The Fifth Witness Part 32

She reached up and patted down my tie and adjusted the collar on my suit coat.

"Okay, I get it. You do what you have to do, but call me tonight, okay? I want to know where things stand at the end of the day."

"If there's time, Lisa. If I'm not too tired, I will call."

I looked over her shoulder at Dahl, who stood two feet behind her. I actually needed the guy at the moment.

"Herb, take care of her. Get her home so I can go back to work."

"I've got her," he said. "No worries."

Right, no worries. I had the whole case to worry about and I couldn't help but worry about my client going off with the man I just sent her with. Was Dahl for real or was he just protecting his investment? I watched them head off across the plaza toward the parking garage. I then walked past the library and north toward my office. I was probably more excited about the possibilities that had dropped into my lap than Lisa was. I just wasn't showing it. You never show your cards unless your opponent has called the final bet.

When I got back to the office I was still floating on adrenaline. The pure, high-octane form that comes with the unexpected twist in your favor. Cisco and Bullocks were waiting for me when I entered. They both started talking at once and I had to raise my hands to cut them both off.

"Hold on, hold on," I said. "One at a time and I go first. Perry adjourned early so the state could jump on the target letter. We need to be ready for their best shot in the morning because I want to get it before the jury. Cisco, now you, what've you got? Tell me about the letter."

My momentum, carried all the way from the courthouse, took us into my office and I went behind the desk. The seat was warm and I could tell someone had been working there all afternoon.

"Okay," Cisco said. "We confirmed the letter was legit. The U.S. Attorney's Office wouldn't talk to us, but I found out that the Secret Service agent who's named in the letter, Charles Vasquez, is a.s.signed to a joint task force with the FBI that is looking into all angles of mortgage fraud in the Southern California district. Remember last year when all the big banks temporarily halted foreclosures and everybody in Congress said they would investigate?"

"Yeah, I thought I was going out of business. Until the banks started foreclosing again."

"Yeah, well, one of the investigations that did get going was right here. Lattimore put together this task force."

Reggie Lattimore was the U.S. attorney a.s.signed to the district. I knew him years ago when he was a public defender. He later switched sides and became a federal prosecutor and we moved in different orbits. I tried to stay away from the federal courthouse. I saw him from time to time at lunch counters downtown.

"Okay, he won't talk to us. What about Vasquez?"

"I tried him, too. I got him on the line, but as soon as he knew what it was about he had no comment. I called back a second time and he just hung up on me. I think if we want to talk to him we're going to have to paper him."

I knew from experience that trying to serve a subpoena on a federal agent could be like fis.h.i.+ng without a hook on the end of your line. If they don't want to be papered they'll be able to avoid it.

"We might not have to," I said. "The judge adjourned early so the prosecution could run the letter down. My guess is she'll bring either Lattimore or Vasquez in and put him on before we can do it. Then she can try to spin it her way."

"She won't want this to blow up in her face during the defense phase," Aronson added, like the seasoned trial veteran she was not. "And the best way to guard against that is to bring Vasquez in as a witness herself."

"What do we know about this task force?" I asked.

"I don't have anybody inside," Cisco said. "But I've got someone close enough to know what is going on. The task force is obviously very political. The thinking was that there is so much fraud out there, it would be like shooting fish and they could grab headlines and look like they were doing something on their end about the whole mess. Opparizio is a perfect target: rich, arrogant and Republican. Whatever they are working in regard to him, it's just starting and hasn't gone very deep."

"Doesn't matter," I said. "The target letter is all we need. It will make Bondurant's letter look like a legitimate threat."

"Do you really think this is what happened or are we just using this coincidence to deflect the jury's attention?" Aronson asked.

She was still standing even though Cisco and I had sat down. There was something symbolic about it. As if by not sitting down with us as we schemed this out, she was not buying in or selling her soul.

"It doesn't matter, Bullocks," I said. "We have one job here and that's to put a not guilty on the scoreboard. How we get there..."

