Wolf's Revenge

by Lachlan Smith

  My father looked uneasy. “Do what?”

  “Run the shop while serving a life term.”

  “You’re asking me about something that isn’t any of my business. Or yours. Our role is strictly on the legitimate side of whatever’s going on.”

  “Right,” I said quickly, with more than a hint of sarcasm. “One hundred percent aboveboard. You’re pulling, what, five grand a week keeping the books on his rental business?”

  “Now you’re asking questions about my business.”

  “I know I’m not worth three hundred an hour, but that’s what he pays me to defend his crew of dealers, pimps, and whores. Don’t tell me that’s not going to come back on me someday.”

  “What do you want me to say? I thought offering my services would be a way of protecting my family. I was wrong.”

  “I didn’t need protecting. I still don’t.”

  “Carly does,” he told me. “I’ll make sure that what happened this weekend won’t occur again. I plan to pay a visit to Sims. That way he and I can reach a little understanding.”

  “The kind Wilder reached with Russell Bell?”

  My father glanced around quickly as if to make sure nobody had heard, then leaned closer to me. He gripped my arm, tightly. His whispered voice was urgent. “You must have had a few drinks before you came over here, otherwise you wouldn’t say something so reckless in a public place like this.”

  I wasn’t drunk but didn’t care if he thought so. “You’d prefer I say it in private?”

  He let go of my arm.

  I exhaled. “Look, I figure part of staying on top of an organization like this is being responsive. That means not only maintaining regular contact, but also being reachable when split-second calls need to be made. That side of the problem isn’t insurmountable. The prisons are filled with cell phones these days.”

  My father just stared straight ahead, his face set in a look of endurance.

  “Just as important, he needs to be able to control his people,” I went on. “Hand out punishments, deliver rewards. For this, he needs a lieutenant feared and respected by the rank and file. Someone ruthless, but under Bo’s control. This lieutenant’s in a dangerous spot. If anyone’s going to make a move on the organization, he’ll be the first one hit. At the same time, Bo can’t trust him too far, out of fear he’ll wake up one morning and realize he doesn’t need to answer to a boss who’s never getting out of prison. So there’s got to be another guy whose job it is to keep tabs on the lieutenant. You follow me?” But even I knew it wasn’t rocket science.

  Lawrence couldn’t contain his discomfort. “Why’re you talking to me about this stuff?”

  “I’m only trying to figure out what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

  “Well, don’t. You’re not paid to figure anything out. People find out you’re talking like this, even just to me, then we’ll have real problems. If he thinks any of us might run to the feds …”

  His voice trailed off. His meaning was clear.

  I nodded, sipping my beer. Beside me, my father shifted on his stool.

  “It’s not going to be like this forever,” he finally said. “I’ve got an exit strategy for all of us. Just give me time.”

  I nodded again. Yet his words meant very little to me. As far as I was concerned, they lacked even a semblance of conviction. If he’d wanted a way out, he’d never have gotten us in.

  He watched me for a moment as if trying to read my thoughts, then drained his Manhattan’s watery dregs. Taking out his wallet, he slapped a twenty onto the bar. “This is the last time we talk about any of this in public. I’ll deal with Sims.”

  CHAPTER 4

  From the moment I heard the girl’s voice-mail message I knew it was no ordinary case. She’d left it on the office line Sunday evening, a no-nonsense, five-second communication consisting only of her inmate number and the prearranged code: “My friend gave me your name.”

  Even as I listened to it, I received the email telling me that ten thousand bucks had been wired to my trust account.

  As simply as that, I was hired.

  It didn’t take me long to learn that my new client had a jail number but no name, having refused to give one when arrested. So, for now, she was Jane Doe. I’d never come across a woman on the operational side of Wilder’s organization, though I’d represented plenty of prostitutes in his employ. Jane Doe was charged not with prostitution, however, but rather with a sensational murder, gunning down a man in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.

  My private investigator, Car, filled me in with a few details. “The victim’s name was Randolph Edwards,” he said. “An ex-con, out of prison a little under a year. From what I hear, he was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood inside, which means he was still in the AB after he got out. He’d done six for armed robbery, with the last three spent in the Q. San Quentin. So he’d have crossed paths with Bo Wilder, your dad, and Russell Bell—the whole crew.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  “He was standing outside that Motel 6 on Larkin Street, smoking a cigarette, when your client ran out of the alley full tilt, dashed through traffic, and shot him in the head.”

  Dressed in jailhouse orange, Jane Doe was five-two and light-skinned, looking smaller than she actually was because the T-shirt they’d given her was several sizes too large, the sleeves hanging down past her bony elbows. She sat in the corner of the courtroom holding cell, her head against the wall. When I saw her, I had the sense her body might be uninhabited, her spirit having absented itself, leaving this hollow shell behind.

  I introduced myself, getting no name in response, and asked how old she was.

