by John Decure
“Why are we stopping?” Rudy said from the backseat, his first words since we’d left Nepenthe.
“Lock the doors and stay in the car,” I said. I patted my hand beneath my car seat until I felt the bill of the New York Yankees ball cap I keep stashed for those bad hair mornings that sometimes follow a surf session. “I’ll be right back.”
Jogging back up the road, I found an opening in the fence and cut through a flat, muddy meadow pocked with wild grass. The bluffs ringing the beach were sunny but severely windblown. Twenty feet below, an army of elephant seals lounged and slept and made happy with one another, seemingly oblivious of the spectacle they represented. A smattering of onlookers milled about the scene, tilting into the wind as they snapped picture after picture. A little to the south, a young couple stood alone on a narrow bluff-top. Beneath them, two of the biggest specimens on the beach were locked in battle, slamming chests at the waterline. The young man appeared to be riveted by the action.
I walked up beside them and peered down onto the beach.
“Fuckin’ unbelievable!” the guy cried. “You gotta get that on film!” His gal began snapping away, then looked over at the guy in the pulled-down Yankees cap.
“Hey, man,” she said. “How ’bout a picture of us together?”
I reached for the camera she was handing me. “Sure.”
Angie and Carlito locked arm in arm on the bluff. “Smile,” I said, squeezing off a few. I studied the camera, a nice Panasonic reflex that I figured was Rudy’s. “This isn’t yours,” I said, slipping it into my jacket pocket.
“Hey what the fuck, man?” Angie said.
Then I took off my cap. “Not that I need a reason,” I said to Carlito, stepping into him fast, “but this is for Dale.” I slapped his ear with an open left hand and caught his fall with a solid right.
Carlito groped on his knees, his mouth drooling blood, and he actually smiled as if he would savor kicking my ass. He swung first, hard and fast, catching a piece of my shoulder but little else. “Come on, man!” he screamed.
I saw the red oozing through my jacket before I felt any pain where I’d been cut. The little shit was clutching a box cutter, wobbling before me like a drunken boxer. Then a blast of dirt hit the side of my head, temporarily blinding me.
Angie’s mistake was to jump on my back. That tight little body of hers couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, and with my one good eye on a rushing Carlito, I flipped her over my shoulder and flat across his chest.
Now, when I gave my report to the police in Cambria later that day, I did tell the reporting ofricer—who at this point in the story was giving me what looked like the official stink-eye—“Hey, please understand, I don’t ever hit females.” And since technically I’d flung Angie like a sack of potatoes into her charging boyfriend, I felt I hadn’t violated this section of my personal code. But that was it for my little editorial with the cop, because I don’t have any rule about pushing a girl over a bluff and onto a pile of horny elephant seals. Or the girl’s boyfriend.
No violations there, either.
Twenty-seven
Reginald Hewitt liked a table in the south-west corner of the Tower restaurant for lunch, according to the hostess I bribed with a twenty to seat me at the next one over. He apparently ate lunch alone most days, reading a book or simply watching the traffic flow by down below on the Santa Monica Freeway. I got there twenty minutes before his 1 P.M. reservation and settled in with an iced tea, a copy of the Times, and the evidence file Duke Choi had put together for me. The view from atop the Transamerica Tower thirty-two floors up was too good to pass up, a stout westerly blowing the usual smog dome farther inland today. I put down the paper, checking my watch every few minutes beneath the white tablecloth, sat back, and through the ceiling-to-floor glass followed an endless procession of big jets floating down like paper gliders as they headed for LAX.
I let the chief settle in and order his meal before making my move.
“Mr. Shepard,” he said, recognizing me instantly. He was a thin, well-kept black man with a long face and professorial black-rimmed glasses. Despite his age, which I figured to be around sixty, his short Afro was still shiny black, but he’d lost a large tract of hair behind his forehead.
“Please excuse me for interrupting your lunch.”
“I hope you’re not here to argue for a raise.” He almost smiled.
