The Brass Verdict (36 page)

“From the start.”

Elliot chuckled at the thought of it and poured himself a glass of wine without first tasting from the bottle. A waiter swooped in to take over the operation but Elliot waved him away with the bottle.

“This is a long story, Mickey. Would you like a glass of wine to go with it?”

He held the mouth of the bottle poised over my empty glass. I was tempted but I shook my head.

“No, Walter, I don’t drink.”

“I’m not sure I can trust someone who doesn’t take a drink from time to time.”

“I’m your lawyer. You can trust me.”

“I trusted the last one, too, and look what happened to him.”

“Don’t threaten me, Walter. Just tell me the story.”

He drank heavily from his wineglass and then put it down too hard on the table. He looked around to see if anyone in the restaurant had noticed and I got the sense that it was all an act. He was really checking to see if we were being watched. I scanned the angles I had without being obvious. I didn’t see Bosch or anyone else I pegged as a cop in the restaurant.

Elliot began his story.

“When you come to Hollywood, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from as long as you’ve got one thing in your pocket.”

“Money.”

“That’s right. I came here twenty-five years ago and I had money. I put it in a couple of movies first and then into a half-assed studio nobody gave two shits about. And I built that place into a contender. Another five years and it will no longer be the Big Four they talk about. It will be the Big Five. Archway will be right up there with Paramount and Warner’s and the rest.”

I wasn’t anticipating going back twenty-five years when I told him to start the story from the beginning.

“Okay, Walter, I get all of that about your success. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it wasn’t my money. When I came here, it wasn’t my money.”

“I thought the story was that you came from a family that owned a phosphate mine or shipping operation in Florida.”

He nodded emphatically.

“All true, but it depends on your definition of family.”

It slowly came to me.

“Are you talking about the mob, Walter?”

“I am talking about an organization in Florida with a tremendous cash flow that needed legitimate businesses to move it through and legitimate front men to operate those businesses. I was an accountant. I was one of those men.”

It was easy to put together. Florida twenty-five years ago. The heyday of the uninhibited flow of cocaine and money.

“I was sent west,” Elliot said. “I had a story and I had suitcases full of money. And I loved movies. I knew how to pick ’em and put ’em together. I took Archway and turned it into a billion-dollar enterprise. And then my wife…”

A sad look of regret crossed his face.

“What, Walter?”

He shook his head.

“On the morning after our twelfth anniversary — after the prenuptial agreement was vested — she told me she was leaving. She was going to get a divorce.”

I nodded. I understood. With the prenup vested, Mitzi Elliot would be entitled to half of Walter Elliot’s holdings in Archway Studios. Only he was just a front. His holdings actually belonged to the organization and it wasn’t the type of organization that would allow half of its investment to walk out the door in a skirt.

“I tried to change her mind,” Elliot said. “She wouldn’t listen. She was in love with that Nazi bastard and thought he could protect her.”

“The organization had her killed.”

It sounded so strange to say those words out loud. It made me look around and sweep my eyes across the restaurant.

“I wasn’t supposed to be there that day,” Elliot said. “I was told to stay away, to make sure I had a rock-solid alibi.”

“Why’d you go, then?”

His eyes held on mine before he answered.

“I still loved her in some way. Somehow I still did and I wanted her. I wanted to fight for her. I went out there to try to stop it, maybe be the hero, save the day and win her back. I don’t know. I didn’t have a plan. I just didn’t want it to happen. So I went out there … but I was too late. They were both dead when I got there. Terrible…”

Elliot was staring at the memory, perhaps the scene in the bedroom in Malibu. I dropped my eyes down to the white tablecloth in front of me. A defense attorney never expects his client to tell him the whole truth. Parts of the truth, yes. But never the cold, hard and complete truth. I had to think that there were things Elliot had left out. But what he had told me was enough for now. It was time to talk about the bribe.

“And then came Jerry Vincent,” I prompted.

His eyes came back into focus and he looked at me.

“Yes.”

“Tell me about the bribe.”