  She spoke without lifting her head. “Old enough to blow out a man’s brains.”

  “There must be better definitions of maturity,” I said. But she was also right. California’s criminal justice system decreed that a child ceased to be a child the day she committed first-degree premeditated murder.

  “Why won’t you give anyone your name?” I asked.

  “Guess you’ll have to figure that one out for yourself.”

  “Tell me why Wilder’s paying for me to defend your case and maybe I’ll understand.”

  Her manner remained flat. “Wilder? I don’t even know who that is.”

  It was the same answer any of my other clients would have given, except that she seemed unconcerned at being asked the question,

  almost as if she truly didn’t know the name and what it represented in California’s criminal underworld. It was, in fact, a serious lapse to speak his name aloud in this context, and my other clients would have reacted badly. I’d wanted to see the look on her face.

  I watched her for a moment, trying to gauge if her ignorance was sincere. It was possible she’d been given my name and number by someone far beneath Bo in the hierarchy of the organization.

  “Bo Wilder’s a white supremacist, doing life in San Quentin,” I finally said. “He still owns a good cross section of the street action between here and Stockton. But, last I checked, he doesn’t typically use young African-American females to carry out hits on his associates.”

  “I don’t want any white supremacist lawyer.”

  “You don’t have one.” I took out my pad, along with a folder containing blank forms. I selected one and directed her attention to it.

  “This is a conflict waiver form. You need to sign it because the money to pay for your defense is coming from a third party. I won’t let that affect my representation of you in any way, just as it says here. Nor will I disclose information about your case to anyone else. I’m your lawyer, and nothing you tell me ever passes these lips. If someone put you up to this, then I want to help you. But for me to do that, you’ll have to tell me about it. Sign if you acknowledge that.”

  I watched to see how she’d sign her name. Without hesitating, she wrote in a neat cursive script, Jane Doe. When I reached for the paper, she suddenly snatched it from my hand and crumpled it. Then she sank back agai
nst the wall, her foot beginning to tap, her chin nodding forcefully as if in answer to some question only she could hear, her eyes boring into mine.

  I picked the form up, smoothing the paper as best I could. I’d represented murderers before. Usually, they didn’t scare me, especially when they were behind bars. But Jane Doe’s involvement was outwardly senseless, and it was becoming clear to me that my client was a bomb still primed to explode.

  “You don’t have to let Bo Wilder pick your lawyer for you,” I told her. “You don’t want me, all you have to do is walk out there alone. When they call your name, tell them you want a PD.”

  Nonetheless, I knew that if she elected to go with the PD, we’d both have to answer for it.

  Whether she understood this or not, she now said, “I shot the guy, so we might as well get on with it.”

  “I can always say I talked to you and found out I have a conflict of interest. All I have to tell them is I’ve learned that one of my former clients may have been a witness to the shooting. Given that it went down in the Tenderloin on a Saturday night, I’d even say that’s a safe bet. That would let us both off the hook.”

  Jane Doe only shook her head. So I explained briefly what would happen in a few minutes, then knocked on the door for the deputy to let me out into the courtroom. As I left, I reminded her that I’d see her when her case was called.

  The judge, meanwhile, was working at a steady pace through the felony arraignments calendar. He read charges to those defendants who didn’t waive this formality, finding probable cause for those arrested without warrants, appointing counsel, hearing bail arguments, and even occasionally allowing himself to be swayed to depart in one direction or the other from the bail schedule posted on the wall.

  Finally, when the courtroom was cleared of defense lawyers, with only me, the DA, and the few spectators and reporters in the gallery remaining, the bailiff brought in Jane Doe and walked her to the lectern. She was shackled now. He backed up a few steps but remained within reach. I took my place by her side.

  On the bench, the judge studied the documents, flipping through the affidavits in the court file, copies of which I’d just been handed by the DA. He made the required probable cause finding in a monotone intelligible only to his court reporter, then took off his glasses and leaned forward to squint down at my client.

  “What’s your name, young lady?”

  She looked up at him, obviously ready to accept the consequences of her stubbornness. The judge turned his gaze to me. Then, accepting as a given that my client hadn’t opened up to her lawyer, he nodded toward the DA’s table.

  “I take it from the ‘Jane Doe’ pleadings that the state hasn’t managed to trace her fingerprints.”

  The Assistant DA, Jillian Sloane, stood behind the prosecutor’s table and spoke with evident reluctance. “She hasn’t been arrested in San Francisco or anywhere else in California. We’re still searching national databases. Next step is to get her picture out to state and local departments, check the missing person reports. But for now, it looks as though Jane Doe has her wish.”

  “Mr. Maxwell, I hope you don’t plan on making a bail presentation for a client who won’t reveal her identity.”

  I shrugged, then shook my head, a gesture of acquiescence that wouldn’t show up in the transcript, should anyone ever have reason to check. All I’d accomplish in asking for bail would be to lose credibility. I couldn’t think of a client in recent memory more likely to flee if released than the one beside me now.

