Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

decided to run a little test on Jeff Trammel.
    “That time you called me, where were you?”
    He shrugged like it was no big deal to give up the information now.
    “Down in Rosarito. I been staying down there.”
    That was a lie. Cisco had gotten the trace back on his call. I had the number of the phone and the originating cell tower. The call had come from Venice Beach, about two hundred miles from Rosarito Beach in Mexico.
    “What did you want to talk to me about, Jeff?”
    “I can help you, man.”
    “Help me? How?”
    “I was talking to Lisa. She told me about the hammer they found. It’s not hers—I mean, ours. I can tell you where ours is. Lead you right to it.”
    “Okay, then where is it?”
    He nodded and looked off to the right and at the city down below. The never-ending hiss of traffic filtered up to us.
    “That’s the thing, Mr. Haller. I need some money. I want to go back to Mexico. You don’t need a lot down there but you need a start, if you know what I mean.”
    “So how much of a start do you want?”
    He turned and looked directly at me now because I was speaking his language.
    “Just ten grand, man. You got all that movie money coming in and ten won’t hurt you too bad. You give me that and I give you the hammer.”
    “And that’s it?”
    “Yeah, man, I’ll be out of your hair.”
    “What about testifying on Lisa’s behalf at the trial? Remember, we talked about that?”
    He shook his head.
    “No, I can’t do that. I’m not the testifying type. But I can help you on the outside like this. You know, lead you to the hammer, stuff like that. Herb said the hammer is their biggest evidence and it’s bullshit because I know where the real one is.”
    “So you’re talking to Herb Dahl, too.”
    I could tell by the grimace that he’d made a slip. He was supposed to keep Herb Dahl out of the conversation.
    “Uh, no, no, it was what Lisa said he said. I don’t even know him.”
    “Let me ask you something, Jeff. How am I going to know this is the real hammer and not some replacement you’ve cooked up with Lisa and Herb?”
    “Because I’m telling you. I know. I was the one who left it where it is. Me!”
    “But you’re not going to testify, so all I’m left with is a hammer and no story. Do you know what ‘fungible’ means, Jeff?”
    “Fun—uh, no.”
    “It means mutually interchangeable. An item is fungible in the law if it can be replaced by an identical item. And that’s what we have here, Jeff. Your hammer is useless to me without the story attached. If it is your story then you have to testify to it. If you won’t testify, then it doesn’t matter.”
    “Huh…”
    He seemed crestfallen.
    “Where’s the hammer, Jeff?”
    “I’m not telling you. It’s all I have.”
    “I’m not paying you a cent for it, Jeff. Even if I believed there was a hammer—the real hammer—I wouldn’t pay you a cent. That’s not how it works. So you think things over and you let me know, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “Now get off my porch.”
    I carried the gun down at my side and stepped back into the house, locking the door behind me. I grabbed the car keys off the pizza box and hurried through the house to the back door. I went through and then slipped along the side of the house to a wooden gate that opened onto the street. I opened it a crack and looked for Jeff Trammel.
    I didn’t see him but I heard a car engine roar to life. I waited and soon a car moved by. I went through the gate and tried to get a look at the plate but I was too late. The car coasted down the hill. It was a blue sedan but I was too consumed with the plate to identify the make and model. As soon as it took the first curve I hurried up the street to my own car.
    If I was to follow him, I would have to get down the hill in time to see if he turned left or right on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. Otherwise it was a fifty-fifty chance of losing him.
    But I was too late. By the time the Lincoln negotiated the sharp turns and the intersection at Laurel Canyon came into sight, the blue sedan was gone. I pulled up to the stop sign and didn’t hesitate. I turned right, heading north toward the Valley. Cisco had traced Jeff Trammel’s call to Venice but everything else about the case was in the Valley. I headed that way.
    It was a single lane on the northbound ascent of the roadway that cut over the Hollywood Hills. It then opened to two lanes on the down slope into the Valley. But I never caught up to Trammel and