“I don’t have a lot to tell. My corporate attorney hooked me up with Jerry and he was fine. We worked out the fee arrangement and then he came to me — this was early on, at least five months ago — and he said he had been approached by someone who could salt the jury. You know, put someone on the jury who would be for us. No matter what happened he would be a holdout for acquittal but he would also work for the defense on the inside — during deliberations. He would be a talker, a skilled persuader — a con man. The catch was that once it was in play, the trial would have to stay on schedule so that this person would end up on my jury.”

“And you and Jerry took the offer.”

“We took it. This was five months ago. At the time, I didn’t have much of a defense. I didn’t kill my wife but it seemed the odds were stacked against me. We had no magic bullet … and I was scared. I was innocent but could see that I was going to be convicted. So we took the offer.”

“How much?”

“A hundred thousand up front. Like you found out, Jerry paid it through his fees. He inflated his fee and I paid him and then he paid for the juror. Then it was going to be another hundred for a hung jury and two-fifty for an acquittal. Jerry told me that these people had done it before.”

“You mean fixed a jury?”

“Yes, that’s what he said.”

I thought maybe the FBI had gotten wind of the earlier fixes and that was why they had come to Vincent.

“Were they Jerry’s trials that were fixed before?” I asked.

“He didn’t say and I didn’t ask.”

“Did he ever say anything about the FBI sniffing around your case?”

Elliot leaned back, as if I had just said something repulsive.

“No. Is that what’s going on?”

He looked very concerned.

“I don’t know, Walter. I’m just asking questions here. But Jerry told you he was going to delay the trial, right?”

Elliot nodded.

“Yes. That Monday. He said we didn’t need the fix. He had the magic bullet and he was going to win the trial without the sleeper on the jury.”

“And that got him killed.”

“It had to be. I don’t think these kinds of people just let you change your mind and pull out of something like this.”

“What kind of people? The organization?”

“I don’t know. Just these kinds of people. Whoever does this sort of thing.”

“Did you tell anyone that Jerry was going to delay the case?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Then, who did Jerry tell?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, who did Jerry make the deal with? Who did he bribe?”

“I don’t know that either. He wouldn’t tell me. Said it would be better if I didn’t know names. Same thing I’m telling you.”

It was a little late for that. I had to end this and get away by myself to think. I glanced at my untouched plate of fish and wondered if I should take it to go for Patrick or if someone back in the kitchen would eat it.

“You know,” Elliot said, “not to put any more pressure on you, but if I get convicted, I’m dead.”

I looked at him.

“The organization?”

He nodded.

“A guy gets busted and he becomes a liability. Normally, they wipe him out before he even gets to court. They don’t take the chance that he’ll try to cut a deal. But I still have control of their money, you see. They wipe me out and they lose it all. Archway, the real estate, everything. So they’re hanging back and watching. If I get off, then we go back to normal and everything’s good. If I get convicted, I’m too much of a liability and I won’t last two nights in prison. They’ll get to me in there.”

It’s always good to know exactly what the stakes are but I probably could have gone without the reminder.

“We’re dealing with a higher authority here,” Elliot continued. “It goes way beyond things like attorney-client confidentiality. That’s small change, Mick. The things I’ve told you tonight can go no further than this table. Not into court or anywhere else. What I’ve told you here could get you killed in a heartbeat. Just like Jerry. Remember that.”

Elliot had spoken matter-of-factly and concluded the statement by calmly draining the wine from his glass. But the threat was implicit in every word he had said. I would have no trouble remembering it.

Elliot waved down a waiter and asked for the check.

Forty-two

I
was thankful that my client liked his martinis before dinner and his Chardonnay with it. I wasn’t sure I would have gotten what I got from Elliot without the alcohol smoothing the way and loosening his tongue. But afterward I didn’t want him running the risk of getting pulled over on a DUI in the middle of a murder trial. I insisted that he not drive home. But Elliot insisted he wasn’t going to leave his $400,000 Maybach overnight in a downtown garage. So I had Patrick take us to the car and then I drove Elliot home while Patrick followed.

