Michael Connelly - The Poet

"Yes?"

"Can I have a word with you out in the hallway?"

"Who are you?"

"I can explain in the hallway."

"You can explain now or you can go out to the hallway by yourself."

Thorson opened his wallet, Krasner looked at the badge and read the ID, and I watched his small porcine eyes move back and forth as he thought.

"That's right, I think you know what it's about," Thorson said. Looking at the other lawyer, he said, "Will you excuse us now?"

In the hallway Krasner had regained some of his lawyerly bluff.

"All right, I have an arraignment in there in five minutes. What's this about?"

"I thought we were past that," Thorson said. "It's about one of your clients, William Gladden."

"Never heard of him."

He made a move to go past Thorson to the courtroom door. Thorson nonchalantly reached out and put a hand on the other man's chest, stopping him dead.

"Please," Krasner said. "You have no right to touch me. Don't touch me."

"You know who we're talking about, Mr. Krasner. You are in serious trouble for hiding this man's true identity from the court and the police."

"No, you are wrong. I had no idea who he was. I took the case at face value. Who he turned out to be was not my concern. And there is not one scintilla of evidence or even a suggestion that I knew otherwise."

"Never mind the bullshit, Counselor. You can save it for the judge in there. Where is Gladden?"

"I have no idea and even if I did I-"

"You wouldn't say? That's the wrong attitude, Mr. Krasner. Let me tell you something, I've gone over the record of your representation of Mr. Gladden and things don't look good, if you know what I mean. Not kosher is what I am saying. This could be a problem for you."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"How did he come to call you after his arrest?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask."

"Was it a referral?"

"Yes, I think so."

"From who?"

"I don't know. I said I didn't ask."

"Are you a pedophile, Mr. Krasner? Is it little girls or little boys that turn you on? Or maybe both?"

"What?"

Little by little Thorson had backed him up against the marble wall of the hallway with his verbal assault. Krasner was beginning to look spent. He was holding his briefcase in front of his body now, almost as a shield. But it wasn't thick enough.

"You know what I'm talking about," Thorson said, bearing down on him. "Of all the lawyers in this town, why'd Gladden call you?"

"I told you," Krasner yelled, drawing looks from everyone passing in the hall. He continued in a whisper. "I don't know why he chose me. He just did. I'm in the book. It's a free country."

Thorson hesitated, allowing Krasner to say more but the lawyer didn't take the bait.

"I looked at the records yesterday," Thorson said. "You had him out two hours and fifteen minutes after bail was set. How did you make the bond? The answer is you already had the money from him, didn't you? So the real question is, how'd you get the money from him if he spent the night in jail?"

"Wire transfer. Nothing illegal. We talked the night before about my fee and what the bond might be and he had it wired the following morning. I had nothing to do with it. I… You can't stand here and slander me in this way."

"I can do whatever I want to do. You fucking disgust me. I checked you out with the locals, Krasner. I know about you."

"What are you talking about?"

"If you don't know now, you're going to know soon enough. They're coming for you, little man. You put this guy back on the street and look what he did. Look what he fucking did."

"I didn't know!" Krasner said in a whine that pleaded for forgiveness.

"Sure, nobody ever knows. You have a phone?"

"What?"

"A phone. A telephone."

Thorson slapped an open hand against Krasner's briefcase, a move that made the little man jump as if shocked with a cattle prod.

"Yes, yes, I have a phone. You don't have to-"

"Good. Get it out, call your receptionist and tell her to pull the wire transfer records from your file. Tell her I'll be there in fifteen minutes for a copy of it."

"You can't take-I have an attorney/client relationship with this individual that I must protect no matter what he's done. I-"

Thorson slapped a backhand off the briefcase again, which shut Krasner up in mid-sentence. I could see Thorson received a genuine sense of accomplishment from pushing the little lawyer around.

"Make the call, Krasner, and I'll tell the locals you helped out. Make the call or the next person to die is on you. Because now you do know who and what we're talking about here."

Krasner slowly nodded and began opening his briefcase.

"That's it, Counselor," Thorson said. "Now you see the light."

As Krasner called his receptionist and issued the order in a shaky voice, Thorson stood silently watching. I had never seen or heard of anyone using the bad cop routine without the good cop counterpart and still so expertly finesse the information needed from a source. I wasn't sure if I admired Thorson's skill or was appalled by it. But he had turned the posturing bluff artist into a shaking mess. As Krasner was folding the phone closed, Thorson asked what the amount of the wire transfer had been.

"Six thousand dollars even."

"Five for bail and one for you. How come you didn't squeeze him?"

"He said it was all he could afford. I believed him. May I go now?"

There was a resigned and defeated look on Krasner's face. Before Thorson answered his question the door to the courtroom opened and a bailiff leaned out.

"Artie, you're up."

"Okay, Jerry."

Without waiting for further comment from Thorson, Krasner began moving toward the door again. And once again Thorson stopped him with a hand on the chest. This time Krasner made no protest about being touched. He simply stopped, leaving his eyes staring dead ahead.

"Artie-can I call you Artie?-you better do some soul-searching. That is if you have one. You know more than you've said here. A lot more. And the more time you waste, the more there's a chance that a life will be wasted. Think about that and give me a call."

He reached over and slid a business card into the handkerchief pocket of Krasner's suit coat, then patted it gently.

"My local number is written on the back. Call me. If I get what I need from somewhere else and find out you had the same information, I will be merciless, Counselor. Fucking merciless."

Thorson then stepped back so the lawyer could slowly make his way back into the courtroom.

We were back out on the sidewalk before Thorson spoke to me.

"Think he got the message?"

"Yeah, he got it. I'd stay by the phone. He's gonna call."

"We'll see."

"Can I ask you something?"

"What?"

"Did you really check him out with the locals?"

Thorson smiled by way of an answer.

"The part about him being a pedophile. How do you know that?"

"Just takin' a shot. Pedophiles are networkers. They like to surround themselves with their own kind. They have phone nets, computer nets, a whole support system. They view it as them against society. The misunderstood minority, that kind of bullshit. So I figured maybe he got Krasner's name on a referral list somewhere. It was worth the shot. The way I read Krasner, I think it hit him. He wouldn't have given up the wire records if it didn't."

"Maybe. Maybe he was telling the truth about not knowing who Gladden was. Maybe he just has a conscience and doesn't want to see anybody else hurt."

"I take it you don't know that many lawyers."

Ten minutes later we were waiting for the elevator outside the Krasner amp; Peacock law offices, Thorson looking at the wire transfer receipt for the sum of $6,000.

"It's a bank out of Jacksonville," he said without looking up. "We'll have to get Rach on it."