The Zen Man (23 page)

“Can’t believe you’d think I’d…go back to my old ways.”

“It’s just that Sam was dropping by the car to check things…and I wondered—”

“No. Absolutely not. The soft and comfortable in my life comes from you, baby, nothing else. I’ll explain after I’m out.”

If I got out. Christ, I was back in jail, looking at the cold, hard possibility that I might not be checking out of this concrete hotel.

She closed her eyes for the briefest of moments, opened them. The look she gave me shook me up.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s just…I’m…never mind.”

My breath caught. “Pregnant?”

She laughed. Not a happy sound. “Oh, that’d be the icing, wouldn’t it? No, what I was going to say was…I’m just so tired of all this.”

“Me, too,” I pressed my fingers against the glass.

She hesitated, reached up and pressed her fingers against mine. I hated not feeling her warmth.

She dropped her hand, checked the time on her watch. “I need to go. By the time I walk back to the office, my lunch hour will be up.”

“Thanks for coming by.” I slid my fingers off the glass.

“Need anything?”

“A get out of jail card?”

“Talk to Sam about that.”

“There’s something…”

“What?”

I paused, knowing I was charging onto bumpy terrain, but after being set up for murder, shot at, and now drug charges, I didn’t fool myself that my life story was guaranteed a groovy ending with double rainbows. If I wanted a chance at happiness, even a spark of it, I had to rush for it with blinders on, race like a motherfucker barefoot over ground littered with broken glass, rocks, potholes. Risk the pain, put my heart out there.

“Marry me.”

She blinked, gave me a here-we-go-again eye roll. “Honestly, Rick, you pick the most romantic places to propose.”

She hung up the phone.

• • •

“What brings you here?” I asked.

I’d been told I had a visitor, had foolishly hoped it was Laura returning to say she’d marry me, or Sam with schemes for getting me out. But instead of either, there sat Brianna dressed in her signature bomber jacket. Her flushed face and the mess of curls sticking out on her head made me wonder if she’d been running.

“God, Rick…” She swiped at the corner of her eye. “Somebody’s really trying to—”

“Let’s skip that part. I’m living it, so I already know it.”

She looked momentarily confused, then put on her game face. “I wanted to see how you’re doing.” Which sounded like Ah waantd tsee howa youra doin. That southern drawn thickened when her guard was down, or she wanted it to seem that way.

“How do I look as though I’m doing?”

Her gaze darted down my orange jumpsuit, back to my eyes. “Does Sam have any idea when you might be released?”

I tried not to think how Laura hadn’t asked that. “We haven’t had a chance to discuss my case—this new one—yet.”

“You’re innocent.”

“I’ll remind him when he visits.”

“Funny.” She forced a smile. “Hey, remember that trip we took to Vegas?”

“Is that why you came to see me? To talk about Vegas?”

“We’d wanted to…you know.”

Make a baby. In that singular instant, I wasn’t sure what I felt more—hate or regret. She, more than anyone, had known how much I’d wanted a child. Hell of a time to remind me of it.

“So what about Sin City?”

A look of something I couldn’t put my finger on flickered across her face. Disbelief? Amusement? She switched the receiver to her other ear, smiled slyly. “We’d played poker.”

“You sure you got the right guy? I hate poker.”

“I won. Had two aces.”

Nothing like a two-way conversation. “Good for you.”

“Can you believe it? Two aces.” She looked around, settled back into our gaze. “Something happened last night…”

“These u-turns are making me dizzy.”

“A neighbor saw a man…lurking around my house. Must have been ten, ten-thirty. He was in those overgrown bushes underneath my living room window. My neighbor—remember that nerd, worked at IBM?—couldn’t make out much, just said it was a guy, a peeping tom.”

I remembered her neighbor. Never saw a woman at his house, but in the years since, maybe he’d started taking showers, ironing his clothes, and attracting the opposite sex.

After a moment of strange silence, she rolled back her shoulders, shot me that game face again. “Hey, when you get out, let’s get together. I’d like to share what Sam and I talked about.”

“I’m sure he can share the same information.”

“Share something else that’s on my mind, then.”

“Sure.”

