Майкл Коннелли - The Law of Innocence

“Some would say that going through the U.S. A’s Office would be spinning wheels, Judge.”

She kept her eyes on the subpoena and read out loud: “‘All documents related to interactions with Samuel Scales or aliases...’ ”

Now she dropped the paper on her desk, leaned back, and looked up at me.

“You know where this will go, right?” she said. “The circular file.”

“It may,” I said.

“You’re just fishing? Trying to get a reaction?”

“I’m working on a hunch. It would have helped if I had had the wallet and a name to work with. Do you have a problem with my fishing, Judge?”

I was speaking to the former defense attorney in her. I knew she had been in the same position: needing a break and backing a long shot to get it.

“I don’t have anything against what you’re doing,” Warfield said. “But it’s a little late in the game for it. You have trial in a month.”

“I’ll be ready, Judge,” I said.

She leaned forward, grabbed a pen from a fancy silver holder on the desk, and signed the subpoena. She handed it back to me.

“Thank you, Judge,” I said.

I walked to the door and she caught me before I could slip through.

“I cleared two weeks for jury selection and trial,” she said to my back.

I turned around to look at her.

“If you try to fuck me by running it up to game time and then asking for a delay, my answer’s going to be no.”

I nodded that I understood.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said.

I walked through the door with my long-shot subpoena.

Back in the courtroom the clerk told me I’d had a visitor who had been waiting in the gallery but the deputy had shooed him out because the courtroom was dark for the rest of the day.

“A big guy?” I asked. “Black T-shirt, boots?”

“No,” the clerk said. “A Black guy. Had on a suit.”

That made me curious. I gathered the materials I had left at my place at the defense table and then left the courtroom. Out in the hallway I found my visitor waiting on a bench outside the courtroom door. I almost didn’t recognize him in the suit and tie.

“Bishop?”

“Counselor.”

“Bishop, what are you doing here? You got out?”

“I’m out, man, and ready to go to work.”

It then struck me. I had offered him a job when he got out of jail. Bishop read my hesitation.

“It’s okay, man, if you don’t have it. I know you got your trial and shit to worry about.”

“No, it’s okay. I just... it’s a surprise, that’s all.”

“Well, you need a driver?”

“I do, actually. I mean, not every day but I need a guy on call, yeah. When do you want to start?”

Bishop spread his arms as if to display himself.

“I got my funeral suit on,” he said. “I’m ready to go.”

“What about a driver’s license?” I asked.

“Got that, too. Went to the DMV as soon as I got out.”

“When was that?”

“Wednesday.”

“Okay, let me see it. I’ll have to shoot a photo of it and add you to the insurance.”

“No problem.”

He pulled a thin wallet out of a pants pocket and gave me a brand-new license. It looked legit to me as far as I could tell. I saw for the first time that his name was Bambadjan Bishop. I pulled my phone and took the photo.

“Where’s that name come from?” I asked.

“My mother was from Ivory Coast,” he said. “Her father’s name.”

“So, I have to go out to Westwood to drop a subpoena. You want to start right now?”

“I’m here. Ready to go.”

My Lincoln was parked in the black hole parking structure. We walked over and I gave Bishop the keys and took the back seat.

We worked our way up to the ground-level exit and I paid careful attention to his driving skills as I gave him the rundown on how the job worked. He was essentially on call 24/7 but most of the time I would need him during weekdays only. He needed to have a phone I could text him on. No burners. No alcohol. No weapons. He didn’t have to wear a tie but I liked the suit. He could shed the jacket whenever he was in the car. On the days I needed him he would have to get to my house, where the car was kept, and go from there. No overnight take-homes of the car.

“I got a phone,” he said when I was finished. “It ain’t a burner.”

“Good,” I said. “I need the number. Any questions?”

“Yeah, what’m I getting paid?”

“The four hundred I was paying you for protection is now suspended because you’re out and I’m out. I’ll pay you eight hundred a week to drive me. There will be a lot of downtime and days off.”

“I was thinking a thousand.”

“I was thinking eight. Let’s see how you do, then we can talk about a thousand. As soon as I get through this trial and am back to making money, we’ll talk. Do we have a deal?”

“Yeah. Deal.”

“Good.”

“Where we going in Westwood?”

“The federal building at Wilshire and the 405.”

“With all the flagpoles out front.”

“That’s it.”

We got out of the underground parking and Bishop worked his way to the 10 freeway and headed west without my having to issue instructions. That was a good sign. I pulled my phone and texted Cisco, telling him to meet me in the lobby of the federal building in Westwood.

What’s up

       Subpoena drop on the feds.

On my way.

I put the phone away and looked at Bishop’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“What do you want me to call you?” I said. “I’m so used to calling you Bishop but that was in jail and maybe—”

“Bishop is good.”

“So when I was in there, I wanted to mind my own business. I didn’t ask anybody anything. But now I have to ask you, what were you in Twin Towers for and how’d you get out?”

“I was doing a bullet on a probation violation. Normally they would have put me up at Pitchess but a guy from LAPD gang intel was working me and he didn’t like driving all the way up there all the time. So I got lucky. Got a solo cell at T.T. instead of a dayroom cot at Pitchess.”

“So, those times you said you had court, you were actually off snitching to gang intel?”

He glanced at me in the mirror, picking up the tone in my voice.

“I worked him,” he said. “He didn’t work me.”

“So, you’re not going to have to testify in a case?” I pressed. “I don’t want to make myself a target here, Bishop.”

“There is no case, Counselor. I worked it until my year was up and then I was out. If’n he comes around now, I can tell him to fuck off.”

His story tracked right. A bullet was a year and convicts serving a year or less usually weren’t sent to state prison. They served their short sentences in one of the county’s stockades, and the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho was the largest of them all.

“You’re a Crip, right?” I asked.

“I was an associate,” Bishop said.

“Which set?”

“Southside.”

During my time with the Public Defender’s Office I had represented defendants from probably every known clique and set of the Bloods and Crips, but that was long ago and no names of former clients came to mind.

“Before your time, but Southside guys supposedly took out Tupac in Vegas,” I said.

“That’s the word,” Bishop said. “But that was ancient history.

None of those OGs were around when I was.”

“What were you on probation for?”

“Slinging.”

“So, why do you want to work for me when you could go back to your homies and sling dope? More money in that.”

“You know why, man. I got a girl and a kid now. I’m gonna get married and be done with all that.”