for