The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel (8 page)

“Yeah, she got hurt,” the deputy said. “Got a little banged up in a scuffle. She can tell you.”

I let the questions go at that. In a way, I was relieved that the medical delay was not due—not directly, at least—to drug
ingestion or addiction.

The deputy led me to the attorney room, which I had been in many times before with many different clients. The vast majority
of my clients were men and I didn’t discriminate, but the truth was I hated representing women who were incarcerated. From
prostitutes to murderers—and I had defended them all—there was something pitiful about a woman in jail. I had found that almost
all of the time, their crimes could be traced back to men. Men who took advantage of them, abused them, deserted them, hurt
them. This is not to say they were not responsible for their actions or that some of them did not deserve the punishments
they received. There were predators among the female ranks that easily rivaled those among the males. But, even still, the
women I saw in jail seemed so different from the men in the other tower. The men still lived by wiles and strength. The women
had nothing left by the time they locked the door on them.

The visiting area was a row of booths in which an attorney could sit on one side and confer with a client who sat on the other
side, separated by an eighteen-inch sheet of clear Plexiglas. A deputy sat in a glassed-in booth at the end of the room and
observed
but supposedly didn’t listen. If paperwork needed to be passed to the client, it was held up for the booth deputy to see and
approve.

I was led to a booth and my escort left me. I then waited another ten minutes before the same deputy appeared on the other
side of the Plexiglas with Gloria Dayton. Immediately, I saw that my client had a swelling around her left eye and a single
butterfly stitch over a small laceration just below her widow’s peak. Gloria Dayton had jet-black hair and olive skin. She
had once been beautiful. The first time I represented her, seven or eight years before, she was beautiful. The kind of beauty
that leaves you stunned at the fact she was selling it, that she had decided that selling herself to strangers was her best
or only option. Now she just looked hard to me. The lines of her face were taut. She had visited surgeons who were not the
best, and anyway, there was nothing they could do about eyes that had seen too much.

“Mickey Mantle,” she said. “You’re going to bat for me again?”

She said it in her little girl’s voice that I suppose her regular clients enjoyed and responded to. It just sounded strange
to me, coming from that tightly drawn mouth and face with eyes that were as hard and had as much life in them as marbles.

She always called me Mickey Mantle, even though she was born after the great slugger had long retired and probably knew little
about him or the game he played. It was just a name to her. I guess the alternative would have been to call me Mickey Mouse,
and I probably wouldn’t have liked it much.

“I’m going to try, Gloria,” I told her. “What happened to your face? How’d you get hurt?”

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand.

“There was a little disagreement with some of the girls in my dorm.”

“About what?”

“Just girl stuff.”

“Are you getting high in there?”

She looked indignant and then she tried putting a pouting look on her face.

“No, I’m not.”

I studied her. She seemed straight. Maybe she wasn’t getting high and that was not what the fight had been about.

“I don’t want to stay in here, Mickey,” she said in her real voice.

“I don’t blame you. I don’t like being in here myself and I get to leave.”

I immediately regretted saying the last part and reminding her of her situation. She didn’t seem to notice.

“You think maybe you could get me into one of those pretrial whatchamacallits where I can get myself right?”

I thought it was interesting how addicts call both getting high and getting sober the same thing—
getting right
.

“The problem is, Gloria, we got into a pretrial intervention program last time, remember? And it obviously didn’t work. So
this time I don’t know. They only have so many spaces in those things and the judges and prosecutors don’t like sending people
back when they didn’t take advantage of it in the first place.”

“What do you mean?” she protested. “I took advantage. I went the whole damn time.”

“That’s right. That was good. But then after it was over, you went right back to doing what you do and here we are again.
They wouldn’t call that a success, Gloria. I have to be honest with you. I don’t think I can get you into a program this time.
I think you have to be ready for them to be tougher this time.”

Her eyes drooped.

“I can’t do it,” she said in a small voice.

“Look, they have programs in the jail. You’ll get straight and come out with another chance to start again clean.”

