The Lincoln Lawyer

safer. He lived in a Spanish-style house with a red tile roof in a planned community full of Spanish-style houses with red tile roofs. It was more than a bail bondsman could ever dream of having, but it came with a stiff monthly price tag.
    It was almost nine by the time I got there. I pulled up to the garage, which had been left open. One space was taken by a minivan and the other by a pickup. On the floor between the pickup and a fully equipped tool bench was a large cardboard box that said SONY on it. It was long and thin. I looked closer and saw it was a box for a fifty-inch plasma TV. I got out and went to the front door and knocked. Valenzuela answered after a long wait.
    “Mick, what are you doing up here?”
    “Do you know your garage door is open?”
    “Holy shit! I just had a plasma delivered.”
    He pushed by me and ran across the yard to look into the garage. I closed his front door and followed him to the garage. When I got there he was standing next to his TV, smiling.
    “Oh, man, you know that would’ve never happened in Van Nuys,” he said. “That sucker woulda been long gone. Come on, we’ll go in through here.”
    He headed toward a door that would take us from the garage into the house. He hit a switch that made the garage door start to roll down.
    “Hey, Val, wait a minute,” I said. “Let’s just talk out here. It’s more private.”
    “But Maria probably wants to say hello.”
    “Maybe next time.”
    He came back over to me, concern in his eyes.
    “What’s up, Boss?”
    “What’s up is I spent some time today with the cops working on Raul’s murder. They said they cleared Roulet on it because of the ankle bracelet.”
    Valenzuela nodded vigorously.
    “Yeah, yeah, they came to see me a few days after it happened. I showed them the system and how it works and I pulled up Roulet’s track for that day. They saw he was at work. And I also showed them the other bracelet I got and explained how it couldn’t be tampered with. It’s got a mass detector. Bottom line is you can’t take it off. It would know and then I would know.”
    I leaned back against the pickup and folded my arms.
    “So did those two cops ask where
you
were on that Saturday?”
    It hit Valenzuela like a punch.
    “What did you say, Mick?”
    My eyes lowered to the plasma TV box and then back up to his.
    “Somehow, some way, he killed Raul, Val. Now my ass is on the line and I want to know how he did it.”
    “Mick, listen to me, he’s clear. I’m telling you, that bracelet didn’t come off his ankle. The machine doesn’t lie.”
    “Yeah, I know, the machine doesn’t lie…”
    After a moment he got it.
    “What are you saying, Mick?”
    He stepped in front of me, his body posture stiffening aggressively. I stopped leaning on the truck and dropped my hands to my sides.
    “I’m asking, Val. Where were you on that Tuesday morning?”
    “You son of a bitch, how could you ask me that?”
    He had moved into a fight stance. I was momentarily taken off guard as I thought about him calling me what I had called Roulet earlier in the day.
    Valenzuela suddenly lunged at me and shoved me hard against his truck. I shoved him back harder and he went backwards into the TV box. It tipped over and hit the floor with a loud, heavy
whump
and then he came down on it in a seated position. There was a sharp snap sound from inside the box.
    “Oh, fuck!” he cried. “Oh, fuck! You broke the screen!”
    “You pushed me, Val. I pushed back.”
    “Oh, fuck!”
    He scrambled to the side of the box and tried to lift it back up but it was too heavy and unwieldy. I walked over to the other side and helped him right it. As the box came upright we heard small bits of material inside it slide down. It sounded like glass.
    “Motherfuck!” Valenzuela yelled.
    The door leading into the house opened and his wife, Maria, looked out.
    “Hi, Mickey. Val, what is all the noise?”
    “Just go inside,” her husband ordered.
    “Well, what is -”
    “Shut the fuck up and go inside!”
    She paused for a moment, staring at us, then closed the door. I heard her lock it. It looked like Valenzuela was sleeping with the broken TV tonight. I looked back at him. His mouth was spread in shock.
    “That was eight thousand dollars,” he whispered.
    “They make TVs that cost eight thousand dollars?”
    I was shocked. What was the world coming to?
    “That was with a discount.”
    “Val, where’d you get the money for an