The Brass Verdict

the table closer to him.
    “So who’s the guy in the photo? Your partner with a stick-on mustache? Some clown from vice? Don’t you have better things to do than to be running a game on me?”
    Bosch leaned back and continued to look around the place, his eyes moving everywhere but to me. He was contemplating something and I gave him all the time he needed. Finally, he looked at me.
    “Okay, you got me. It was a scam. I guess that makes you one smart lawyer, Haller. Just like the old man. I wonder why you’re wasting it defending scumbags. Shouldn’t you be out there suing doctors or defending big tobacco or something noble like that?”
    I smiled.
    “Is that how you like to play it? You get caught being underhanded, so you respond by accusing the other guy of being underhanded?”
    Bosch laughed, his face colored red as he turned away from me. It was a gesture that struck me as familiar, and his mention of my father brought him to mind. I had a vague memory of my father laughing uneasily and looking away as he leaned back at the dinner table. My mother had accused him of something I was too young to understand.
    Bosch put both arms on the table and leaned toward me.
    “You’ve heard of the first forty-eight, right?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “The first forty-eight. The chances of clearing a homicide diminish by almost half each day if you don’t solve it in the first forty-eight hours.”
    He looked at his watch before continuing.
    “I’m coming up on seventy-two hours and I’ve got nothing,” he said. “Not a suspect, not a viable lead, nothing. And I was hoping that tonight I might be able to scare something out of you. Something that would point me in the right direction.”
    I sat there, staring at him, digesting what he had said. Finally, I found my voice.
    “You actually thought I knew who killed Jerry and wasn’t telling?”
    “It was a possibility I had to consider.”
    “Fuck you, Bosch.”
    Just then the waiter came with our steaks and spaghetti. As the plates were put down, Bosch looked at me with a knowing smile on his face. The waiter asked what else he could get for us and I waved him away without breaking eye contact.
    “You’re an arrogant son of a bitch,” I said. “You can just sit there with a smile on your face after accusing me of hiding evidence or knowledge in a murder. A murder of a guy I knew.”
    Bosch looked down at his steak, picked up his knife and fork and cut into it. I noticed he was left-handed. He put a chunk of meat into his mouth and stared at me while he ate it. He rested his fists on either side of his plate, fork and knife in his grips, as if guarding the food from poachers. A lot of my clients who had spent time in prison ate the same way.
    “Why don’t you take it easy there, Counselor,” he said. “You have to understand something. I’m not used to being on the same side of the line as the defense lawyer, okay? It has been my experience that defense attorneys have tried to portray me as stupid, corrupt, bigoted, you name it. So with that in mind, yes, I tried to run a game on you in hopes that it would help me solve a murder. I apologize all to hell and back. If you want, I will have them wrap up my steak and I’ll take it to go.”
    I shook my head. Bosch had a talent for trying to make me feel guilty for his transgressions.
    “Maybe now you should be the one who takes it easy,” I said. “All I’m saying is that from the start, I have acted openly and honestly with you. I have stretched the ethical bounds of my profession. And I have told you what I could tell you, when I could tell you. I didn’t deserve to have the shit scared out of me tonight. And you’re damn lucky I didn’t put a bullet in your man’s chest when he was at the office door. He made a beautiful target.”
    “You weren’t supposed to have a gun. I checked.”
    Bosch started eating again, keeping his head down as he worked on the steak. He took several bites and then moved to the side plate of spaghetti. He wasn’t a twirler. He chopped at the pasta with his fork before putting a bite into his mouth. He spoke after he swallowed his food.
    “So now that we have that out of the way, will you help me?”
    I blew out my breath in a laugh.
    “Are you kidding? Have you heard a single thing I’ve said here?”
    “Yeah, I heard it all. And no, I’m not kidding. When all is said and done, I still have a dead lawyer – your colleague – on my hands and I