I didn't need to finish. I could see in her face that she was continuing to have difficulty with the lessons taught outside the cla.s.sroom. I turned back to Cisco.

"So who leaked the letter to us?"

"That I don't know," he said. "I kind of doubt it was Vasquez. He acted too surprised and edgy on the phone. I'm thinking somebody in the U.S. Attorney's Office."

I agreed.

"Maybe Lattimore himself. If we're lucky enough to get Opparizio on the stand, it might actually help the feds to have him locked into some sworn testimony."

Cisco nodded. It was as good a possibility as anything else. I moved on.

"Cisco," I said, "the text you sent me in the courtroom said you had something unrelated to this to tell me."

"To show you. We need to take a ride when we're finished here."

"Where?"

"I'd rather just show you."

I could tell by the way his face froze that he wasn't going to talk in front of Bullocks. It didn't matter that she was a trusted part of the team. I got the message and turned back to her.

"Bullocks, you wanted to say something when I first came in?"

"Uh, no, I just wanted to talk about my testimony. But we have a few days before we need to touch base. I guess we should just stay in the moment."

"You sure? I can talk."

"No, go with Cisco. Maybe we'll get some time tomorrow."

I could tell that something in the initial conversation was bothering her. I let it go and got up from my desk. I felt sympathy for her but not too much. Idealism dies hard with everybody.

Thirty.

I drove the Lincoln because Cisco had ridden his motorcycle to work. He directed me north on Van Nuys Boulevard. drove the Lincoln because Cisco had ridden his motorcycle to work. He directed me north on Van Nuys Boulevard.

"Is this about Lisa's husband?" I asked. "You found him?"

"Uh, no, not about that. It's about the two guys in the garage, Boss."

"The guys who attacked me? You connected them to Opparizio?"

"Yes and no. It's about them, but it's not connected to Opparizio."

"Then who the h.e.l.l sent them after me?"

"Herb Dahl."

"What? You gotta be s.h.i.+tting me."

"I wish."

I looked over at my investigator. I completely trusted him but wasn't seeing the logic in Dahl's putting the two goons on me. We'd had the dispute over movie control and money, but how would busting my ribs and twisting my nuts help him in that regard? At the time of the attack, I had just found out he had made the deal with McReynolds. I got mugged before I could even register a protest.

"You better run this down for me, Cisco."

"I can't really do that yet. That's why we're in the car."

"Then talk to me. What's going on? I'm in the middle of trial here."

"Okay, you told me you didn't trust Dahl and that I should check him out. I did. I also had a couple of my guys start to keep an eye on him."

"By your guys you mean Saints?"

"That's right."

Once upon a time, long before he married Lorna, Cisco was with the Road Saints, a motorcycle club that was somewhere on the spectrum between the h.e.l.l's Angels and the Shriners' clowns on wheels. He managed to retire from members.h.i.+p without a criminal record and now maintained an a.s.sociation with the club. For a long time I did, too, serving as house counsel and handling various traffic, brawling and drug offenses that distracted the members.h.i.+p. That was how I had first met Cisco. He was running security investigations for the club and I started using him on the criminal cases that came up. The rest was history.

On more than one occasion over the years Cisco had enlisted the Saints on my behalf. I even credit them with saving my family from potential harm when I was involved in the Louis Roulet case. So it was not a surprise to me that he had called on them again, except that he hadn't bothered to clue me in.

"Why didn't you tell me this?"

"I didn't want to complicate things for you. You had the case to worry about. I was handling the two dirtbags who messed you up."

By messed up he meant more than physically. He was keeping me out of things because he knew that sometimes the psychological beating you take is worse than the physical. He didn't want me distracted or looking over my shoulder.

"Okay, I get it," I said.

Cisco reached inside his black-leather riding vest and pulled out a folded photograph. He handed it to me and I waited until I stopped at the light at Roscoe before I looked. I unfolded it and saw a picture of Herb Dahl getting into a car with the two black-gloved a.s.sailants who had so expertly put me down on the floor of the parking garage by the Victory Building.

