Paul Levine: Illegal

But it wasn't. Payne turned to the table of government lawyers, cleared his throat, and belted out a passable rendition of Tom Russell's "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall?"

Who's gonna cook your Mexican food,

When your Mexican maid is gone?

The judge banged his gavel and shouted,"You're in contempt, buster!"

Forty-eight hours in a holding cell. And a $5,000 fine.

On the brighter side, Payne won the case. Unwilling to risk any more toxic publicity, I.C.E. reversed its decision. Payne's clients got permanent residency.

Now, driving along Ventura Boulevard to the courthouse, Payne planned the rest of his day. Hit the gym, grab some lunch, pick up Adam for a game of pitch-andcatch. But first, there was a judge to bribe.

The day was already steaming. The sidewalk cafes, with their forlorn potted palms, were deserted, except for the Coffee Beans, Starbucks, and Peet's, where wannabe screenwriters pounded at their laptops, dreams of Oscar statuettes, A-list parties, and Malibu mansions warping their brains.

It was a short drive to Van Nuys, Payne's favorite venue for justice to be miscarried. The Lexus spoke then, the pleasant but distant female voice instructing him to "Turn right in two hundred yards. Van Nuys Boulevard." She didn't bother to thank him for the five grand under her floor mat.

Payne followed instructions and headed for the courthouse, thinking this wasn't so bad. He was a decent enough liar. He'd get out of the heat, do his civic duty, and pocket five grand. What could go wrong?

"You think I'm stupid?" Judge Rollins aimed the gun a few inches north of Payne's shrinking testicles. "Your wife's a cop."

"Ex-wife."

"I remember. She shot you."

"An accident," Payne said. "She was aiming at my client."

"That how you got the scar on your leg?" Gesturing toward a ridge of purple tissue on Payne 's bare thigh.

"No." Payne reflexively touched the spot. Beneath his fingertips, fastened to his femur, was a metal plate and five locking screws. "Got the scars in a crash on the P.C.H."

"Jesus, Payne. Bad luck sticks to you like flies on shit." A fuzzy thought came to the judge, and he squinted like a sailor peering through the fog. "What I don't get, is why you think I'd tank a case."

"Not tank it, Your Honor. Just give me the identity of the C.I."

"That's even worse!" The judge was reddening, his tone growing angry. "I give up a confidential informant, your client will have him killed."

I messed it all up, Payne thought. Career. Marriage. Life.

I can't even bribe a crooked judge.

Payne's hands trembled, his fingers jerking like piano keys. He made a vow.

If I get out of this, I really will change.

"Your Honor. I gotta tell you the truth about what I'm doing here."

Judge Rollins waved the gun toward the stacks of hundred-dollar bills. "The money speaks for itself."

"That's the thing, Judge. Ramon Carollo-"

"Is scum. And so's Pedro Martinez. Fuck 'em both."

"Who?"

"Pedro Martinez, for Christ's sake. The C.I. I signed the warrants. I oughta know."

Payne wasn't sure he heard correctly. "You just gave me the informant's name."

"You paid for it, didn't you?" The judge lifted his robes and slipped the. 38 back into its shoulder holster. He swept the stacks of currency into a desk drawer like a croupier cleaning up chips. "Sorry I scared you. But with the Grand Jury running wild, I take precautions."

Payne moved robotically. One leg, and then the other, into his boxers. He had trouble believing what had just happened. He was going home, and the judge was going to jail.

"Martinez has a house on the beach in Rosarito, just south of the border," the judge said. "Plus a condo in La Jolla. He shouldn't be hard for your people to find."

My people, Payne thought, will be busting down your door and putting you in handcuffs. He finished dressing in silence and made for the door.

"Take care of yourself, Payne," the judge called after him. "And next time, make it the full fifty thousand."

An hour after fleeing the courthouse, Payne's hands were still shaking. Either that, or a 5.0 trembler had rocked the Chimney Sweep, a windowless tavern squeezed between a Lebanese restaurant and a discount dentist in a Sherman Oaks strip mall. Payne wrapped a hand around the leaded base of his glass, trying to steady it, but the Jack Daniel's swirled between the ice cubes like molten lava through porous rocks.

"Good work, Payne," Rigney had told him on the phone, minutes earlier.

A pimp high-fiving a hooker, Payne thought, cheerlessly.

"I knew you'd make a great bag man." Rigney's laugh jangled like steel handcuffs.

Bag man.

In Payne's mind, other names floated to the surface, like corpses afer a shipwreck.

Snitch.

Rat.

Shyster.

If word got out, no client would ever trust him. And word always got out. Gossip was the coin of the realm in the kingdom of justice.

He drained the sour-mash whiskey, slipped a small vinyl folder from inside his coat pocket, and removed a business card,

J. ATTICUS PAYNE, ESQUIRE

Rigney had nailed it. Not even the name was real.

Payne bummed a pack of matches from the bartender, set the card on fire, watched it disintegrate, ashes drifting into a bowl of peanuts. No ashtrays. You had to cross into Mexico to smoke legally these days. He lit a second card, stared into the orange flames. Why not burn them all?

The only other patron at the bar was a TV writer who had been unemployed since they canceled Gilligan's Island. Camped on his stool as if he had a long-term lease, the guy's faded T-shirt read: "Say It Loud. Say It Plowed."

Payne hoisted his glass, saluted the fellow, and took a long pull. The liquid gold delivered warmth without solace. He struck another match. Immolated another card, inhaled the acrid smoke, let the flame burn until it singed his fingertips.

Two hundred miles southeast of the tavern where Payne planned to drink the day far into the night, just outside a cantina in Mexicali, Mexico, a wiry twelve-year-old boy named Agustino Perez stood with his mother as city traffic clattered past. The boy had caramel skin and hair so black and thick that women on the street grabbed it by the handful and cooed like quail. Tino's eyes, though, were a startling green. A teacher once said he reminded her of verde y negro, a local dessert of mint ice cream topped with chocolate sauce. Boys at school started calling him "verde y negro" with a lip-smacking nastiness. It took a flurry of fists and a couple bloody noses to convince the boys that he was not a sweet confection.

Marisol, the boy's mother, was sometimes mistaken for his older sister. The same smile, the same hair with the sheen of black velvet. But the boy did not inherit his light, bright eyes from her. Set above wide cheekbones, her eyes were the color of hot tar.

Glancing from side to side as if someone might be spying on them, Marisol handed her son a business card. He ran a finger across the embossed lettering and read aloud, "J. Atticus Payne, Esquire. Van Nuys, California."

"That is Los Angeles. Mr. Payne is a very important man. One of the biggest lawyers in the city."

"So?"

"Put the card in your shoe, Tino."

The shoes were new-Reeboks-purchased that morning for the crossing.

"Why, Mami?"

"If anything bad happens and I am not there, go see Mr. Payne. Tell him that you are a friend of Fernando Rodriguez."

"But I am not his friend. I don't even like the cabron."

His mother raised an eyebrow, her way of demanding: "Do as I say." The stern look would carry more weight, Tino thought, if she weren't the prettiest woman in Caborca.

He was used to men complimenting his mother on her adorable son. He knew it was their way to get close to her, smiling wicked smiles, panting like overheated dogs.