The Lincoln Lawyer

“Can we sort of change the subject now?”
    I didn’t tell her that years earlier when I had looked through the dusty old account books from my father’s law practice, I had found that he’d had a soft spot for the so-called women of the night. He defended many and charged few. Maybe I was just continuing a family tradition.
    “Fine,” Lorna said. “How did it go with Roulet?”
    “You mean, did I get the job? I think so. Val’s probably getting him out right now. We’ll set up a meeting after that. I already asked Raul to sniff around on it.”
    “Did you get a check?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Get the check, Mick.”
    “I’m working on it.”
    “How’s the case look?”
    “I’ve only seen the pictures but it looks bad. I’ll know more after I see what Raul comes up with.”
    “And what about Roulet?”
    I knew what she was asking. How was he as a client? Would a jury, if it came to a jury, like him or despise him? Cases could be won or lost based on jurors’ impressions of the defendant.
    “He looks like a babe in the woods.”
    “He’s a virgin?”
    “Never been inside the iron house.”
    “Well, did he do it?”
    She always asked the irrelevant question. It didn’t matter in terms of the strategy of the case whether the defendant “did it” or not. What mattered was the evidence against him-the proof-and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt.
    But the question of did he or didn’t he always seemed to matter to her.
    “Who knows, Lorna? That’s not the question. The question is whether or not he’s a paying customer. The answer is, I think so.”
    “Well, let me know if you need any-oh, there’s one other thing.”
    “What?”
    “Sticks called and said he owes you four hundred dollars next time he sees you.”
    “Yeah, he does.”
    “You’re doing pretty good today.”
    “I’m not complaining.”
    We said our good-byes on a friendly note, the dispute over Gloria Dayton seemingly forgotten for the moment. Probably the security that comes with knowing money is coming in and a high-paying client is on the hook made Lorna feel a bit better about my working some cases for free. I wondered, though, if she’d have minded so much if I was defending a drug dealer for free instead of a prostitute. Lorna and I had shared a short and sweet marriage, with both of us quickly finding out that we had moved too quickly while rebounding from divorces. We ended it, remained friends, and she continued to work with me, not for me. The only time I felt uncomfortable about the arrangement was when she acted like a wife again and second-guessed my choice of client and who and what I charged or didn’t charge.
    Feeling confident in the way I had handled Lorna, I called the DA’s office in Van Nuys next. I asked for Margaret McPherson and caught her eating at her desk.
    “I just wanted to say I’m sorry about this morning. I know you wanted the case.”
    “Well, you probably need it more than me. He must be a paying customer if he’s got C. C. Dobbs carrying the roll behind him.”
    By that she was referring to a roll of toilet paper. High-priced family lawyers were usually seen by prosecutors as nothing more than ass wipers for the rich and famous.
    “Yeah, I could use one like him-the paying client, not the wiper. It’s been a while since I had a franchise.”
    “Well, you didn’t get as lucky a few minutes ago,” she whispered into the phone. “The case was reassigned to Ted Minton.”
    “Never heard of him.”
    “He’s one of Smithson’s young guns. Just brought him in from downtown, where he was filing simple possession cases. He didn’t see the inside of a courtroom until he came up here.”
    John Smithson was the ambitious head deputy in charge of the Van Nuys Division. He was a better politician than a prosecutor and had parlayed that skill into a quick climb over other more experienced deputies to the division chief’s post. Maggie McPherson was among those he’d passed by. Once he was in the slot, he started building a staff of young prosecutors who did not feel slighted and were loyal to him for giving them a shot.
    “This guy’s never been in court?” I asked, not understanding how going up against a trial rookie could be unlucky, as Maggie had indicated.
    “He’s had a few trials up here but always with a babysitter. Roulet will be his first time flying solo.