“I’m sorry about missing the meeting with you and Ms. Horton.”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t think of what to say next. “You’re not in trouble with the police?” he asked.
“The fire?” I said. He nodded. “No, sir. I’ve been working with a detective on the Glendale force regarding the unauthorized-practice-of-law operation that was going on before the place burned down. He says there’s no evidence that I did anything but pull a dead man out of the building. Which is the truth.”
“Mr. Silver. He was already dead?” I told him yes.
Chief Hewitt sipped from a tall glass of ice water. “So, what is this about?”
“I have a problem,” I said, “and it’s not what you might think.”
He’d brought a book called Devil in a Blue Dress with him, and he fiddled with a bookmark before closing it. Then he took his glasses off and rubbed his liver-spotted forehead. A waiter passed by slowly, probably wondering if I was hassling the chief and should be shooed away. But Hewitt gave no such signal.
“You’re not here to ask me to get you reinstated?” he said.
My shoulder was stiff where I’d been stabbed and my head was pounding from lack of sleep. Yet this was it, the moment to either close him, or be closed out.
“No, sir,” I said. “I mean, not until I’ve won you over completely.”
The chief didn’t laugh. I felt like a crash-test dummy strapping in for another run.
“Join me,” he said.
I started in with my story as soon as the waitress took our orders and went away. I don’t think I looked up once the next twenty minutes. The chief listened carefully, absorbing each layer of detail with a nod and another new question for me. When I finished, he sat back and twirled the straw in his ice water.
The bandage on my shoulder itched like hell beneath my white shirt. I tugged at my tie, which seemed to be strangling me.
“Well, I agree with you,” he said after a time. “It’s a problem. But it’s my problem too, now that you told me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“On the other hand, that does not mean that I trust you to know what to do here.” A waiter with a silver teapot glided by our table. Hewitt waited until the man was gone. “We’re going to catch holy hell for this, you know. Lot of successful people involved. They’ll fight like tigers, call it a witch-hunt. Use the press on us the way they’ve done to you already.”
“We’ve got the facts on our side.”
Hewitt sighed. “Not all of them.” He wiped his mouth and dropped his white linen napkin on the table. “I brought Skip Greuber in myself. He had worked under me at the DA’s office in Major Frauds.” The chief paused, then tossed off a quiet little gallows laugh. “The board of govs will want my head on a platter.”
The board of governors is the elected and appointed panel that directs the agency. The chief spends a good chunk of his time answering to them for everything from day-to-day staff productivity to general policy issues.
He leaned forward, extending a gnarled finger. “We’ve got to stop that disciplinary evaluation committee in its tracks. I’ve been on the phone with general counsel in Sacramento. Webb’s capitol cronies are using Abernathy’s claims to stir up a lot of antibar sentiment, way more than the usual rhetoric. If it keeps up, he thinks it may give Webb the courage to veto our dues budget when it hits his desk later this year. That happens, we’ll be shut down completely.” He took a drink of water. “Assuming you go back to work tomorrow, how long to file a notice of disciplinary charges against Mr. Abernathy?”
“
A case like this will take a little time,” I said. “Thirty days, at least.”
“That won’t do. They’ll grind us down in the meantime.”
I had an idea. “What about an interim suspension order? Give me an investigator, I could get an interim suspension petition and some declarations together, file the thing by next week, ask for an ex parte hearing within twenty-four hours, we’d be in business.”
“An ISO,” he said, using the more common abbreviation. “Interesting .”
An ISO is what you want the judge to issue against the offending lawyer after you’ve made your pitch. The Business and Professions Code allows the bar to file a petition asking the court to suspend an accused attorney immediately and until the disciplinary case is filed and decided. To prevail, the bar must demonstrate both that they would be likely to prevail in the underlying case, and that the ongoing harm to the public would be greater if the lawyer was not suspended by an ISO than if he was. Evidence supporting the petition is confined to written witness declarations, which means the damn things take a lot of work to put together. Because of the dual thresholds of proof and the labor-intensive nature of the beast, not many ISO petitions get filed—or granted—but there is no better way to take a dangerous lawyer out of commission in a hurry.
