“I don’t feel so lucky, Judge,” Scales said.
Deputy Frey tapped him on the shoulder from behind. Scales stood up and turned to me.
“I guess this is it,” he said.
“Good luck, Sam,” I said.
He was led off through the steel door and I watched it close behind them. I had not shaken his hand.
THIRTEEN
The Van Nuys Civic Center is a long concrete plaza enclosed by government buildings. Anchoring one end is the Van Nuys Division of the LAPD. Along one side are two courthouses sitting opposite a public library and a city administration building. At the end of the concrete and glass channel is a federal administration building and post office. I waited for Louis Roulet in the plaza on one of the concrete benches near the library. The plaza was largely deserted despite the great weather. Not like the day before, when the place was overrun with cameras and the media and the gadflies, all crowding around Robert Blake and his lawyers as they tried to spin a not-guilty verdict into innocence.
It was a nice, quiet afternoon and I usually liked being outside. Most of my work is done in windowless courtrooms or the backseat of my Town Car, so I take it outside whenever I can. But I wasn’t feeling the breeze or noticing the fresh air this time. I was annoyed because Louis Roulet was late and because what Sam Scales had said to me about being a street-legal con was festering like cancer in my mind. When finally I saw Roulet crossing the plaza toward me I got up to meet him.
“Where’ve you been?” I said abruptly.
“I told you I’d get here as soon as I could. I was in the middle of a showing when you called.”
“Let’s walk.”
I headed toward the federal building because it would give us the longest stretch before we would have to turn around to cross back. I had my meeting with Minton, the new prosecutor assigned to his case, in twenty-five minutes in the older of the two courthouses. I realized that we didn’t look like a lawyer and his client discussing a case. Maybe a lawyer and his realtor discussing a land grab. I was in my Hugo Boss and Roulet was in a tan suit over a green turtleneck. He had on loafers with small silver buckles.
“There won’t be any showings up in Pelican Bay,” I said to him.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Where’s that?”
“It’s a pretty name for a super max prison where they send violent sex offenders. You’re going to fit in there pretty good in your turtleneck and loafers.”
“Look, what’s the matter? What’s this about?”
“It’s about a lawyer who can’t have a client who lies to him. In twenty minutes I’m about to go up to see the guy who wants to send you to Pelican Bay. I need everything I can get my hands on to try to keep you out of there and it doesn’t help when I find out you’re lying to me.”
Roulet stopped and turned to me. He raised his hands out, palms open.
“I haven’t lied to you! I did not do this thing. I don’t know what that woman wants but I -”
“Let me ask you something, Louis. You and Dobbs said you took a year of law at UCLA, right? Did they teach you anything at all about the lawyer-client bond of trust?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I wasn’t there long enough.”
I took a step toward him, invading his space.
“You see? You are a fucking liar. You didn’t go to UCLA law school for a year. You didn’t even go for a goddamn day.”
He brought his hands down and slapped them against his sides.
“Is that what this is all about, Mickey?”
“Yeah, that’s right and from now on, don’t call me Mickey. My friends call me that. Not my lying clients.”
“What does whether or not I went to law school ten years ago have to do with this case? I don’t -”
“Because if you lied to me about that, then you’d lie to me about anything, and I can’t have that and be able to defend you.”
I said it too loud. I saw a couple of women on a nearby bench watching us. They had juror badges on their blouses.
“Come on. This way.”
I started walking back the other way, heading toward the police station.
“Look,” Roulet said in a weak voice. “I lied because of my mother, okay?”
“No, not okay. Explain it to me.”
“Look, my mother and Cecil think I went to law school for a year. I want them to continue to believe that. He brought it up with you and so I just sort of agreed. But it was ten years ago! What is the harm?”
“The harm is in lying to me,” I said. “You can lie to your mother, to Dobbs, to your priest and to the police. But when I ask you something directly, do not lie to me. I need to operate from the standpoint of having facts from you. Incontrovertible facts. So when I ask you a question, tell me the truth. All the rest of the time you can say what you want and whatever makes you feel good.”
“Okay, okay.”
“If you weren’t in law school, where were you?”
Roulet shook his head.
“Nowhere. I just didn’t do anything for a year. Most of the time I stayed in my apartment near campus and read and thought about what I really wanted to do with my life. The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to be a lawyer. No offense intended.”
“None taken. So you sat there for a year and came up with selling real estate to rich people.”
“No, that came later.”
He laughed in a self-deprecating way.
“I actually decided to become a writer-I had majored in English lit-and I tried to write a novel. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I couldn’t do it. I eventually went to work for Mother. She wanted me to.”
I calmed down. Most of my anger had been a show, anyway. I was trying to soften him up for the more important questioning. I thought he was now ready for it.
“Well, now that you are coming clean and confessing everything, Louis, tell me about Reggie Campo.”
“What about her?”
“You were going to pay her for sex, weren’t you?”
“What makes you say -”
I shut him up when I stopped again and grabbed him by one of his expensive lapels. He was taller than me and bigger, but I had the power in this conversation. I was pushing him.
“Answer the fucking question.”
“All right, yes, I was going to pay. But how did you know that?”
“Because I’m a good goddamn lawyer. Why didn’t you tell me this on that first day? Don’t you see how that changes the case?”
“My mother. I didn’t want my mother to know I… you know.”
“Louis, let’s sit down.”
I walked him over to one of the long benches by the police station. There was a lot of space and no one could overhear us. I sat in the middle of the bench and he sat to my right.
“Your mother wasn’t even in the room when we were talking about the case. I don’t even think she was in there when we talked about law school.”
“But Cecil was and he tells her everything.”
I nodded and made a mental note to cut Cecil Dobbs completely out of the loop on case matters from now on.
“Okay, I think I understand. But how long were you going to let it go without telling me? Don’t you see how this changes everything?”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
“Louis, let me tell you a little bit about how this works. You know what I am? I’m a neutralizer. My job is to neutralize the state’s case. Take each piece of evidence or proof and find a way to eliminate it from contention. Think of it like one of those street entertainers you see on the Venice boardwalk. You ever gone down there and seen the guy spinning all those plates on those little sticks?”
“I think so. I haven’t been down there in a long time.”
“Doesn’t matter. The guy has these thin little sticks and he puts a plate on each one and starts spinning the plate so it will stay balanced and upright. He gets a lot of them going at once and he moves from plate to plate and stick to stick making sure everything is spinning and balanced and staying up. You with me?”