"Recognize them?" Cisco asked.

"Yeah, it's them," I said, anger rising in my throat. "f.u.c.king Dahl, I'm going to kick his f.u.c.king a.s.s."

"Maybe. Turn left here. We're going to the compound."

I looked over my shoulder and squeezed the car into the turning lane just as the light changed and I got the signal. We headed west and I had to flip down the visor against the dropping sun. By compound I knew he meant the Saints' clubhouse, which was near the brewery on the other side of the 405 Freeway. It had been a while since I had been there.

"When was that photo taken?" I asked.

"While you were in the hospital. They didn't-"

"You've been sitting on this since then?"

"Relax. I wasn't checking with my guys every day, okay? They also didn't know about your a.s.s getting kicked. So they saw Dahl with these guys, took a couple of pictures and never showed them to me because they didn't print them out for more than a month. It was a f.u.c.kup, I know, but these guys aren't pros. They're lazy. I take responsibility for it. So if you need to blame someone, blame me. I saw the photo for the first time last night. The other thing is my guys told me they didn't get it with the camera but they also saw Dahl give both of these a.s.sholes a roll of cash. So I think it's pretty clear. He hired them to kick your a.s.s, Mick."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h."

I was seized with the same sense of helplessness I had felt when one of the a.s.sailants had pinned my arms and held me while the other one hit me with his gloved fists. I felt sweat popping on my scalp. And sympathetic pain throbbed in my ribs and t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es.

"If I ever get a chance to-"

I stopped and looked across the seat at Cisco. He had a slight smile playing on his face.

"Is that what this is? You have these two guys at the clubhouse?"

He didn't answer but he kept the smile.

"Cisco, I'm in the middle of a trial and now you're telling me the guy who has his fingers in my client's pie is the one who set me up for that... that a.s.sault? I don't have time for this, man. I have too much-"

"They want to talk."

That shut my protest down quick.

"Did you interview them?"

"Nope. Waiting for you. Thought you should get first crack at them."

I drove in silence the rest of the way, pondering what lay ahead. Soon we pulled to a stop in front of a compound on the east side of the brewery. Cisco got out to open the gate and the car immediately became infected with the sour smell of the brewery.

The compound was surrounded by a chain-link fence with a twist of razor wire running along top. The concrete-block clubhouse, which sat in the middle of the hardscrabble lot, looked unimpressive in comparison to the gleaming row of machines parked out front. Harleys and Triumphs only. No rice rockets for this crew.

We entered the clubhouse, took a moment to let our eyes adjust and then I saw Cisco walk up to a serve-yourself bar where two other men in leather vests sat on stools.

"Ready to do this?" he said.

The two men spun off their stools and stood up. Both of them went an easy six foot four and three hundred pounds. They were enforcers. Cisco introduced them to me as Tommy Guns and Bam Bam.

"They're back here," said Tommy Guns.

The two men led us down a hallway behind the bar. They were so big they had to walk in single file. There were doors on either side. Bam Bam opened a door midway down the right side and we entered a windowless room with the walls and ceiling painted black and a single bulb hanging from above. In the dim light I could see sketches painted on the walls. Men with beards and long hair. I realized this was like a dark chapel where the fallen Saints were memorialized. My first thought as I looked about was Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction. My second was that I didn't want to be here. Two men were lying on the floor hog-tied, with their arms and feet up behind their backs. They had black bags over their heads. My second was that I didn't want to be here. Two men were lying on the floor hog-tied, with their arms and feet up behind their backs. They had black bags over their heads.

Bam Bam leaned down and started to pull the bags off. This started a chorus of groans and fearful sounds from the two men.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Cisco, I can't be here. You're bringing me into-"

"Is it them?" Cisco said, not waiting for me to finish my protest. "Look closely. You don't want to make a mistake."

"Me? It's not my mistake! I didn't ask you to do this!"

"Calm down. You're here, so just look. Is it them?"