The Brass Verdict

here. At least three of them are named in that article. You can start there.”
    “Just like that? You think one of those guys is going to just jump on a plane for us?”
    “They’ll probably be stabbing one another in the back, trying to get the ticket. Tell them we’ll fly first class and put whoever comes out in the hotel where Mickey Rourke stays.”
    “Yeah, what hotel’s that?”
    “I don’t know but I hear he’s big over there. They think he’s like a genius or something. Anyway, look, what I’m saying is, just tell them whatever they want to hear. Spend whatever needs to be spent. If two want to come, then bring over two and we vet them and put the best one on the stand. Just get somebody over here. It’s Los Angeles, Cisco. Every cop in the world wants to see this place and then go back home and tell everybody what and who he saw.”
    “Okay, I’ll get somebody on a plane. But what if he can’t leave right away?”
    “Then get him going as soon as possible and let me know. I can stretch things in court. The judge wants to hurry everything along but I can slow it down if I need to. Probably next Tuesday or Wednesday is as far as I can go. Get somebody here by then.”
    “You want me to call you tonight when I have it set up?”
    “No, I need my beauty rest. I’m not used to being on my toes in court all day and I’m wiped out. I’m going to bed. Just call me in the morning.”
    “Okay, Mick.”
    He stood up and so did I. He slapped me on the shoulder with the file and then tucked it into the waistband at the back of his jeans. He descended the steps and I walked to the edge of the deck to look down on him as he mounted his horse by the curb, dropped it into neutral and silently started to glide down Fareholm toward Laurel Canyon Boulevard.
    I then looked up and out at the city and thought about the moves I was making, my personal situation and my professional deceit in front of the judge in court. I didn’t ponder it all too long and I didn’t feel guilty about any of it. I was defending a man I believed was innocent of the murders he was charged with but complicit in the reason they had occurred. I had a sleeper on the jury whose placement was directly related to the murder of my predecessor. And I had a detective watching over me whom I was holding back on and couldn’t be sure was considering my safety ahead of his own desire to break open the case.
    I had all of that and I didn’t feel guilty or fearful about anything. I felt like a guy flipping a three-hundred-pound sled in midair. It might not be a sport but it was dangerous as hell and it did what I hadn’t been able to do in more than a year’s time. It shook off the rust and put the charge back in my blood.
    It gave it a fierce momentum.
    I heard the sound of the pipes on Cisco’s panhead finally fire up. He had made it all the way down to Laurel Canyon before kicking over the engine. The throttle roared deeply as he headed into the night.

PART FIVE. Take the Nickel

Forty-seven
    On Monday morning I had my Corneliani suit on. I was sitting next to my client in the courtroom and was ready to begin to present his defense. Jeffrey Golantz, the prosecutor, sat at his table, ready to thwart my efforts. And the gallery behind us was maxed out once again. But the bench in front of us was empty. The judge was sequestered in his chambers and running almost an hour behind his own nine-o’clock start time. Something was wrong or something had come up, but we had not yet been informed. We had seen sheriff’s deputies escort a man I didn’t recognize into chambers and then out again but there had been no word on what was going on.
    “Hey, Jeff, what do you think?” I finally asked across the aisle.
    Golantz looked over at me. He was wearing his nice black suit, but he had been wearing it every other day to court and it wasn’t as impressive anymore. He shrugged.
    “No idea,” he said.
    “Maybe he’s back there reconsidering my request for a directed verdict.”
    I smiled. Golantz didn’t.
    “I’m sure he is,” he said with his best prosecutorial sarcasm.
    The prosecution’s case had strung out through the entire previous week. I had helped with a couple of protracted cross-examinations but for the most part it had been Golantz engaging in overkill. He kept the medical examiner who had conducted the autopsies on Mitzi Elliot and Johan Rilz on the witness stand for nearly an entire day, describing in excruciating detail