The Fifth Witness Part 9

"What do I want? I want to show you that I can play it your way, too. You want to be a hard-a.s.s with me, I can be one with you."

"Meaning what, Haller? What's the quid pro quo?"

I nodded. We were getting down to the deal now.

"You know if I file this tomorrow you are history. The judge will err on the side of the defense. He'll avoid anything that might have any chance of getting him reversed. Besides, he knows there are three hundred able-bodied prosecutors in the DA's office. They can just send in a replacement."

I pointed to the gaggle of reporters a.s.sembled in the hall, most of them still surrounding Herb Dahl.

"You see all of those reporters and all that attention? All of that will go away. Probably the biggest case of your career and it all goes away. No press conferences, no headlines, no spotlight. It all goes to whoever they send in to take your place."

"First of all I will fight this thing and it is not a given that Judge Morales will fall for your bulls.h.i.+t. I will tell him exactly what you are doing. Trying to DA-shop. Trying to get rid of a prosecutor you are flat-out scared of."

"You can tell him all you like but you'll still have to tell the judge-in open court-how it is that my fourteen-year-old daughter was reciting facts of this case back to me at dinner last week."

"That is bulls.h.i.+t. You should be ashamed of using your-"

"What, are you saying that I'm the liar or my daughter is the liar? Because we can bring her into court, too. I'm not so sure your bosses are going to like the spectacle this will cause-or the headlines. You know, DA grills fourteen-year-old, calls the kid a liar. Kind of tawdry, don't you think?"

Freeman turned her back and took a step to walk away from me but then stopped. I knew I had her. She should walk away from me and the case, but she couldn't. She wanted the case and all that it could bring her.

She turned back to me. She looked at me as though I were not even there, as if I were dead.

"Again, what do you want?"

"I'd rather not file this tomorrow. I'd rather just withdraw the motions I had to make to get my client's property back and to see the WestLand doc.u.ments. All I want is cooperation. A friendly give-and-take on discovery. I want it to start flowing now, not later. I don't want to go to the judge every time I want something I'm ent.i.tled to."

"I could complain to the bar about you."

"Good, we can make cross-complaints. They'll investigate both of us and find that only you acted inappropriately by discussing the case with defense counsel's ex-wife and daughter."

"I didn't discuss it with your daughter. She was just there."

"I'm sure the bar will make that distinction."

I let her twist for a moment. It was her move but she needed one final push.

"Oh, and by the way, if I file the motion tomorrow I'll be sure to drop a dime to the Times. Times. Who's their court reporter? Salters? I think she'd find this to be an interesting little side story. A nice exclusive." Who's their court reporter? Salters? I think she'd find this to be an interesting little side story. A nice exclusive."

She nodded as though her predicament had just become crystal clear in front of her.

"Withdraw your motions," she said. "You will have everything you asked for by the end of the day Friday."

"Tomorrow."

"That's not enough time. I have to pull it together and get it copied. The copy shop is always backed up."

"Then Thursday by noon or I file the motion."

"Fine, a.s.shole."

"Good. Once I go through it all, maybe we can start talking about a plea. Thank you, Andy."

"f.u.c.k you, Haller. And there isn't going to be a plea. We've got her nailed and I'm going to be looking at you, not her, when the verdict comes in."

She pivoted and started to walk away, but then turned right back to me.

"And don't call me Andy. You don't get to call me that."

She marched away then, moving in long, angry strides toward the elevator lobby, totally ignoring a reporter who trotted up to her and tried to get a quote.

I knew there would be no plea agreement. My client wouldn't allow it. But I gave Freeman the opening so she could throw it back in my face. I wanted her to go away angry but not that angry. I wanted her to think she had salvaged something. It would make her easier to deal with.

I looked around and saw Lisa waiting dutifully on the bench I had earlier pointed her to. I signaled her to get up.

"Okay, Lisa, let's get out of here."

"But what about Herb? I drove in with him."

"Your car or his?"

"His."

"Then he's fine. My guy will drive you home."

We walked into the elevator alcove. Thankfully, Andrea Freeman had already caught a ride down to the DA's office on the second floor. I pushed the b.u.t.ton but the elevator didn't come soon enough. We were joined by Dahl.

"What, were you leaving without me?"

I didn't respond to his question and quickly dispensed with any guise of civility.

"You know, you're f.u.c.king me up by talking to the media like that. You think you're helping the cause but you're not-unless Herbert Dahl is the cause."

"Whoa, what's with the language? We're in a courthouse."

"I don't care where we are. Do not not speak for my client. Do you understand? If you do it again I'm going to call a press conference and you're not going to like what I have to say about you." speak for my client. Do you understand? If you do it again I'm going to call a press conference and you're not going to like what I have to say about you."

"Fine. That was it. My last press conference. But now I got a question. What's goin' on with all these people I've been sending your way? Some of them called me back and said they were treated pretty rudely by your staff."

"Yeah, you keep sending them and we'll keep treating them that way."

"Hey, I know the business and these are legitimate people."

"The Grind Side."

Dahl looked confused. He looked at Lisa and then back at me.

"What's that mean?"

"The Grind Side. Come on, you mean you haven't heard of Come on, you mean you haven't heard of The Grind Side The Grind Side?"

"You mean The Blind Side The Blind Side? The movie about the lady who adopts the football player?"

"No, I mean The Grind Side. The Grind Side. The movie made by one of the producers you sent over to us. It's about this lady who adopts a football player and then has s.e.x with him three or four times a day. Then when that gets boring she invites the whole football team over. I don't think it made as much money as The movie made by one of the producers you sent over to us. It's about this lady who adopts a football player and then has s.e.x with him three or four times a day. Then when that gets boring she invites the whole football team over. I don't think it made as much money as The Blind Side. The Blind Side."

