The Lincoln Lawyer

by in jail.
    But Roulet was different. He looked like prey. He was scared and he didn’t care who saw it and knew it.
    “This is a setup,” he said urgently and loudly. “You have to get me out of here. I made a mistake with that woman, that’s all. She’s trying to set me up and -”
    I put my hands up to stop him.
    “Be careful what you say in here,” I said in a low voice. “In fact, be careful what you say until we get you out of here and can talk in private.”
    He looked around, seemingly not understanding.
    “You never know who is listening,” I said. “And you never know who will say he heard you say something, even if you didn’t say anything. Best thing is to not talk about the case at all. You understand? Best thing is not to talk to anyone about anything, period.”
    He nodded and I signaled him down to the bench next to the bars. There was a bench against the opposite wall and I sat down.
    “I am really here just to meet you and tell you who I am,” I said. “We’ll talk about the case after we get you out. I already spoke to your family lawyer, Mr. Dobbs, out there and we will tell the judge that we are prepared to post bail. Do I have all of that right?”
    I opened a leather Mont Blanc folder and prepared to take notes on a legal pad. Roulet nodded. He was learning.
    “Good,” I said. “Tell me about yourself. How old you are, whether you’re married, what ties you have to the community.”
    “Um, I’m thirty-two. I’ve lived here my whole life-even went to school here. UCLA. Not married. No kids. I work -”
    “Divorced?”
    “No, never married. I work for my family’s business. Windsor Residential Estates. It’s named after my mother’s second husband. It’s real estate. We sell real estate.”
    I was writing notes. Without looking up at him, I quietly asked, “How much money did you make last year?”
    When Roulet didn’t answer I looked up at him.
    “Why do you need to know that?” he asked.
    “Because I am going to get you out of here before the sun goes down today. To do that, I need to know everything about your standing in the community. That includes your financial standing.”
    “I don’t know exactly what I made. A lot of it was shares in the company.”
    “You didn’t file taxes?”
    Roulet looked over his shoulder at the others in the cell and then whispered his answer.
    “Yes, I did. On that my income was a quarter million.”
    “But what you’re saying is that with the shares you earned in the company you really made more.”
    “Right.”
    One of Roulet’s cellmates came up to the bars next to him. The other white man. He had an agitated manner, his hands in constant motion, moving from hips to pockets to each other in desperate grasps.
    “Hey, man, I need a lawyer, too. You got a card?”
    “Not for you, pal. They’ll have a lawyer out there for you.”
    I looked back at Roulet and waited a moment for the hype to move away. He didn’t. I looked back at him.
    “Look, this is private. Could you leave us alone?”
    The hype made some kind of motion with his hands and shuffled back to the corner he had come from. I looked back at Roulet.
    “What about charitable organizations?” I asked.
    “What do you mean?” Roulet responded.
    “Are you involved in any charities? Do you give to any charities?”
    “Yeah, the company does. We give to Make a Wish and a runaway shelter in Hollywood. I think it’s called My Friend’s Place or something like that.”
    “Okay, good.”
    “Are you going to get me out?”
    “I’m going to try. You’ve got some heavy charges on you-I checked before coming back here-and I have a feeling the DA is going to request no bail, but this is good stuff. I can work with it.”
    I indicated my notes.
    “No bail?” he said in a loud, panicked voice.
    The others in the cell looked in his direction because what he had said was their collective nightmare. No bail.
    “Calm down,” I said. “I said that is what she is going to go for. I didn’t say she would get it. When was the last time you were arrested?”
    I always threw that in out of the blue so I could watch their eyes and see if there was going to be a surprise thrown at me in court.
    “Never. I’ve never been arrested. This whole thing is -”
    “I know, I know, but we don’t want to talk about that here, remember?”
    He nodded. I looked at my watch. Court was about to start and I still needed to talk to Maggie McFierce.
    “I’m going to go