But I doubted that day would come. I was losing faith in my case, losing hope I’d get out this time.

As we said our good-byes and hung up the phones, I flashed on a quote by Osho.
Doubt is the vestibule which we all must pass through before we can enter the temple of truth
.

He should’ve added that that vestibule is one long, dark, rock-strewn path, and when you’re stuck somewhere in the middle it’s tough to tell if that light ahead is the ambient glow from the temple of truth or the blinding beam of an incoming locomotive.

• • •

“It’s a fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into,” said Sam in that accusatory lawyer tone he adopted when he knew he was the man and wanted to make sure the other person knew it, too. Must’ve heard that tone a hundred times in the courtroom or when he was chiding a client who’d done something naughty, which was how he was treating me now, as though I thought piling my car with a controlled substance while out on bond for murder one was “naughty.”

“Look,” I said, “I have no idea how that junk got there. You were there yesterday morning—did it look as though someone had been tampering with my car?” I flashed on the short swarthy guy. “I think that Santa hit-man did it.”

He paused. “First, as to yesterday morning, I had to visit a client in jail so Daphne dropped by and picked up the darts and gun. Other than the shattered windshield, and the mess in your passenger seat, she saw nothing unusual. Second, you think this Santa character parked next to your car and left the stash in broad daylight? That road gets lots of traffic during the day—dozens, hundreds of people could’ve seen him. Not a smart move on his part. Besides, based on what you’ve told me, he’s tried to kill you, not set you up for life.”

“I saw that guy again this morning, after I was arrested.”

“Santa?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“Across the street from where I’d been pulled over.”

“And…”

“And when I looked again, he was gone.”

I wanted to believe that look was concern, but it was more like disgusted disbelief. “You’re sounding like a man under a lot of stress.”

“You don’t believe Santa is after me.”

“I said you’re under a lot of stress—”

“You think I’m dirty. I’ll take any test, anytime, anywhere, ‘cause I’m clean.”

He leaned forward, his lower lip thrust out in annoyance. “It’s not about your being clean, it’s about your car being dirty.
Your
car, Rick, let’s not play games. What in God’s name were you doing carrying around a quarter-ounce cocaine? Some DA somewhere is going to start arguing you needed money, were selling coke, and this looks like shit.”

“I didn’t know I was carrying a quarter ounce cocaine.” I stared into his eyes, narrowed with disdain. “Look, if they take fingerprints from whatever that shit was in, my fingerprints won’t be on it.”

“You and I both know that plastic bags are pretty darn hard to get latents from, so we obviously can’t count on that. Look, you’re in jail for the long haul. It’s where the D.A. wanted you anyway until trial, so get used to it and sit tight.”

“Shit.” I looked away, too furious to talk more. He was a smart lawyer, but his laziness was unconscionable. Because it was fucking lazy to tell a client—even a non-paying one—to just “get used to” a bad situation and sit tight. After breathing in the positive, out the negative, I met his gaze again.

“I can’t sit tight for a year.”

“Might be six months.”

“I have a murder case to investigate.”

“Maybe…but I can get Tony Quattro…half price.”

“Great shirts, but that pompous, over-rated prick can’t investigate a case and hasn’t been able to for years. If anything, that was
his
coke in my car.” So much for the breathing.

“You’re bitter ‘cause he squealed on you to the Attorney Reg Board.”

“He and everybody else in town. No, I’m bitter ‘cause he won’t be able to get me out of my murder rap, and I’m insulted you even mentioned his name.”

“You gotta chill, Zen Man.”

“You gotta get me out of here.” We maintained another eyeball-lock. Call me immature, but I refused to blink first. “Look, you’re obviously not believing Santa returned to my car, planted the coke. Then let’s look at it another way—why isn’t this an illegal search?”

He blinked. “I know where you’re going, but it takes a while to get out of a search. You can’t just do it. Remember the Glendale case?”

“Where we got a suppression when the informant turned out to be a pissed-off crack dealer?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Did a pissed-off crack dealer leave his coke in my car?”

A smile almost made it to Sam’s face. “No, but maybe we can get Tony—now, hear me out Rick—to find out who left it there. Like maybe your high-flyin’ hippie friend Garrett?”

