Try Darkness (26 page)
“I cleared my parole.”
“You have a record. A pretty long one.”
“So, that don’t mean I told a lie.”
“Did I say anything about lying?”
She slammed the door. As was her privilege. But it gave me enough information to know I was on the right track, that she’d make a lousy witness. At least I’d be able to cross-examine the effectiveness out of her.
But something told me there might be more here for me. Nothing makes a lawyer’s day, or year, like finding some helpful bombshell in the prosecutor’s own bunker.
So I went back across the street and got in my car. I moved it forward to a spot where I could see into the courtyard and view Nydessa Perry’s door. And waited.
Listened to the radio, local news. Sports. Kobe Bryant was whining again. What else was new? Whining had replaced the work ethic in sports, and Bryant was making a play to be the best at that particular aspect. Words like
big, stupid, overpaid, ungrateful, jerk
floated across my mind like a big, stupid jerk going in for a slam.
A little while later a guy came out of Nydessa’s door, wearing a dark blue hoody. He walked out the front and north on Ivar toward Franklin. I paused a moment, then got out and followed him.
The day was hot and Hollywood steamy, the way it sometimes gets. The sun likes to park itself on the stars on the sidewalk. A burning Cary Grant, a sizzling Bette Davis, Henry Fonda on a hot plate. Kate Hepburn boils and there’s no wind for relief. The sea is forty-five minutes away, give or take.
Hoody was strolling, taking his time, not exactly looking like he had any appointments. A hoody on a hot day. That didn’t make sense. I wasn’t able to catch his face.
He crossed Selma, continued down to Sunset. The old Cinerama Dome building was across the street. On the other side of Ivar was Amoeba Music. I watched Hoody cross Sunset and go inside Amoeba.
It’s a huge two-story behemoth, row upon row of CDs and DVDs and unhelpful help. Hoody strolled into the hip-hop section and started flipping through the CDs. I went a couple of aisles over, so I could look at him.
He looked a lot like Gilbert Calderón.
THEN HE LOOKED
at me.
If he recognized me he didn’t show it.
He looked away and walked down the aisle. I kept him in view with the old peripheral vision. My basketball coach in college was convinced that peripheral vision could be developed. He used to have us walk across campus trying to identify things without looking directly at them. He said Bill Bradley used to do that when he was growing into a basketball legend.
He may have been right, because my side view was good.
I spent about twenty minutes tracking Hoody. He went up the stairs once. I waited awhile, then followed. Watched him with the DVDs. Came back down before he did, waited. Picked him up again when he came back to the first floor.
I was standing by a Velvet Revolver display as he walked by.
And heard behind me the screech of the damned.
“Get out of my face!”
It was Nydessa Perry. She was running to Hoody but looking at me. She filled the room with obscenities, which blended perfectly with the song now playing.
She kept the fire as she grabbed Hoody. “That’s the lawyer! He followed you!”
Hoody turned and ran for the front. I started to follow but Nydessa grabbed my shirt and tore at my face with her nails.
Like Muhammad Ali—not Pug Robinson—in his prime, I pulled my head back. That made her swipe superficial.
She bared her teeth and came at me again. I grabbed her wrists and held them. She had skinny arms but with tensile strength. It was like holding a squid from a fifties sci-fi movie.
A squid that screamed. Which finally got the attention of a security guard, a lardy college dropout type with sandy hair.
“Let go now!” he said.
“Take her from me,” I said.
He looked lost.
“She’s on the attack,” I said.
Nydessa screamed I was lying, all in a language where “K” is the primary sound. She laced so many of them together in such a short time—with the term
mother
making several noted appearances—I thought I was in a speeded-up Mamet film.
“Sir!” the guard said.
I pushed Nydessa back a step and let go of her.
“Now—” the guard started to say. Then Nydessa flew at me again. Her hands were talons.
This time the guard had the presence of mind to intervene. She turned her claws on him. Got him flush on one of his pink cheeks.
Three red stripes appeared on his face.
Nydessa stopped, looked at her work, then ran for the exit. The guard was too stunned to do anything. Blood was running down his cheek now.
“You guys have a first aid kit?” I said.
