The Highway Kind(16)

“You dumb shit,” the man said. “I don’t have any wife or daughter.”

And then it hit me—he wasn’t a grieving father or husband of a victim. He was a client. I didn’t recognize him from a courtroom gallery; I knew him from the defense table. We had sat next to each other through a trial and now I couldn’t remember his name or his case to save my life.

“So, another satisfied customer,” I said. “You’re going to have to tell me who you are. I know I should recognize you, but over the years I’ve had a lot of clients and a lot of trials. I know you from a trial but I am sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

I glanced at the rearview and saw Cisco’s eyes looking back at me. We were merging onto the 101 heading north, like the man wanted.

“I’m just a burnt match to you,” the man said. “That’s what you called me.”

That didn’t help me conjure up the name.

“I never called you that,” I said. “What I said was that some of these cases—like yours, I assume—are hopeless. They put me in a position where I’m basically trying to sell burnt matches to the jury. And no one buys burnt matches. So you’re here because you blame me for losing your unwinnable case.”

“No, man, that’s not how it was.”

“Yeah, it was. I don’t remember your name or your case but I guarantee it was a dog. I told you to take the offer from the DA and you said no. You insisted on a trial even though I told you—I warned you—that we couldn’t win and you’d end up with more time. Now tell me that isn’t what happened.”

The man angrily shifted in his seat and momentarily turned his face from me and looked out the window. It was so unexpected I didn’t react. I missed the chance to go for the gun.

Still, it told me two things: one, I was right about the case, and two, he might make the same turn-away move again if I pushed him hard enough. The next time I’d be ready to go for the gun.

We were moving on the 101 at a brisk pace. It was the middle of the day and traffic was light. We had already gotten to Hollywood. As we passed a green freeway sign announcing the exit to Hollywood Boulevard, the man shook his head.

“Hollywood,” he said. “I mean, you fuck up people’s lives and what happens? They make a movie about you. Matthew fucking McConaughey. They showed that shit one night at Corcoran. I’m watching it and I hear the lawyer’s name and I’m thinking, That guy’s playing my motherfucking lawyer. The guy who fucking put me here.”

I didn’t have many clients that ended up in Corcoran but it still didn’t bring the name to mind.

“Are you going to tell me who you are or are we just going to keep playing a guessing game?”

“Oscar Letts.”

I recalled the name and soon the general outline of the case came back to me.

“Remember me now?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Felony hit-and-run manslaughter. You were drunk and the lady you hit was the wife of a sheriff’s deputy. No, actually, he was a captain.”

“I wasn’t drunk. I’d had two beers!”

“That’s what you said. The bartender they brought into court said different.”

“Because she was forced to by the sheriffs—they were going to close her down. I went away for nine years. I had a house and a wife and a kid and I lost it all. You didn’t fight for me, Haller, you didn’t do shit. You didn’t care at all.”

“This is ridiculous.”

I leaned forward and reached down to my briefcase.

“What the fuck you doing?” Letts said.

He put the muzzle of the gun against my head.

“My computer,” I said. “I want to pull up the file.”

“Give me the briefcase,” Letts said. “I’ll get the computer.”

I slid the case over the transmission hump to him. He pulled the gun back and brought the case up to his lap. As he flipped the locks one at a time and opened the case I stole another glance at Cisco in the mirror. We held each other’s eyes for a long moment. He shook his head slightly. I think he was telling me he didn’t bring his gun. I slowly nodded once. I hoped he knew what I was saying: I was going to make a move against this guy and he needed to be ready.

Letts inspected the contents of the briefcase as if thinking he might find a weapon. He then opened the laptop and checked it out before handing it to me.

“The case is almost ten years old,” he said. “You’re telling me you still have it on your computer?”

“I have conflict-of-interest software,” I said. “All my cases are digitized and loaded, so if a name from an old case shows up in a new one, I’ll know. Cops or witnesses from old cases come up from time to time. Occasionally even clients.”

I went into the software and typed in Oscar Letts. His case file immediately opened on the screen. I started scanning the summaries. I was looking for something in particular and soon found it.

“Okay, right here,” I said. “Offer of disposition from the DA’s office. You were offered a term of four to seven years in exchange for a guilty plea. You turned it down, against my advice. You made me go to trial. You insisted we go to trial. There was no case. We had no defense. You left the bar, you blew through the stop sign, and you hit the captain’s wife in the crosswalk. There was nothing I could do. It was burnt matches, but you wouldn’t listen. You insisted we take it to a jury and we did and you ended up with nine to fifteen from the judge. Am I missing anything?”