The Lincoln Lawyer

bad news.
    “Okay, here it is,” Valenzuela said. “Guy’s name is Cecil C. Dobbs, Esquire. Out of Century City. See, I told you. Money.”
    Valenzuela was right. But it wasn’t the lawyer’s Century City address that said money. It was the name. I knew of C. C. Dobbs by reputation and guessed that there wouldn’t be more than one or two names on his entire client list that didn’t have a Bel-Air or Holmby Hills address. His kind of client went home to the places where the stars seemed to reach down at night to touch the anointed.
    “Give me the client’s name,” I said.
    “That would be Louis Ross Roulet.”
    He spelled it and I wrote it down on a legal pad.
    “Almost like the spinning wheel but you pronounce it Roo-
lay,
” he said. “You going to be here, Mick?”
    Before responding I wrote the name C. C. Dobbs on the pad. I then answered Valenzuela with a question.
    “Why me?” I asked. “Was I asked for? Or did you suggest me?”
    I had to be careful with this. I had to assume Dobbs was the kind of lawyer who would go to the California bar in a heartbeat if he came across a criminal defense attorney paying off bondsmen for client referrals. In fact, I started wondering if the whole thing might be a bar sting operation that Valenzuela hadn’t picked up on. I wasn’t one of the bar’s favorite sons. They had come at me before. More than once.
    “I asked Roulet if he had a lawyer, you know? A criminal defense lawyer, and he said no. I told him about you. I didn’t push it. I just said you were good. Soft sell, you know?”
    “Was this before or after Dobbs came into it?”
    “No, before. Roulet called me this morning from the jail. They got him up on high power and he saw the sign, I guess. Dobbs showed up after that. I told him you were in, gave him your pedigree, and he was cool with it. He’ll be there at eleven. You’ll see how he is.”
    I didn’t speak for a long moment. I wondered how truthful Valenzuela was being with me. A guy like Dobbs would have had his own man. If it wasn’t his own forte, then he’d have had a criminal specialist in the firm or, at least, on standby. But Valenzuela’s story seemed to contradict this. Roulet came to him empty-handed. It told me that there was more to this case I didn’t know than what I did.
    “Hey, Mick, you there?” Valenzuela prompted.
    I made a decision. It was a decision that would eventually lead me back to Jesus Menendez and that I would in many ways come to regret. But at the moment it was made, it was just another choice made of necessity and routine.
    “I’ll be there,” I said into the phone. “I’ll see you at eleven.”
    I was about to close the phone when I heard Valenzuela’s voice come back at me.
    “And you’ll take care of me for this, right, Mick? I mean, you know, if this is the franchise.”
    It was the first time Valenzuela had ever sought assurance of a payback from me. It played further into my paranoia and I carefully constructed an answer that would satisfy him and the bar-if it was listening.
    “Don’t worry, Val. You’re on my Christmas list.”
    I closed the phone before he could say anything else and told my driver to drop me off at the employee entrance to the courthouse. The line at the metal detector would be shorter and quicker there and the security men usually didn’t mind the lawyers-the regulars-sneaking through so they could make court on time.
    As I thought about Louis Ross Roulet and the case and the possible riches and dangers that waited for me, I put the window back down so I could enjoy the morning’s last minute of clean, fresh air. It still carried the taste of promise.

TWO
    T he courtroom in Department 2A was crowded with lawyers negotiating and socializing on both sides of the bar when I got there. I could tell the session was going to start on time because I saw the bailiff seated at his desk. This meant the judge was close to taking the bench.
    In Los Angeles County the bailiffs are actually sworn deputy sheriffs who are assigned to the jail division. I approached the bailiff, whose desk was right next to the bar railing so citizens could come up to ask questions without having to violate the space assigned to the lawyers, defendants and courtroom personnel. I saw the calendar on the clipboard in front of him. I checked the nameplate on his uniform-R. Rodriguez-before speaking.
    “Roberto, you got my guy on there? Harold Casey?”
    The bailiff used his finger to start