Elmore Leonard - Gold Coast

So there was the robbery armed, something like 15 to 25 or possibly life, and a felony-firearm charge that carried a mandatory two years. More than enough to start Maguire praying and making promises in the Wayne County jail. In there from the middle of August to the end of November, with no way in the world of making the bond set at fifty thousand dollars or two sureties. Maguire saw Andre and Cochise once at 1300 Beaubien, police headquarters across the street, while they were waiting to appear in a line-up, and asked him, For Christ sake, the man got us into this, he’s gonna put up the bond, right? No, the man couldn’t get involved just yet. The man was under suspicion, using the bonding company to front him on some kind of deal in Las Vegas, so the man couldn’t be seen to be paying the bonding company at this time. But hang on.

Hang onto what, for Christ sake? Hang on in the bus going to Jackson.

Maguire didn’t think much of his court-appointed lawyer because the lawyer didn’t think much of him. Maguire could feel it, the guy was going through the motions. The court was paying the lawyer, and he didn’t give a rat’s ass who won.

Maguire said, “What’ve they got on me? Some circumstantial evidence, that’s all.”

“Your photograph in Andre Patterson’s car,” the lawyer said. “The golf clubs in the trunk.”

“I happened to leave my picture in the car”-shit-“that was the next day. Other people were in that car the next day. Andre’s wife, she went out to get some Chinese food. Was she arrested?”

“You were ID-ed positively in a line-up by one of the victims,” the lawyer said. “Possibly identified by four more. They saw you there. Now I’m representing you, not the jigs. You want to agree to testify against the jigs, maybe I can get you a deal.”

“You can get fucked, too,” Maguire told his court-appointed lawyer. What a rotten guy.

Something happened, several things, Maguire didn’t understand.

The morning of the trial a different lawyer appeared in court to defend all three of them, a sharp young guy by the name of Marshall Fine, with styled hair and a pinched-in three-piece suit.

What’s this?

Nice moves, very stylish; made the prosecutor look like a high-school football coach. Sent from the man? Andre nodding, pleased. Fine of fine and dandy, man. From the company does the man’s legal business. Yeah, but the guy seemed so young. Was he practicing on them, or what? Maguire wasn’t sure he liked it-putting his life in the hands of a young Jewish lawyer who looked about eighteen years old. He hoped to Christ the guy was an authentic hotshot young Jewish lawyer and not just somebody’s nephew.

Marshall Fine didn’t say much that morning, accepting the jurors one right after the other, very calm, courteous, but maybe wanting to get it over with. In the afternoon, first thing, the prosecutor put a witness on the stand. Oh shit, the little guy from the shower room with the muscles in his arms and shoulders-the guy describing what happened and saying yes, he saw the three in the courtroom, the white guy there and the two colored guys.

Marshall Fine got up and asked the club member where he was standing, in front or behind the others, what exactly took place during the incident and, in all that confusion, he couldn’t be absolutely certain of his identification, could he?

Yes, the club member said, he could definitely be certain. He not only saw them in the locker room, he saw the white guy’s picture a few days later when the police officer showed it to him.

Marshall Fine asked the club member what picture. Maguire noticed the prosecutor paying very close attention, frowning.

The club member said he was told the picture was found in their car.

Pictures of all three defendants?

No, just the white guy, the club member said. The officer showed it to him when he came down to 1300 Beaubien to look at the suspects.

Marshall Fine said, to no one in particular, “While Mr. Maguire was being held in custody.” Then to the judge, “Your Honor, I’d like to request, if I may, the jury be excused. We seem to have a legal point to discuss.”

Twenty minutes later Maguire was free. He couldn’t believe it.

Marshall explained it to him in the hall, with all the people standing around outside the courtrooms, and Maguire had trouble concentrating. Free , just like that.

“What it amounts to, the cops fucked up. Once you’re in jail they can’t show anybody your picture unless your lawyer’s present.”

“They can’t?”

“See, it used to be the cops would tell the victim, or a witness, they got the guy and then show the guy’s picture. Then, when the witness sees the guy in the line-up, naturally he’s gonna pick him out, the same guy, of course.”

Maguire nodding-

“The prosecutor raised the point, this impermissible taint, what it’s called in law, was irrelevant because there was an independent basis for the identification. I said what independent basis? Like knowing you from someplace else. I pointed out there was absolutely no independent corroboration that would provide a sufficiently acceptable al ter native identification that comports with due process. And the judge agreed. It was that simple.”

“Oh,” Maguire said.

“So, good luck. Get your ass out of here.” Young Marshall Fine turned to go back into the courtroom, then stopped. “I almost forgot. You need a job? What’re you gonna do now?”

There it was. “I got some money coming in,” Maguire said.

“I don’t know anything about that,” the lawyer said. “I guess I’m only into rehabilitation, small favors, maybe something we might be able to do for you. Were you working?”

“I was a bartender, but I quit.”

“I could get you something like that. How about Miami Beach?”

“Well”-seeing the black people standing around, all the victims, witnesses, relatives of defendants-“I used to live in Florida about ten years ago.” Thinking in that moment, the Mediterranean, Florida, what’s the difference? Seeing himself going to the cops to get his passport pictures back? No way. “Yeah, Florida sounds like a good idea.”

“Get you into one of the hotels, bartender-what do you want to do?”

Thinking of the ocean, the sun, being outside, getting a tan-

“When I was there before I worked with dolphins. Maybe something like that’d be good.” He felt funny talking to a guy younger than he was about a job.

“Dolphins,” Marshall said.

“Porpoise. You know, they call them porpoise but they’re really dolphins. Not the fish, they’re mammals.”

“Yeah, dolphins,” Marshall said. He was nodding, thinking of something. “I believe we’ve got a client-yeah, I’m sure we have-they’ve got an interest in one of those places. You mean like Sea World, they put on the porpoise show, a guy rides a killer whale, Shamu?”

“Yeah, only the place I worked,” Maguire said, “it was more a training school. Down in the Keys, with these pens right out in the ocean. They put on a show, but not with all the bullshit, the porpoise playing baseball and, you know, coming out of the water to ring a bell and the American flag goes up-not any of that kind of shit.”

“But you’ve had experience.”

“I worked there almost a year, down on Marathon. The pay wasn’t anything, but I liked being outside.” He thought about the fifteen hundred again. “What about this money somebody owes me?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about it.” The young hotshot lawyer did seem to want to help though. “You must’ve made some kind of an arrangement.”

“Well, I guess so. But then some snitch sees Cochise walking in a place with a golf bag full of electric razors and that’s it. We were picked up, you know, before anything was paid.”