She shook her head; she looked lost.

“You’ve had a long run but it can’t go on,” I said. “If I were you I’d think about getting out of this place. L.A., I mean.
Go somewhere and start again.”

She looked up at me with anger in her eyes.

“Start over and do what? Look at me. What am I going to do? Get married, have kids and plant flowers?”

I didn’t have an answer and neither did she.

“Let’s talk about that when the time comes. For now, let’s worry about your case. Tell me what happened.”

“What always happens. I screened the guy and it all checked out. He looked legit. But he was a cop and that was that.”

“You went to him?”

She nodded.

“The Mondrian. He had a suite—that’s another thing. The cops usually don’t have suites. They don’t have the budget.”

“Didn’t I tell you how stupid it would be to take coke with you when you work? And if a guy even asks you to bring coke with
you, then you know he’s a cop.”

“I know all of that and he didn’t ask me to bring it. I forgot I had it, okay? I got it from a guy I went to see right before
him. What was I supposed to do, leave it in the car for the Mondrian valets to take?”

“What guy did you get it from?”

“A guy at the Travelodge on Santa Monica. I did him earlier and he offered it to me, you know, instead of cash. Then after
I left I checked my messages and I had the call from the guy at the Mondrian. So I called him back, set it up and went straight
there. I forgot I had the stuff in my purse.”

Nodding, I leaned forward. I was seeing a glimmer on this one, a possibility.

“This guy in the Travelodge, who was he?”

“I don’t know, just some guy who saw my ad on the site.”

She arranged her liaisons through a website which carried photos, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of escorts.

“Did he say where he was from?”

“No. He was Mexican or Cuban or something. He was sweaty from using.”

“When he gave you the coke, did you see if he had any more?”

“Yeah, he had some. I was hoping for a call back… but I don’t think I was what he was expecting.”

Last time I had checked her ad on LA-Darlings.com to see if
she was still in the life, the photos she’d put up were at least five years old and looked ten. I imagined that it could lead
to some disappointment when her clients opened their hotel room doors.

“How much did he have?”

“I don’t know. I just knew he had to have more because if it was all he had left, he wouldn’t have given it to me.”

It was a good point. The glimmer was getting brighter.

“Did you screen him?”

“’Course.”

“What, his driver’s license?”

“No, his passport. He said he didn’t have a license.”

“What was his name?”

“Hector something.”

“Come on, Gloria, Hector what? Try to re—”

“Hector something Moya. It was three names. But I remember ‘Moya’ because I said ‘Hector give me Moya’ when he brought out
the coke.”

“Okay, that’s good.”

“You think it’s something you can use to help me?”

“Maybe, depending on who this guy is. If he’s a trade-up.”

“I want to get out.”

“Okay, listen, Gloria. I’m going to go see the prosecutor and see what she’s thinking and see what I can do for you. They’ve
got you in here on twenty-five thousand dollars’ bail.”

“What?”

“It’s higher than usual because of the drugs. You don’t have twenty-five hundred for the bond, do you?”

She shook her head. I could see the muscles in her face constricting. I knew what was coming.

“Could you front it to me, Mickey? I promise I’d—”

“I can’t do that, Gloria. That’s a rule and I could get in trouble if I broke it. You’re going to have to be in here overnight
and they’ll take you over to arraignment in the morning.”

“No,” she said, more like a moan than a word.

“I know it’s going to be tough but you have to nut it out. And
you have to be straight in the morning when you come into court or I’ll have no shot at lowering your bond and getting you
out. So none of that shit they trade in here. You got that?”

She raised her arms over her head, almost as if she was protecting herself from falling debris. She squeezed her hands into
tight fists of dread. It would be a long night ahead.

“You’ve got to get me out tomorrow.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I waved to the deputy in the observation booth. I was ready to go.

“One last thing,” I said. “Do you remember what room the guy at the Travelodge was in?”

She thought a moment before answering.

“Yeah, it’s an easy one. Three thirty-three.”

