Page 5 of The Proving Ground

THE ENTRANCE TOthe CCB was across the street and down a half block from the federal courthouse. On my way, I called my investigator, Cisco Wojciechowski, who had stuck with me during the transition from criminal to civil practice even though there was a steep drop-off in the work I required from him. He answered the phone with a question instead of a greeting.

“How’d we do?”

“The judge took both motions under advisement and will issue her rulings Monday.”

“Damn. You want me to call Patel? He was hoping to know today.”

“No, I’ll call him. I want you to run somebody down for me.”

“A witness?”

“No, a writer. Jack McEvoy. He wants to help us.”

“Help us how?”

“He writes about technology. Has a blog or a Substack or whatever you call it these days. He’s also written books. He wants to be a fly on the wall—our wall—and then write a book about the case,with the larger story being about unchecked AI. He says in exchange, he’ll be part of the team and help us weed through the discovery download.”

“Mick, you really want to bring a stranger into this? That’s risky.”

I was at Temple Street, waiting to cross, and I did my usual turnaround to see if anyone was behind me. Tidalwaiv had massive resources in this fight and billions at stake. The company’s founder, Victor Wendt, had promised stockholders at the last board meeting that this case would go away quietly and inexpensively. But here I was, pushing it toward trial. I constantly felt that I was being watched.

There was no one behind me. At least no one that I could see.

“That’s why I want you to check him out,” I said. “He’s got three books he said were all bestsellers.”

“You got the titles?” Cisco asked.

“I just remember the last one.Fair Warning.That’s also the name of his—”

“Oh, I know this guy. Lorna loves his stuff.”

Lorna was my office manager. She was also Cisco’s wife and my ex-wife. But somehow it worked.

“There you go,” I said. “I just want to know if I can trust him enough to bring him inside the wire. We’re drowning in technical discovery. It would help to have another pair of eyes, especially if he truly knows his shit.”

“I’m on it,” Cisco said. “Where are you headed now?”

“The CCB to see if I can get in to see Maggie.”

“You got the black box with you?”

“I have it.”

“A homecoming in criminal court. Good luck with that.”

“I’m probably going to need it.”

I disconnected and headed across Temple to the main entrance of the Criminal Courts Building. There were a lot of things I missedabout the place, but the elevators were not one of them. They were just as slow and crowded as I remembered from the years I had toiled in this building’s hallways and courtrooms. Once I was through the security checkpoint and metal detector—during which I had to explain what the black box in my briefcase was—it took me almost half an hour to get up to the sixteenth floor and the office of the Los Angeles County district attorney. I went to the reception counter, identified myself, and explained that I had no appointment but wished to see the district attorney. I said I wanted to talk to her about her daughter because I knew that would get me in.

The seats in the waiting area were plastic on chrome legs, a style that had gone out of fashion a couple of decades earlier. But they had endured, like most of the furnishings of the building, and did the job. I was in one of those chairs for twenty minutes before I was invited back by the receptionist. This moved me to another waiting room outside the DA’s actual office. This time, the chair was a little more comfortable and even had a cushion, threadbare though it was. And this time the wait was only ten minutes. I was granted entrance to the inner sanctum, where my first ex-wife, Maggie McPherson, fresh from her installment as the duly elected DA, sat at a large desk with a row of flags lining the wall behind her. She had won the office in a special election. The previous DA had resigned abruptly after theLos Angeles Timesunearthed and published a series of texts he had written that exposed his racial biases.

I spread my arms, holding up my briefcase.

“Wow,” I said. “Maggie McFierce on top of the world.”

“Well, on top of this world, maybe,” she said. “I was wondering when you would just pop in, although using our daughter to sleaze your way in was a little unexpected.”

“Sleaze my way in? All I said was I wanted to talk to you about her. How is she doing?”