Chief Hewitt studied the tablecloth, his chin down. “How are you gonna show there’s a likelihood of ongoing harm to the public? The Glendale office is burned down. No more investment seminars, no more UPL with the daily walk-ins either.”
I went into the file and located the flyer that Tamango Perry had given me, spreading the wrinkled edges flat with my hand. “This could be the next operation. If we can show they’re poised to do it again, then it’s ongoing. I called the number this morning. Apparently the attorney position is still open.”
“Can you do the interview yourself?”
“No way. They know me.”
“Of course they would.” Hewitt massaged the bridge of his nose where his glasses had left an indentation. “How about one of our investigators?”
“I don’t think it’ll work. My guess is they’re using Skip Greuber to verify bar numbers, since an active bar number to stick on pleadings is what they need the most. He’d know something’s wrong if we used a bogus number. He does, they’ll probably fold in no time and move on to another property somewhere else. We might not find out about it for months.”
“Until a new batch of complaints rolls in,” Hewitt said.
A busboy in a white uniform appeared with coffee, but we waved him off. I remembered Dale’s description of his job interview and, rather suddenly, saw the problem in a way I hadn’t yet come close to considering. “I’ve heard this Mr. Julian character is a Hollywood wannabe.”
The chief brightened. “Didn’t you say Mr. Pasqual’s offshore company is in the movie-production business?”
“That’s right. So, what if we were to do a two-for-one on Mr. Julian? We get an attorney who looks like she ought to be in pictures to do the interview. She tells him she’s a lawyer, but what she really wants to do is act.”
“The old L.A. cliché.”
“But it’s a good fit,” I said. “He’d want to know why she’s out of the loop professionally anyway. That’s exactly what they look for when they hire.”
“Someone who’d be happy to stay out of the way, take a check every now and then for doing absolutely nothing.”
I pictured the setup. “During the interview, she could voice the usual struggling-actress aspirations. Julian the wannabe ought to warm right up—he gets to be the big know-it-all with a beautiful young woman. He’ll be running off at the mouth in no time.”
The chief paused. “I like it.” Then he frowned. “Where we gonna get a beautiful young lawyer who ought to be in pictures?”
Outside, the sun beat down on bending rows of shining cars streaming every which way. “Mr. Shepard?” I heard the chief say.
“Yes, sir?”
I was still picturing Dick Nixon sweating bullets all those years ago, caught off guard by the visual wonders of a single fawning Girl Scout.
“My feet hurt,” Therese Rozypal whispered over her shoulder. We were seated at adjacent booths in a chain steak house just off the San Bernardino Freeway, somewhere about fifty miles inland in the vicinity of Pomona.
“I’m telling you, the shoes are worth it,” I whispered back. “They really put a bow on the package, if you know what I mean.” I was talking about the shiny black pumps she’d shown me this morning before scrunching into her little Mazda Miata for a noisy drive out here from Newport Beach.
“Yes, J., I know what you mean. Your eyes back in their sockets yet?”
“They haven’t quite recovered. That’s why I’m over here, facing the other way.”
She wore a tight-fitting black dress, sleeveless with a cream-colored front panel. Far too racy for an attorney interview, but her line for Mr. Julian would be that she had an audition later, reading for a postmodern Audrey Hepburn-type role. Cherry red lipstick, a pile of wavy blond locks swimming down her back. When she walked in, half the noontime bar patrons across the room nearly fell off their stools craning for a perve.
The waitress working our section stopped at both of our booths and got blown off twice, muttering as she retreated toward the kitchen.
“Should I order when he gets here?” Therese asked, sounding a tad anxious to get on with matters.
“Only if he asks you to eat with him. Just let him take the lead.”
“Don’t look now.”
I had a perfect view of the hostess’s station near the door but could see no one coming.
“Well, hey there, honey,” a male voice boomed. “Mind if I join you for a drink? I’m buying.”