“Okay, thanks. I’m going to see what I can do.”

She stayed sitting when I stood up. Soon the escort deputy came back and told me I would have to wait while she first took
Gloria back to her dorm. I checked my watch. It was almost two. I hadn’t eaten and was getting a headache. I also had only
two hours to get to Leslie Faire in the DA’s office to talk about Gloria and then out to Century City for the case meeting
with Roulet and Dobbs.

“Isn’t there somebody else who can take me out of here?” I said irritably. “I need to get to court.”

“Sorry, sir, that’s how it works.”

“Well, please hurry.”

“I always do.”

Fifteen minutes later I realized that my complaining to the deputy had only succeeded in her making sure she left me waiting
even longer than had I just kept my mouth shut. Like a restaurant customer who gets the cold soup he sent back to the kitchen
returned hot with the piquant taste of saliva in it, I should have known better.

On the quick drive over to the Criminal Courts Building I called Raul Levin. He was back at his home office in Glendale, looking
through the police reports on the Roulet investigation and arrest. I asked him to put it aside to make some calls. I wanted
to see what he could find out about the man in room 333 at the Travelodge on Santa Monica. I told him I needed the information
yesterday. I knew he had sources and ways of running the name Hector Moya. I just didn’t want to know who or what they were.
I was only interested in what he got.

As Earl pulled to a stop in front of the CCB, I told him that while I was inside he should take a run over to Philippe’s to
get us roast beef sandwiches. I’d eat mine on my way out to Century City. I passed a twenty-dollar bill over the seat to him
and got out.

While waiting for an elevator in the always crowded lobby of the CCB, I popped a Tylenol from my briefcase and hoped it would
head off the migraine I felt coming on from lack of food. It took me ten minutes to get to the ninth floor and another fifteen
waiting for Leslie Faire to grant me an audience. I didn’t mind the wait, though, because Raul Levin called back just before
I was allowed entrance. If Faire had seen me right away, I wouldn’t have gone in with the added ammunition.

Levin had told me that the man in room 333 at the Travelodge had checked in under the name Gilberto Garcia. The motel did
not require identification, since he paid cash in advance for a week and put a fifty-dollar deposit on phone charges. Levin
had also run a trace on the name I had given him and came up with Hector Arrande Moya, a Colombian wanted on a fugitive warrant
issued after he fled San Diego when a federal grand jury handed down an indictment for drug trafficking. It added up to real
good stuff and I planned to put it to use with the prosecutor.

Faire was in an office shared with three other prosecutors. Each had a desk in a corner. Two were gone, probably in court,
but a man I didn’t know sat at the desk in the corner opposite Faire. I had to speak to her with him in earshot. I hated doing
this because I found that the prosecutor I was dealing with in these situations would often play to the others in the room,
trying to sound tough and shrewd, sometimes at the expense of my client.

I pulled a chair away from one of the empty desks and brought it over to sit down. I skipped the pleasantries because there
weren’t
any and got right to the point because I was hungry and didn’t have a lot of time.

“You filed on Gloria Dayton this morning,” I said. “She’s mine. I want to see what we can do about it.”

“Well, we can plead her guilty and she can do one to three years at Frontera.”

She said it matter-of-factly with a smile that was more of a smirk.

“I was thinking of PTI.”

“I was thinking she already got a bite out of that apple and she spit it out. No way.”

“Look, how much coke did she have on her, a couple grams?”

“It’s still illegal, no matter how much she had. Gloria Dayton has had numerous opportunities to rehabilitate herself and
avoid prison. But she’s run out of chances.”

She turned to her desk, opened a file and glanced at the top sheet.

“Nine arrests in just the last five years,” she said. “This is her third drug charge and she’s never spent more than three
days in jail. Forget PTI. She’s got to learn sometime and this is that time. I’m not open to discussion on this. If she pleads,
I’ll give her one to three. If she doesn’t, I’ll go get a verdict and she takes her chances with the judge at sentencing.
I will ask for the max on it.”