Page 97 of The Lincoln Lawyer

“You heard me.”

He was right. I had heard him. And I shouldn’t have acted surprised. I already knew he had killed people. Raul Levin was among them and he had even used my gun—though I hadn’t figured out how he had defeated the GPS bracelet on his ankle. I was just surprised he had decided to tell me in such a matter-of-fact manner two minutes before his trial was called to order.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “I’m about to try to defend you in this thing and you—”

“Because I know you already know. And because I know what your plan is.”

“My plan? What plan?”

He smiled slyly at me.

“Come on, Mick. It’s simple. You defend me on this case. You do your best, you get paid the big bucks, you win and I walk away. But then, once it’s all over and you’ve got your money in the bank, you turn against me because I’m not your client anymore. You throw me to the cops so you can get Jesus Menendez out and redeem yourself.”

I didn’t respond.

“Well, I can’t let that happen,” he said quietly. “Now, I am yours forever, Mick. I am telling you I’ve killed people, and guess what? Martha Renteria was one of them. I gave her just what she deserved, and if you go to the cops or use what I’ve told you against me, then you won’t be practicing law for very long. Yes, you might succeed in raising Jesus from the dead. But I’ll never be prosecuted because of your misconduct. I believe it is called ‘fruit of the poisonous tree,’ and you are the tree, Mick.”

I still couldn’t respond. I just nodded again. Roulet had certainly thought it through. I wondered how much help he had gotten from Cecil Dobbs. He had obviously had somebody coach him on the law.

I leaned toward him and whispered.

“Follow me.”

I got up and walked quickly through the gate and toward the rear door of the courtroom. From behind I heard the clerk’s voice.

“Mr. Haller? We’re about to start. The judge—”

“One minute,” I called out without turning around.

I held one finger up as well. I then pushed through the doors into the dimly lit vestibule designed as a buffer to keep hallway sounds from the courtroom. A set of double doors on the other side led to the hallway. I moved to the side and waited for Roulet to step into the small space.

As soon as he came through the door I grabbed him and spun him into the wall. I held him pressed against it with both of my hands on his chest.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?”

“Take it easy, Mick. I just thought we should know where we both—”

“You son of a bitch. You killed Raul and all he was doing was working for you! He was trying to help you!”

I wanted to bring my hands up to his neck and choke him out on the spot.

“You’re right about one thing. I am a son of a bitch. But you are wrong about everything else, Mick. Levin wasn’t trying to help me. He was trying to bury me and he was getting too close. He got what he deserved for that.”

I thought about Levin’s last message on my phone at home.I’ve got Jesus’s ticket out of the Q.Whatever it was that he had found, it had gotten him killed. And it had gotten him killed before he could deliver the information to me.

“How did you do it? You’re confessing everything to me here, then I want to know how you did it. How’d you beat the GPS? Your bracelet showed you weren’t even near Glendale.”

He smiled at me, like a boy with a toy he wasn’t going to share.

“Let’s just say that is proprietary information and leave it at that. You never know, I may have to pull the old Houdini act again.”

In his words I heard the threat and in his smile I saw the evil that Raul Levin had seen.

“Don’t get any ideas, Mick,” he said. “As you probably know, I do have an insurance policy.”

I pressed harder against him and leaned in closer.

“Listen, you piece of shit. I want the gun back. You think you have this thing wired? You don’t have shit.I’vegot it wired. And you won’t make it through the week if I don’t get that gun back. You got that?”