“I guess this makes me the Lexus Lawyer now,” I said. “Maybe the movie guys will make a sequel.”
She didn’t smile.
“Are we going to the loft?” she asked.
“If you don’t mind. I want to make sure we’re all set for tomorrow.”
“Of course.”
She abruptly pulled away from the curb without checking the traffic lane and got blasted by a motorist she’d cut off. I waited a few moments, deciding whether I should wade in. I had been married to her once briefly. I knew her moods and that the quiet, clipped dialogue version could boil over if left simmering on the stove too long.
“So what’s up? You’re upset.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are. Tell me.”
“Why did you make Sylvester Jr. wait for you after court today?”
I squinted, trying to see the connection between making Junior wait and her being upset.
“I don’t know, I guess because I wanted to thank him for testifying. It was a rough day for him.”
“And whose fault was that?”
Now I realized why she was flatlining me. She felt sorry for young Sly.
“Look, Lorna, that kid is a complete incompetent. I had to expose that because if I didn’t, I was going to look just as incompetent when Forsythe mopped the floor with him. Besides, someday he’s going to thank me for that. It’s better he get his shit together now than somewhere down the line.”
“Whatever.”
“Yeah, whatever. You know something, Earl never gave me any shit about how I run my cases.”
“And look what happened to him.”
That hit me like an arrow in the back.
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Lorna, don’t lay that shit on me. Don’t you think I already carry enough guilt about it?”
I was actually surprised it had taken her two months to get to this.
“You knew you were being followed. They put a tracker on the car.”
“Yeah, a tracker. So they would know where I was going. Not so they could kill us. That was never on our radar. They put a tracker on the car, not an IED, for chrissake.”
“You should’ve known when you went up to see Moya they would know you figured everything out and were a danger.”
“That’s crazy, Lorna. Because I didn’t figure everything out. Not then and not now. I’m still flying by the seat of my pants on this case. Besides that, the day before, Cisco said they weren’t seeing anything, and I’d made an executive decision to pull the Indians back because they were costing us a lot and you were on my back all the time about the money.”
“So you’re blaming me?”
“No, I’m not blaming you. I’m not blaming anybody, but obviously somebody missed something because we were not in the clear.”
“And Earl got killed.”
“Yeah, Earl got killed and so far they’ve gotten away with it. And I have to live with making the call to pull back on the surveillance, not that it would have changed anything.”
I raised my hands in an I-give-up gesture.
“Look, I don’t know why this all comes to the surface right now, but can we stop talking about it? I’m in the middle of a trial and I’m juggling chain saws. All of this doesn’t really help. I see Earl’s face every night when I try to go to sleep. If it helps you to know he haunts me, well, he does.”
We rode in silence for the next twenty-five minutes until finally we pulled into the parking lot behind the loft on Santa Monica. I could tell by the number of cars in the lot, including three beat-up panel vans, that our staff meeting would have musical accompaniment. Under the house rules, bands were allowed to practice in their lofts after four p.m.
Lorna and I said nothing as we rode the freight elevator up. Our shoes made angry sounds on the wood floor. They echoed across the empty loft as we headed to the boardroom.
Only Jennifer Aronson was already there. I remembered that Cisco had said that he had something to do first.
“So how did it go?” Aronson asked.
I nodded as I pulled out a seat and sat down.
“Pretty good. Things are in play. I was even able to suggest to Forsythe that he let Lankford vet the new witness list.”
“I meant the trial. How was Fulgoni?”
I glanced at Lorna, aware of her sympathies for Sly Jr.
“He served his purpose.”
“Is he off yet?”
“Yeah, we’re finished with him for now.”
“And so you gave the new list, and what happened?”
Jennifer had prepared the new witness list, making sure that every new name had some connection to the case so that we could argue its place on it. That is, every name but one.