“I think so,” he said. “What was that?”
“I got a name and address if you want to press charges. You got a boatload of witnesses.”
Several people were looking at us.
I gave the guard my card and made sure he got to the bathroom.
MONDAY I WENT
to see Mitch Roberts. He’d just come back from court and said he only had ten minutes to talk to me.
I told him ten minutes would be enough. He showed me to his office, one of the corner pens with a window overlooking the backside of Van Nuys.
“I want you to dismiss against Calderón,” I said.
He smiled. “And I want to play quarterback for the Colts.”
“Do you have an arm?”
“Not like that.”
“You don’t have a case, either.”
“Please.” He put his coat over the back of his chair and loosened his tie. “You’ve now got seven minutes.”
“You know the case is wack. You got shaky IDs all over, and one very bad druggie who hates my guy.”
“She made a positive ID,” Roberts said. “No question.”
“I have a feeling you’re going to have real trouble with this one,” I said.
“You let me worry about that.”
“I’m telling you, she’s one loose rivet.”
“So you can cross-examine her.”
Oh, I would cross-examine her. I decided not to let him in on the little incident in Amoeba Music. There are not a lot of surprises trial lawyers can spring anymore, but this was going to be one of mine. As long as Nydessa didn’t tell Roberts what happened.
I thought she wouldn’t. I decided she wanted to have as little to do with the proceedings as possible. Because the guy who really did the shootings could very well be her boyfriend.
Yes, Mitch Roberts would have a little surprise if he put her on the stand. I’d bring in a certain security guard to testify about her little friend in the hoody. I didn’t know if it was the shooter or not. But I didn’t have to know. All I had to do was put that picture in the mind of the jury. They’d take care of the rest through the magic of deliberations.
“I got the vic’s husband looking right into the guy’s eyes,” Roberts said, “and making another positive ID.”
“You sure about that?”
He said, “I got a call from Mr. Roshdieh. He says you invaded his store.”
“That’s the word he used, ‘invaded’?”
“He was upset that you would do that, that you would come in and harass him, show him photos. Did you do that, Mr. Buchanan?”
“I did my job,” I said. “I’m a working lawyer, Mitch.”
“Don’t call me Mitch.”
“Mr. Roberts?”
“That’ll do.”
“You don’t seem to like me.”
“I don’t. I think you’re arrogant.”
“Just because I think I’m better than everybody else?”
He shook his head in disgust.
“Kidding, Mitch—I mean, Mr. Roberts. If we can’t have a little collegiality here—”
“I’m not interested in collegiality or conviviality or yucking it up. I have a job to do.”
“Which is to seek justice, right? That’s what the canon of ethics says, am I right?”
Roberts took a fuzzy green tennis ball off his desk and bounced it once on the floor, caught it, and squeezed. “Your point?”
“Don’t make this personal with me,” I said. “Don’t make me think prosecutors aren’t really interested in following exculpatory evidence to a dismissal. Just think about it, will you? You have a murder to prosecute, but your case is thin. That means the real guy may still be out there, right?”
“We have the right guy.” Roberts bounced the ball again. “By the way, did you show Mr. Roshdieh a business card?”
“Did I what?”
“When you went to see him? Did you show him a business card?”
“No.”
“You mean you violated 1054.8?”
I tried not to look lost. He was referring to the penal code, which, not being a career prosecutor, I hadn’t memorized.
“Disclosure rules when you talk to one of my witnesses,” Roberts said. “You didn’t do that, sanctions may follow.”
“He knew who I was pretty quick.”
“Maybe we’ll let the state bar figure that out.”
“You’re threatening me?”
He smirked.
SMIRKING IS SOMETHING
trial lawyers like to do. We are all egos on wheels. You can’t try cases without a healthy concept of your own self-worth.
That’s why trial lawyers can be hard to live with. We have to win all the time, even if it’s just what restaurant to go to, what DVD to watch. We start to see all the exchanges of life as little sessions of the one big game, which is winning.
Yeah, we can sometimes have a drink after a day in court. But even then we’re watching. Can I outdrink him? Does she have what it takes to play with the big boys and girls?
