The Brass Verdict

of the circle of activity and into the parking clearing near my car. He stopped and turned back to me. But I got my question in first.
    “What just happened?”
    “What just happened was we just saved your life. He was going to push you over the side.”
    “I know that, but what
happened?
Where did you and everybody else come from? You said you would let people go at night after I was tucked in. Where did all of these cops come from? And what’s the FBI doing here?”
    “Things were different tonight. Things happened.”
    “What things happened? What changed?”
    “We can go over that later. Let’s talk about what we’ve got here first.”
    “I don’t know what we’ve got here.”
    “Tell me about juror number seven. Why didn’t he show up today?”
    “Well, you should probably ask him that. All I can tell you is that this morning the judge called us into chambers and said he got an anonymous letter saying number seven was a phony and he lied about having a record. The judge planned to question him but he didn’t show up. The sheriffs were sent to his house and his job and they brought back a guy who wasn’t juror number seven.”
    Bosch raised his hand like a traffic cop.
    “Hold on, hold on. You’re not making sense. I know you just had a scare but-”
    He stopped when one of the men in an LAPD jacket came over to address him.
    “You want us to call paramedics? He says he thinks his hand is broken.”
    “No, just hold him there. We’ll have him checked after we book him.”
    “You sure?”
    “Fuck him.”
    The man nodded and went back to the spot where they were holding McSweeney.
    “Yeah, fuck him,” I said.
    “Why did he want to kill you?” Bosch asked.
    I raised my empty hands.
    “I don’t know. Maybe because of the story we planted. Wasn’t that the plan, to draw him out?”
    “I think you’re holding out on me, Haller.”
    “Look, I’ve told you what I could tell you all along. You’re the one holding out and playing games. What’s the FBI doing here?”
    “They’ve been in it from the start.”
    “Right, and you just forgot to tell me.”
    “I told you what you needed to know.”
    “Well, I need to know it all now or my cooperation with you ends now. That includes being any sort of witness against that man over there.”
    I waited a moment and he said nothing. I turned to walk toward my car and Bosch put his hand on my arm. He smiled in frustration and shook his head.
    “Come on, man, cool your jets. Don’t be throwing empty threats around.”
    “You think it’s an empty threat? Why don’t we see how empty it is when I start stringing out the federal grand jury subpoena I know is going to come out of this. I can argue client confidentiality all the way to the Supreme Court – I bet that will only take about two years – and your newfound pals over in the bureau are going to wish you had just come clean with me when you had the chance.”
    Bosch thought a moment and pulled me by the arm.
    “All right, tough guy, come over here.”
    We walked to a spot in the parking area even further from the law enforcement ant hill. Bosch started to talk.
    “The bureau contacted me a few days after the Vincent murder and said that he had been a person of interest to them. That’s all. A person of interest. He was one of the lawyers whose names came up in their look at the state courts. Nothing specific, just based on rumors, things he had supposedly told clients he could get done, connections he claimed to have, that sort of thing. They’d drawn up a list of lawyers they heard might be bent and Vincent was on it. They invited him in as a cooperating witness and he declined. They were increasing the pressure on him when he got hit.”
    “So they tell you all of this and you join forces. Isn’t that wonderful? Thanks for telling me.”
    “Like I said, you didn’t need to know.”
    A man in an FBI jacket crossed the parking area behind Bosch, and his face was momentarily lit from above. He looked familiar to me but I couldn’t place him. But then I imagined a mustache on him.
    “Hey, there’s the asshole you sent after me the other night,” I said loud enough for the passing agent to hear. “He’s lucky I didn’t put a bullet in his face at the door.”
    Bosch put his hands on my chest and pushed me back a few steps.
    “Calm down, Counselor. If it weren’t for the bureau, I wouldn’t have had the manpower to keep the watch on you. And right now you could be