“This car cost four hundred grand?” I asked him. “I’m scared to drive it.”

“A little less, actually.”

“Yeah, well, do you have anything else to drive? When I told you not to take the limo, I didn’t expect you’d be tooling up to your murder trial in one of these. Think about the impressions you are putting out there, Walter. This doesn’t look good. Remember what you told me the first day we met? About having to win outside of the courtroom too? A car like this doesn’t help you with that.”

“My other car is a Carrera GT.”

“Great. What’s that worth?”

“More than this one.”

“Tell you what, why don’t you borrow one of my Lincolns. I even have one that has a plate that says
NOT GUILTY
. You can drive that.”

“That’s okay. I have access to a nice modest Mercedes. Is that all right?”

“Perfect. Walter, despite everything you told me tonight, I’m going to do my best for you. I think we have a good shot at this.”

“Then, you believe I’m innocent.”

I hesitated.

“I believe you didn’t shoot your wife and Rilz. I’m not sure that makes you innocent, but put it this way: I don’t think you’re guilty of the charges you’re facing. And that’s all I need.”

He nodded.

“Maybe that’s the best I can ask for. Thank you, Mickey.”

After that we didn’t talk much as I concentrated on not wrecking the car, which was worth more than most people’s houses.

Elliot lived in Beverly Hills in a gated estate in the flats south of Sunset. He pushed a button on the car’s ceiling that opened the steel entry gate and we slipped through, Patrick coming in right behind me in the Lincoln. We got out and I gave Elliot his keys. He asked if I wanted to come in for another drink and I reminded him that I didn’t drink. He stuck out his hand and I shook it and it felt awkward, as if we were sealing some sort of deal on what had been revealed earlier. I said good night and got into the back of my Lincoln.

The internal gears were working all the way back to my house. Patrick had been a quick study of my nuances and seemed to know that it was not the time to interrupt with small talk. He let me work.

I sat leaning against the door, my eyes gazing out the window but not seeing the neon world go by. I was thinking about Jerry Vincent and the deal he had made with a party unknown. It wasn’t hard to figure out how it was done. The question of who did it was another matter.

I knew that the jury system relied on random selection on multiple levels. This helped ensure the integrity and cross-social composition of juries. The initial pool of hundreds of citizens summoned to jury duty each week was drawn randomly from voter registrations as well as property and public utility records. Jurors culled from this larger group for the jury selection process in a specific trial were again chosen randomly — this time by a courthouse computer. The list of those prospective jurors was given to the judge presiding over the trial, and the first twelve names or code numbers on the list were called to take the seats in the box for the initial round of voir dire. Again, the order of names or numbers on the list was determined by computer-generated random selection.

Elliot told me that after a trial date had been set in his case, Jerry Vincent was approached by an unknown party and told that a sleeper could be placed on the jury. The catch was that there could be no delays. If the trial moved, the sleeper couldn’t move with it. All of this told me that this unknown party had full access to all levels of the random processes of the jury system: the initial summons to show for jury duty at a specific courthouse on a specific week; the random selection of the venire for the trial; and the random selection of the first twelve jurors to go into the box.

Once the sleeper was in the box, it was up to him to stay there. The defense would know not to oust him with a preemptory strike, and by appearing to be pro-prosecution he would avoid being challenged by the prosecution. It was simple enough, as long as the trial’s date didn’t change.

Stepping it out this way gave me a better understanding of the manipulation involved and who might have engineered it. It also gave me a better understanding of the ethical predicament I was in. Elliot had admitted several crimes to me over dinner. But I was his lawyer and these admissions would remain confidential under the bonds of the attorney-client relationship. The exception to this rule was if I were endangered by my knowledge or had knowledge of a crime that was planned but had not yet occurred. I knew that someone had been bribed by Vincent. That crime had already occurred. But the crime of jury tampering had not yet occurred. That crime wouldn’t take place until deliberations began, so I was duty-bound to report it. Elliot apparently didn’t know of this exception to the rules of client confidentiality or was convinced that the threat of my meeting the same end as Jerry Vincent would keep me in check.