The Brass Verdict

your word. Can I come to the office and see Mr. Elliot?”
    I turned in my seat and looked out the back window. There were two cars in the guardhouse queue behind my Lincoln. They must not have been producers. The writers had let them through unmolested.
    “I’m afraid that’s not good enough, Mr. Haller. Can I place you on hold while I call Mr. Vincent?”
    “You won’t get through to him.”
    “He’ll take a call from Mr. Elliot, I am sure.”
    “I am sure he won’t, Mrs. Albrecht. Jerry Vincent’s dead. That’s why I’m here.”
    I looked at Cisco’s reflection in the rearview mirror and shrugged as though to say I had no choice but to hit her with the news. The plan had been to finesse my way through the arch and then be the one to personally tell Elliot his lawyer was dead.
    “Excuse me, Mr. Haller. Did you say Mr. Vincent is… dead?”
    “That’s what I said. And I’m his court-appointed replacement. Can I come in now?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    I handed the phone back and soon the gate opened.

Thirteen
    We were assigned to a prime parking space in the executive lot. I told Cisco to wait in the car and went in alone, carrying the two thick files Vincent had put together on the case. One contained discovery materials turned over so far by the prosecution, including the important investigative documents and interview transcripts, and the other contained documents and other work product generated by Vincent during the five months he had handled the case. Between the two files I was able to get a good handle on what the prosecution had and didn’t have, and the direction in which the prosecutor wanted to take the trial. There was still work to be done and pieces were missing from the defense’s case and strategy. Perhaps those pieces had been carried in Jerry Vincent’s head, or in his laptop or on the legal pad in his portfolio, but unless the cops arrested a suspect and recovered the stolen property, whatever was there would be of no help to me.
    I followed a sidewalk across a beautifully manicured lawn on the way to Elliot’s office. My plan for the meeting was threefold. The first order of business was to secure Elliot as a client. That done, I would ask his approval in delaying the trial to give me time to get up to speed and prepare for it. The last part of the plan would be to see if Elliot had any of the pieces missing from the defense case. Parts two and three obviously didn’t matter if I was unsuccessful with part one.
    Walter Elliot’s office was in Bungalow One on the far reaches of the Archway lot. “Bungalows” sounded small but they were big in Hollywood. A sign of status. It was like having your own private home on the lot. And as in any private home, activities inside could be kept secret.
    A Spanish-tiled entranceway led to a step-down living room with a fireplace blowing gas flames on one wall and a mahogany wood bar set up in an opposite corner. I stepped into the middle of the room and looked around and waited. I looked at the painting over the fireplace. It depicted an armored knight on a white steed. The knight had reached up and flipped open the visor on his helmet and his eyes stared out intently. I took a few steps further into the room and realized the eyes had been painted so that they stared at the viewer of the painting from any angle in the room. They followed me.
    “Mr. Haller?”
    I turned as I recognized the voice from the guardhouse phone. Elliot’s gatekeeper, Mrs. Albrecht, had stepped into the room from some unseen entrance. Elegance was the word that came to mind. She was an aging beauty who appeared to take the process in stride. Gray streaked through her un-dyed hair and tiny wrinkles were working their way toward her eyes and mouth, seemingly unchecked by injection or incision. Mrs. Albrecht looked like a woman who liked her own skin. In my experience, this was a rare thing in Hollywood.
    “Mr. Elliot will see you now.”
    I followed her around a corner and down a short hallway to a reception office. She passed an empty desk – hers, I assumed – and pushed open a large door to Walter Elliot’s office.
    Elliot was an overly tanned man with more gray hair sprouting from his open shirt collar than from the top of his head. He sat behind a large glass worktable. No drawers beneath it and no computer on top of it, though paperwork and scripts were spread across it. It didn’t matter that he was facing two counts of murder. He was staying busy.