Lisa was turning pale. I got the feeling that what I was saying about Dahl's Hollywood connections wasn't matching up with what Dahl had been putting in her ears for weeks.

"Yeah, this is what he's doing for you, Lisa. These are the kind of people he wants to put you with."

"Look," Dahl said, "do you have any idea how hard it is to get something going in this town? A project? There are those who can and those who can't. I don't care what the guy made before as long as he can get something going now. You understand? These are legitimate people and I have a lot of money on the line here, Haller."

An elevator finally arrived. I directed Lisa onto it but then put my hand on Dahl's chest and slowly pushed him away from the door.

"Just back off, Dahl. You'll get your money and then some. But you just back off."

I stepped into the elevator and turned to make sure Dahl didn't attempt to jump on at the last moment. He didn't try it, but he didn't move either. I held his hateful stare until the doors closed on it.

Nine.

We moved into our new offices on Sat.u.r.day morning. It was a three-room suite in a building at Victory and Van Nuys Boulevards. The place was even called the Victory Building, which I liked. It was also fully furnished and only two blocks from the courthouse where Lisa Trammel would face trial.

All hands were on deck to help with the move. Including Rojas, who wore a T-s.h.i.+rt and baggies, showing off the tattoos that completely covered his arms and legs. I didn't know which was more shocking, seeing the tattoos or seeing Rojas in anything other than the suit he always wore while driving me.

The setup in the new place was that I got my own office while Cisco and Aronson shared the other, larger office and Lorna anch.o.r.ed the reception area in between. Going from the backseat of a Lincoln to an office with ten-foot ceilings, a full desk and a nap couch was a big change. The first thing I did upon settling in was to use the open s.p.a.ce and polished wood floor to spread out the eight-hundred-plus pages of discovery doc.u.ments I had received from Andrea Freeman.

Most of it was from WestLand and a lot of it was filler. It was Freeman's pa.s.sive-aggressive response to being maneuvered by the defense. There were dozens of pages and packets on bank policy and procedures and other forms I didn't need. These all went into one pile. There were also copies of all communications that went directly to Lisa Trammel, most of which I already had and was familiar with. These went into a second pile. And finally, there were copies of internal bank communications as well as communications between the victim, Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant, and the outside company the bank used to carry out its foreclosures.

This company was called ALOFT and I was already quite familiar with it because it was my adversary on at least a third of my foreclosure cases. ALOFT was a mill, a company that filed and tracked all doc.u.ments required in the lengthy foreclosure process. It was a go-between that allowed bankers and other lenders to keep their hands clean in the dirty business of taking people's homes away from them. Companies like ALOFT got the job done without the bank's so much as having to send a letter to the customer faced with foreclosure.

It was this stack of correspondence that I was most interested in, and it was here that I found the doc.u.ment that would change the course of the case.

I moved behind my desk, sat down and studied the phone. There were more b.u.t.tons on it than I would ever have use for. I finally found the intercom b.u.t.ton for the other office and pushed it.

"h.e.l.lo?"

Nothing. I pushed it again.

"Cisco? Bullocks? Are you there?"

Nothing. I got up and started toward the door, intent on communicating with my staff the old-fas.h.i.+oned way, when a response finally came over the phone's speaker.

"Mickey, is that you?"

It was Cisco's voice. I hurried back to the desk and pushed the b.u.t.ton.

"Yeah, it's me. Can you come in here? And bring Bullocks."

"Roger and out."

A few minutes later my investigator and a.s.sociate counsel entered.

"Hey, Boss?" Cisco asked, looking at the stacks of doc.u.ments on the floor. "The point of the office is to put stuff in drawers and file cabinets and up on shelves."

"I'll get around to it," I said. "Shut the door and have a seat."

Once we were all in place, I looked at them across my big rented desk and laughed.

"This is weird," I said.

"I could get used to it, having an office," Cisco said. "But Bullocks doesn't know from nothing."

"Yes, I do," Aronson protested. "Last summer I interned at Shandler, Ma.s.sey and Ortiz and I had my own own office." office."

"Well, maybe next time you get your own with us," I said. "So now, down to business. Cisco, did you get the laptop to your guy?"

"Yeah, dropped it off yesterday morning. I told him it was a rush job."

We were talking about Lisa's laptop, which had been returned by the DA's office along with her cell phone and the four boxes of doc.u.ments.

"And he's going to be able to tell us what the DA was looking at?"

"He said he'll be able to provide a list of the files they opened and how long they were opened. From that we should be able to get an idea of what they paid attention to. But don't get your hopes up."

"Why?"

"Because Freeman gave in on this way too easily. I don't think she would've given us back the computer if it was that important to her."

"Maybe."

Neither he nor Aronson was aware of the deal I made with Freeman or the leverage I had used. I turned my attention to Aronson. After she completed the motions to suppress earlier in the week I had put her on backgrounding the victim. This came after Cisco had picked up some preliminary indications in his investigations that all was not well in Mitch.e.l.l Bondurant's personal world.

"Bullocks, what've you got on our victim?"

"Well, there's still a lot I need to check out, but there's no doubt that he was heading over the falls. Financially, that is."

"How so?"

"Well, when the going was good and the financing came easy, he was a definite player in the real estate market. Between oh-two and oh-seven he bought and flipped twenty-one properties, mostly residential real estate. Made good money and plowed it back into bigger deals. Then the economy tanked and he was caught holding the bag."

"He was upside-down?"