The Brass Verdict

nodded.
    “Okay, Cisco, thanks.”
    “You need me in court? I’ve got a few things I’m still working on. I heard juror number seven went missing this morning.”
    “Yeah, he’s in the wind. And I don’t need you in court.”
    “Okay, man, I’ll talk to you.”
    He headed off toward the elevators and I was left to stare at my client holding forth with the reporters. A slow burn started in me and it gained heat as I waded into the crowd to get to him.
    “Okay, that’s all, people,” I said. “No further comment. No further comment.”
    I grabbed Elliot by the arm, pulled him out of the crowd and walked him down the hall. I shooed a couple of trailing reporters away until we were finally far enough from all other ears and could speak privately.
    “Walter, what were you doing?”
    He was smiling gleefully. He made a fist and pumped it into the air.
    “Sticking it up their asses. The prosecutor and the sheriffs, all of them.”
    “Yeah, well, you better wait on that. We’ve still got a ways to go. We may have won the day but we haven’t won the war yet.”
    “Oh, come on. It’s in the bag, Mick. She was fucking outstanding in there. I mean, I want to marry her!”
    “Yeah, that’s nice but let’s see how she does on cross before you buy the ring, okay?”
    Another reporter came up and I told her to take a hike, then turned back to my client.
    “Listen, Walter, we need to talk.”
    “Okay, talk.”
    “I had a private investigator check your story out in Florida and I just found out it was bullshit. You lied to me, Walter, and I told you never to lie to me.”
    Elliot shook his head and looked annoyed with me for taking the wind out of his sails. To him, being caught in the lie was a minor inconvenience, an annoyance that I would even bring it up.
    “Why did you lie to me, Walter? Why’d you spin that story?”
    He shrugged and looked away from me when he spoke.
    “The story? I read it in a script once. I turned the project down, actually. But I remembered the story.”
    “But why? I’m your lawyer. You can tell me anything. I asked you to tell me the truth and you lied to me. Why?”
    He finally looked me in the eyes.
    “I knew I had to light a fire under you.”
    “What fire? What are you talking about?”
    “Come on, Mickey. Let’s not get-”
    He was turning to go back to the courtroom but I grabbed him roughly by the arm.
    “No, I want to hear. What fire did you light?”
    “Everybody’s going back in. The break is over and we should be in there.”
    I gripped him even harder.
    “What fire, Walter?”
    “You’re hurting my arm.”
    I relaxed my grip but didn’t let go. And I didn’t take my eyes off his.
    “What fire?”
    He looked away from me and put an “aw, shucks” grin on his face. I finally let go of his arm.
    “Look,” he said. “From the start I needed you to believe I didn’t do it. It was the only way for me to know you would bring your best game. That you would be goddamn relentless.”
    I stared at him and saw the smile become a look of pride.
    “I told you I could read people, Mick. I knew you needed something to believe in. I knew if I was a little bit guilty but not guilty of the big crime, then it would give you what you needed. It would give you your fire back.”
    They say the best actors in Hollywood are on the wrong side of the camera. At that moment I knew that was true. I knew that Elliot had killed his wife and her lover and was even proud of it. I found my voice and spoke.
    “Where’d you get the gun?”
    “Oh, I’d had it. Bought it under the table at a flea market back in the seventies. I was a big Dirty Harry fan and I wanted a forty-four mag. I kept it out at the beach house for protection. You know, a lot of drifters down on the beach.”
    “What really happened in that house, Walter?”
    He nodded like it was his plan all along to take this moment to tell me.
    “What happened was I went out there to confront her and whoever she was fucking every Monday like clockwork. But when I got there, I realized it was Rilz. She’d passed him off in front of me as a faggot, had him to dinners and parties and premieres with us, and they probably laughed all about it later. Laughed about me, Mick.
    “It got me mad. Enraged, actually. I got the gun out of the cabinet, put on rubber gloves from under the sink and I went upstairs. You should have seen the look on their faces when they saw that big gun.”
    I stared at him for a long moment. I’d