What I saw from my booth at a one-quarter turn was tan loafers, cuffed gray slacks, a jaw hanging open like a gumball dispenser, and a lot of nervous energy. He must have come over from the bar, because two other young gents in shirts and ties were looking on from their barstools as if they’d already placed bets on the outcome.
“Hi. Sorry, I’m waiting for someone.” Therese’s tone was terse. “But thank you for asking.” Ah, better, I thought. Stay loose for the interview.
“Aw, c’mon, just a teensie-weensie little old drink. Now how can that hurt?”
“No thank you. As I said, I’m waiting—”
“For who?” Busting a gut now. “Hell, why worry about it? Whoever the lucky guy is, he ain’t here yet. Waiter?” he barked at a passing busboy, puzzling the guy. “One lousy drink, that’s all,” he said to Therese. “What’ll it be?”
“I’d like you to leave,” Therese said, her voice shaky. Suddenly I felt rotten about asking her to get dolled up this way. No wonder she usually downplayed her looks. Who would want to put up with this kind of crap all day?
“Tell you what, lemme just sit down with you a minute and maybe we can just talk, get acquainted.”
That was it. I wasn’t going to let this goofball blow Therese’s calm all to hell before Julian even arrived. But before I could get out of my booth, she took over.
“Listen, pal,” she said in a low, even voice, “I tried polite and polite didn’t work, so now I’m gonna tell you, if you don’t turn around and walk away right now, you’ll get a shot of Mace in the eyes, which means you won’t be able to see me when I start scratching your face off. And I will.”
“Hey, okay, I didn’t—”
“Now, I really don’t want to do that to you right in front of your buddies,” she went on, “so why don’t we both just smile a lot while you head on back to the bar, hmm?”
“Hey, well, nice meeting you,” he said, stumbling over a chair leg in the midst of a rapid backpedal. “You have yourself a fine afternoon.”
“Nice,” I whispered to Therese when he had gone. “You’re pretty resourceful.”
“What did you expect? Just ’cause I’m dressed like a bimbo doesn’t mean I am one.”
I checked my watch. Five till
noon, the interview about to happen. Hoping Therese’s shoes weren’t hurting her too badly, when I saw the open black shirt and gold chains coming straight my way. He was much as Dale Bleeker had described him, all the way down to the cell phone on his ear.
“Okay babe. Ciao.” Chirping a fake kiss over the line, then gliding past my elbow, jaw loosening, apparently not yet believing his good fortune. “Well, hell-low.”
They exchanged overly friendly greetings.
“I’m Mr. Julian.”
“Charmed. Nico Reed.”
The real Nicolette Reed had died of brain cancer at twenty-nine five days earlier. Chief Hewitt had gotten her name from the bar’s Membership Records Department, driven to the funeral down in Santa Ana by himself, and asked the parents for permission to use her name this day. They had said fine. Their daughter had just passed the bar exam last summer but was already too sick to go to work. This way, they felt, at least she might be able to leave behind some small legal legacy. Therese, in a gesture of respect for the dead, told me she’d be shortening the name to Nico during her interview. It turned out to be a fortuitous move.
“Nee-co,” Julian said, savoring the sound of it. “How enchanting.” Therese giggled. In a mirror behind the bar, I caught his reflection as he leaned over and kissed the back of her hand—Christ, what a showman. “So tell me, what is Nee-co short for?”
“I’ll give you three guesses.”
“Hmm. How about nee-co-tine?” Tossing off a carefree chuckle. “It’s addictive. And I’ve got a feeling you are, too.”
I cringed from my lonely station next door.
Therese tittered, playing it to the hilt. “Close enough,” she said, “close enough. Now it’s your turn. What about Julian, is it a first or a last name?”
“What if I told you it was … a middle name?” More lighthearted guffaws.
“Really? You mean it?”
“I’m not lying, I swear. My first name is … no, I really don’t want to relive any of this.”
“Oh, come on, tell me.” The lilt in her voice calculated to melt any man’s resolve.