It’s better not to open your mouth too much at opposing counsel. But Mitch Roberts annoyed me. Prosecutors, of all the practitioners among us, are supposed to be the ones who can set ego aside for the cause of justice.
Mitch Roberts was not the type to do that. And I’m not the type to keep my pie hole shut.
Which can get me into trouble.
Especially when you’re invited to see a hot Hollywood actor in his native habitat. I was outside heading to my car when I got the call.
“This is Mr. Baxter.” The voice on the phone sounded eerily familiar.
“Who?” I said.
“Cruciferous greens.”
“Oh. Hey. Really good to hear from you.”
“What?”
“I was just about to fry up some bok choy. Wanna come over?”
Pause. “Mr. McLarty would like to clear up any misunderstanding.”
“I shouldn’t deep-fry bok choy?”
“You interested or not?”
MILLIONS OF VIEWERS
tune in each week to watch the high jinks of Barry and Kyle, two divorced guys living in a two-room apartment with Barry’s seven-year-old daughter. How the courts, or a good God, would have allowed this girl to be there was a question dealt with in the first show. I guess.
The taping I’d been invited to was at the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank. They shot
Casablanca
here. Now it was home to
Men in Pants.
Here’s lookin’ at crud, kid.
They had a VIP pass waiting for me as I drove on the lot. McLarty’s peeps set it up, and I was given prime treatment. Hollywood. Glamour. Bring your autograph book.
The shoot was on a Tuesday evening in one of the big sound stage buildings. A line of audience members was waiting outside as I was escorted past them by a guy in a navy blue coat.
Inside I was intro’d to a tall woman with headphones and a clipboard. She was expecting me. Her name was Starr. Last name Brite.
I am not kidding.
“We’re so happy to have you,” Starr said, smiling. She had prominent cheekbones and smooth skin. Auburn hair and brown eyes. About twenty-five.
“Are you a fan of the show?” she asked.
“I’ve seen it.”
“Just a couple of times?”
“Once. That I can remember.”
“Oh, well, we’ll have to remedy that, won’t we? Something to drink?”
Starr Brite showed me the set and gave me a front row seat. She brought me a Coke and a
Men in Pants
T-shirt, along with a press kit. The crew were getting ready for the shoot, setting lights, positioning cable, checking cameras.
Big headshots of the actors beamed from the back wall. The other star, Wayne Chesterfield, was a Broadway actor whose big break came after he posted a fake commercial for Preparation H on YouTube. It became a comedy sensation, and he was cast in the show a few weeks later.
The little girl in the cast was named Madison Martell. She was blond and cute and had been a hit in a cereal commercial.
A little before seven the doors opened and the teeming masses stormed in. Took seats in anticipation. A rotund family of four was sitting on my right. Two kids, a boy and a girl, between larger versions of themselves. On my left were three teens chattering and laughing about one of their friends who wasn’t there.
Starr Brite came out and gave the audience some instructions and warnings—cell phones and all that. She said she hoped they’d all enjoy the taping. The large mother on my right told one of her kids she was going to march him right out if he didn’t shut up.
Then the warm-up guy came out. He was about thirty and he did a few jokes about Hollywood and then the president and a few people laughed. Not enough to get him out of being a warm-up guy.
Then it was time for the taping.
In this particular episode, McLarty was trying to get a pizza delivery girl into bed. He kept ordering pizzas. Chesterfield and he fought about it. Madison Martell kept eating pizza and got sick.
Then hurled into McLarty’s underwear drawer
.
What great writing these shows have.
McLarty, for what he was doing, was fine. Professional.
The taping came to an end and the cast members were introduced. They came out and bowed.
Then it was over.
The teeming masses headed out.
Starr Brite asked me to join McLarty in his dressing room.
“
I’M REALLY SORRY
about the other night,” McLarty said, lighting a cigarette. “You know, you show up, I’m trying to have a good time, you know how it goes.”
“Do I?” I said. “Why don’t you tell me how it goes?”
His dressing room was nicer than most homes in East L.A. There was a fully stocked bar and a mirror table, a treadmill, and two plasma TVs. The place smelled like cold cream and smoke.