“Nice.” I smirked. “You’re itching for Garrett to take the fall. I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for starters, he’s innocent. No one would believe that he does anything but smokes pot, eats like a vegan, and takes naps.”

“He’d been a candy store the night of Debby’s—Deborah’s murder.”

“A little ecstasy, a little acid…but he’s no coke-head. And people who spend all day meditating on crystals don’t spend their money snorting them.” I paused. “I have an idea. This had to be an anonymous tipster. This person told the cops that there was cocaine in my car. That same person is also the one who put the coke there. On top of it, I will bet you that this person didn’t tell the cops enough about my car or me to make this a legal seizure. After all, the tipster knew where the coke was in my car, told the cops exactly where to look. You have to remember, Sam, that the entire search of my car took a grand total of
fifteen seconds
. That cop knew
exactly
where that shit was.”

“You’re going in circles, Rick. Could be the cop found the coke in the first place he looked.”

“Could be, but that’s far-fetched and you know it.

“So you want to go for an unreliable tip?”

“Unreliable
and
unverified. Do me a favor, let’s push an illegal search and seizure at my first appearance—when is it, Friday?”

“We stopped doing motions to suppress at first appearances in about nineteen-eighty. Did you hear that both Chief Justice Earl Warren and Justice Douglas are dead? That Studio 54 is closed, and the hostages are back from Iran?”

“Sam, stop pissing me off. Go after the tipster. Show them the surrounding proof isn’t there and never will be.”

“Surrounding proof…as in telephone calls to the police department? Guy…or gal…could’ve called from a pay phone so there’s no number trace that’s meaningful. And if someone wanted to be really smart, they disguise their voice. Those voice changers are for sale everywhere on the Internet.”

“You’re making my argument, Sam. The less they know about the caller, the less real proof they had to stop me and search my car.”

His expression cleared. “Rick, you’re truly diabolically smart. Not lucky, but smart. No wonder the Attorney Regulation Board doesn’t want to turn you loose on the court room again.”

“So you’ll do it?”

“Of course.” He stared at me for a long moment. “Who would’ve had a quarter ounce?”

I shrugged. “Your girlfriend Tracy?”

He gave me don’t-go-there look. “What about Justin? After all, he was arguing with Deborah at the retreat. Tried to make you into a dartboard.”

I gave my head a shake. “He’s a self-indulgent, anger-management-candidate party boy, working his way up from the PD’s office to a lucrative private defense practice. Guys like that don’t plant coke. Too much to lose.”

“Even lawyers go whacko.”

A chilling through shroomed through me. “I got it. A whacko CrimDef hired one of his or her criminal clients, that Santa dude, to kill me. Santa’s from Mexico, doesn’t speak enough English to have called the cops with a tip, so whacko lawyer—who’s smart enough to call from an untraceable number, knew exactly what to say to get those Denver cops breathing hard.”

He blew out an exasperated breath. “Hate to go, but I have to get back to the planet Earth.”

“Sam, I’m onto something. Think it over. Hey, what did you and Brianna talk about?”

“I’ve left her two messages, but she hasn’t returned my calls.”

I felt a spurt of anger at her deceit. I’d bought her sincerity act, but now I wondered if that’s all it was—an act. “Maybe we should put a tail on her.”

Sam shrugged. “We have, in a sense. Laura’s digging for dirt at TeleForce. I really need to go—picking up records at the court house. Get some rest. You look like shit.”

“We have faith … Our music is never counting. For us the One is always Now. In time whether it’s 7/4 time, 4/4 time, or whatever—we’re always coming back to the One.”
—Jerry Garcia

O
n Friday, after my appearance, Sam and I headed down the granite steps outside the Denver courthouse.

“Did you hear that both Earl Warren and Justice Douglas are alive? That Studio 54 has re-opened?” I ducked against a blast of winter wind.

Sam buttoned his cashmere jacket, acting as though he hadn’t heard me. Other nattily clad lawyers were heading up and down the stairs to the courthouse, several with anxious looking clients in tow. On the creche, a group of kids and a few adults stood in front of the replica of Jesus in the manager.

“Amazing they keep putting that up,” gruffed Sam.