Michael Connelly: The Lincoln Lawyer

“Mr. Roulet made it clear to me he wanted you on the case. To be honest, you would not have been my first choice. You may not have been any choice, because frankly I had never heard of you. But you are Mr. Roulet’s first choice, and that is acceptable to me. In fact, I thought you acquitted yourself quite well in the courtroom, especially considering how hostile that prosecutor was toward Mr. Roulet.”

I noticed that the boy had become “Mr. Roulet” now. I wondered what had happened to advance him in Dobbs’s view.

“Yeah, well, they call her Maggie McFierce. She’s pretty dedicated.”

“I thought she was a bit overboard. Do you think there is any way to get her removed from the case, maybe get someone a little more… grounded?”

“I don’t know. Trying to shop prosecutors can be dangerous. But if you think she needs to go, I can get it done.”

“That’s good to hear. Maybe I should have known about you before today.”

“Maybe. Do you want to talk about fees now and get it out of the way?”

“If you would like.”

I looked around the hallway to make sure there were no other lawyers hanging around in earshot. I was going to go schedule A all the way on this.

“I get twenty-five hundred for today and Louis already approved that. If you want to go hourly from here, I get three hundred an hour and that gets bumped to five in trial because I can’t do anything else. If you’d rather go with a flat rate, I’ll want sixty thousand to take it from here through a preliminary hearing. If we end it with a plea, I’ll take twelve more on top of that. If we go to trial instead, I need another sixty on the day we decide that and twenty-five more when we start picking a jury. This case doesn’t look like more than a week, including jury selection, but if it goes past a week, I get twenty-five-a-week extra. We can talk about an appeal if and when it becomes necessary.”

I hesitated a moment to see how Dobbs was reacting. He showed nothing so I pressed on.

“I’ll need thirty thousand for a retainer and another ten for an investigator by the end of the day. I don’t want to waste time on this. I want to get an investigator out and about on this thing before it hits the media and maybe before the cops talk to some of the people involved.”

Dobbs slowly nodded.

“Are those your standard fees?”

“When I can get them. I’m worth it. What are you charging the family, Cecil?”

I was sure he wouldn’t walk away from this little episode hungry.

“That’s between me and my client. But don’t worry. I will include your fees in my discussion with Mrs. Windsor.”

“I appreciate it. And remember, I need that investigator to start today.”

I gave him a business card I pulled from the right pocket of my suit coat. The cards in the right pocket had my cell number. The cards in my left pocket had the number that went to Lorna Taylor.

“I have another hearing downtown,” I said. “When you get him out call me and we’ll set up a meeting. Let’s make it as soon as possible. I should be available later today and tonight.”

“Perfect,” Dobbs said, pocketing the card without looking at it. “Should we come to you?”

“No, I’ll come to you. I’d like to see how the other half lives in those high-rises in Century City.”

Dobbs smiled glibly.

“It is obvious by your suit that you know and practice the adage that a trial lawyer should never dress too well. You want the jury to like you, not to be jealous of you. Well, Michael, a Century City lawyer can’t have an office that is nicer than the offices his clients come from. And so I can assure you that our offices are very modest.”

I nodded in agreement. But I was insulted just the same. I was wearing my best suit. I always did on Mondays.

“That’s good to know,” I said.

The courtroom door opened and the videographer walked out, lugging his camera and folded tripod with him. Dobbs saw him and immediately tensed.

“The media,” he said. “How can we control this? Mrs. Windsor won’t -”

“Hold on a sec.”

I called to the cameraman and he walked over. I immediately put my hand out. He had to put his tripod down to take it.

“I’m Michael Haller. I saw you in there filming my client’s appearance.”

Using my formal name was a code.

“Robert Gillen,” the cameraman said. “People call me Sticks.”

He gestured to his tripod in explanation. His use of his formal name was a return code. He was letting me know he understood that I had a play working here.

“Are you freelancing or on assignment?” I asked.

“Just freelancing today.”

“How’d you hear about this thing?”

He shrugged as though he was reluctant to answer.

“A source. A cop.”

I nodded. Gillen was locked in and playing along.

“What do you get for that if you sell it to a news station?”

“Depends. I take seven-fifty for an exclusive and five for a nonexclusive.”

Nonexclusive meant that any news director who bought the tape from him knew that he might sell the footage to a competing news station. Gillen had doubled the fees he actually got. It was a good move. He must have been listening to what had been said in the courtroom while he shot it.

“Tell you what,” I said. “How about we take it off your hands right now for an exclusive?”

Gillen was perfect. He hesitated like he was unsure of the ethics involved in the proposition.

“In fact, make it a grand,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “You got a deal.”

While Gillen put the camera on the floor and took the tape out of it, I pulled a wad of cash from my pocket. I had kept twelve hundred from the Saints cash Teddy Vogel had given me on the way down. I turned to Dobbs.

“I can expense this, right?”

“Absolutely,” he said. He was beaming.

I exchanged the cash for the tape and thanked Gillen. He pocketed the money and moved toward the elevators a happy man.

“That was brilliant,” Dobbs said. “We have to contain this. It could literally destroy the family’s business if this-in fact, I think that is one reason Mrs. Windsor was not here today. She didn’t want to be recognized.”

“Well, we’ll have to talk about that if this thing goes the distance. Meantime, I’ll do my best to keep it off the radar.”

“Thank you.”

A cell phone began to play a classical number by Bach or Beethoven or some other dead guy with no copyright and Dobbs reached inside his jacket, retrieved the device and checked the small screen on it.

“This is she,” he said.

“Then I’ll leave you to it.”

As I walked off I heard Dobbs saying, “Mary, everything is under control. We need now to concentrate on getting him out. We are going to need some money…”

While the elevator made its way up to me, I was thinking that I was pretty sure that I was dealing with a client and family for which “some money” meant more than I had ever seen. My mind moved back to the sartorial comment Dobbs had made about me. It still stung. The truth was, I didn’t have a suit in my closet that cost less than six hundred dollars and I always felt good and confident in any one of them. I wondered if he had intended to insult me or he had intended something else, maybe trying at this early stage of the game to imprint his control over me and the case. I decided I would need to watch my back with Dobbs. I would keep him close but not that close.

Traffic heading downtown bottlenecked in the Cahuenga Pass. I spent the time in the car working the phone and trying not to think about the conversation I’d had with Maggie McPherson about my parenting skills. My ex-wife had been right about me, and that’s what hurt. For a long time I had put my law practice ahead of my parenting practice. It was something I promised myself to change. I just needed the time and the money to slow down. I thought that maybe Louis Roulet would provide both.