Page 4 of The Lincoln Lawyer

“What is the cause of your delay, Mr. Haller?” the judge asked impatiently. “The prosecution is ready and I want to dispose of this case.”

“I want to dispose of it as well, Your Honor. But the defenseis having trouble locating a witness who will be necessary to our case. An indispensable witness, Your Honor. I think a one-week carryover should be sufficient. By next week we should be ready to go forward.”

As expected, DeVries objected to the delay.

“Your Honor, this is the first the state has heard about a missing witness. Mr. Haller has had almost three months to locate his witnesses. He’s the one who wanted the speedy trial and now he wants to wait. I think this is just a delay tactic because he’s facing a case that—”

“You can hold on to the rest of that for the jury, Mr. DeVries,” the judge said. “Mr. Haller, you think one week will solve your problem?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Okay, we’ll see you and Mr. Casey next Monday and you will be ready to go. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Honor. Thank you.”

The clerk called the next case and I stepped away from the defense table. I watched a deputy lead my client out of the pen. Casey glanced back at me, a look on his face that seemed to be equal parts anger and confusion. I went over to Reynaldo Rodriguez and asked if I could be allowed back into the holding area to further confer with my client. It was a professional courtesy allowed to most of the regulars. Rodriguez got up, unlocked a door behind his desk and ushered me through. I made sure to thank him by his correct name.

Casey was in a holding cell with one other defendant, the man whose case had been called ahead of his in the courtroom. The cell was large and had benches running along three sides. The bad thing about getting your case called early in the courtroom is that after the hearing you have to sit in this cage until it fills with enough people to run a full bus back to the county jail. Casey came right up to the bars to speak to me.

“What witness were you talking about in there?” he demanded.

“Mr. Green,” I said. “Mr. Green is all we need for this case to go forward.”

Casey’s face contorted in anger. I tried to cut him off at the pass.

“Look, Harold, I know you want to move this along and get to the trial and then the appeal. But you’ve got to pay the freight along the way. I know from long, hard experience that it does me no good to chase people for money after the horse is out of the barn. You want to play now, then you pay now.”

I nodded and was about to turn back to the door that led to freedom. But then I spoke to him again.

“And don’t think the judge in there didn’t know what was going on,” I said. “You got a young prosecutor who’s wet behind the ears and doesn’t have to worry about where his next paycheck’s coming from. But Orton Powell spent a lot of years in the defense bar before he got to the bench. He knows about chasing indispensable witnesses like Mr. Green and he probably won’t look too kindly upon a defendant who doesn’t pay his lawyer. I gave him the wink, Harold. If I want off the case, I’ll get off. But what I’d rather do is come in here next Monday and stand up out there and tell him we found our witness and we are ready to go. You understand?”

Casey didn’t say anything at first. He walked to the far side of the cell and sat down on the bench. He didn’t look at me when he finally spoke.

“As soon as I get to a phone,” he said.

“Sounds good, Harold. I’ll tell one of the deputies you have to make a call. Make the call, then sit tight and I’ll see you next week. We’ll get this thing going.”

I headed back to the door, my steps quick. I hate being inside a jail. I’m not sure why. I guess it’s because sometimes the line seems so thin. The line between being a criminal attorney and acriminalattorney. Sometimes I’m not sure which side of the bars I am on. To me it’s always a dead-bang miracle that I get to walk out the way I walked in.

Three

In the hallway outside the courtroom I turned my cell phone back on and called my driver to tell him I was coming out. I then checked voicemail and found messages from Lorna Taylor and Fernando Valenzuela. I decided to wait until I was in the car to make the callbacks.

Earl Briggs, my driver, had the Lincoln right out front. Earl didn’t get out and open the door or anything. His deal was just to drive me while he worked off the fee he owed me for getting him probation on a cocaine sales conviction. I paid him twenty bucks an hour to drive me but then held half of it back to go against the fee. It wasn’t quite what he was making dealing crack in the projects but it was safer, legal and something that could go on a résumé. Earl said he wanted to go straight in life and I believed him.

I could hear the sound of hip-hop pulsing behind the closed windows of the Town Car as I approached. But Earl killed the music as soon as I reached for the door handle. I slid into the back and told him to head toward Van Nuys.

“Who was that you were listening to?” I asked him.

“Um, that was Three Six Mafia.”

“Dirty south?”

“That’s right.”

Over the years, I had become knowledgeable in the subtle distinctions, regional and otherwise, in rap and hip-hop. Across theboard, most of my clients listened to it, many of them developing their life strategies from it.

I reached over and picked up the shoebox full of cassette tapes from the Boyleston case and chose one at random. I noted the tape number and the time in the little logbook I kept in the shoebox. I handed the tape over the seat to Earl and he slid it into the dashboard stereo. I didn’t have to tell him to play it at a volume so low that it would amount to little more than background noise. Earl had been with me for three months. He knew what to do.