  “Will your client waive the reading of the complaint?”

  “Yes, Judge. And she’ll enter a plea of not guilty.”

  The judge set the case for a preliminary hearing, then adjourned. I spoke a few words of empty encouragement into my client’s ear, at which juncture the deputy took her back into the holding cell, agreeing to keep her there for a few minutes so that we could chat in private after I’d talked to the DA.

  “I wish we didn’t always have to meet under these circumstances,” I said to Sloane.

  She was packing a rolling file box. “They don’t get any more clean than this. The gun was still smoking when the first officers arrived, and we have eyewitnesses half a block away who saw her pull the trigger. If I could ask for anything more, it’d be video footage. You can’t have everything, I guess.”

  Thirty-five years old, Jillian Sloane had been mentioned a few years ago as a likely candidate for an open judgeship. But she’d let the opportunity pass. She was rumored to have her eye on political office, perhaps the DA’s job. What this meant was that any high-profile case could be the one to make—or derail—her career.

  “She can’t be older than sixteen. Girls that age don’t just find themselves in the Tenderloin with murder in their hearts.”

  “Well, she did,” Sloane shot back. “And that means she’s going to big-girl prison.”

  I tried again to humanize my client. “When we figure out who she is and why she did this, my guess is we’re going to be dealing with one of the saddest backstories any of us has ever heard.”

  Alicia Dunham, the detective on the case in court with Sloane, wasn’t buying what I was selling. “If Wilder’s had the bright idea of blaming this murder on a rival, think again. If your client wants to deal, she’s got to come forward with something more substantial than a story her lawyer hasn’t had time to cook up.”

  I have a short fuse for self-righteous cops. “I don’t see why. The unsupported word of a snitch has always been good currency in this courthouse.”

  Sloane now offered the voice of reason. “Let’s hear him out, Detective. If his client can point the finger at someone in Wilder’s crew—say, Jack Sims—then the DA’s office would be inclined to hear him out.”

  I kept my voice level. “Who’s Jack Sims?”

  Sloane continued packing her things before completing her thought, though she didn’t answer my question. “Given the victim’s AB connections and your being on the case, I’d be skeptical of any information that points away from Wilder’s crew.”

  I had to make some response. “I’ll keep that in mind. I don’t think my client’s interested in turning snitch, though.”

  “Because we all know what happens to snitches,” Dunham said, putting in her two cents, deliberately echoing words once thrown in my father’s face.

  I turned and started to walk away.

  “Leo,” Sloane said in a voice that made me turn back. In it, pity and kindness were both detectable. Yet it seemed for an instant as if she’d felt she’d made a mistake in speaking. Then she stepped forward and actually put a hand on my arm. The courtroom was empty except for the three of us and the bailiff yawning in her chair with a Linda Fairstein novel.

  Sloane spoke in a low, careful voice, looking into my eyes. “I’m only going to say this once. If this girl committed this murder because, for whatever reason, she was forced to do it, then she needs to step up. There can’t be any gamesmanship. You have to put everything on the table. If you do, I’ll help her. If you screw me, on the other hand, there are a thousand ways I can get you back.”

  A held breath escaped me, a nervous germ of laughter that died as soon as it was born. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this uncomfortable in a courtroom. I was spellbound by her candor, so unusual in the world of bullshit we both swam in.

  Finally I forced myself to nod. “Let me talk to her.”

  She nodded, holding my eyes before turning away. “You do that.”

  I waited for the deputy to unlock the door. Once in a great while a criminal defense attorney has the opportunity, literally, to save a life. The depleted young woman I’d faced across the table would have a very hard time surviving in prison.

  Suddenly the deputy screamed an oath and ran forward. I was steps behind her, but Detective Dunham reached the holding cell door first. “We need paramedics!” the deputy shouted, kneeling in the blood next to my client.

  Jane Doe’s eyes were glassy, staring at the ceil
ing.

  “Prisoner down!” The deputy’s hands hovered uselessly over my client’s body, which now had begun to jerk and twitch. Her lips moved, but the roaring in my ears kept me from hearing what she said. Dark blood fountained from her neck. With a horrified shudder I realized she’d stabbed himself with a ballpoint pen.

  Mine. It stuck out beneath her jaw.

  Dunham, kneeling, pressed her thumbs on either side of the shaft, the blood staining her sleeves.

  Taking a step backward, I bumped into Sloane, who was on her phone screaming something. As Dunham and the deputy worked to keep my client alive, I found that my legs would no longer support me. I sat in the jury box. I was still sitting there a few minutes later when the paramedics hustled in.

  They were the ones who saved Jane Doe’s life that day.

  CHAPTER 5

  You might wonder how a person stabs herself in the neck. I saw the holding cell footage a few months later when it was produced by the government in response to our pretrial discovery requests. I’d left my pen on the table, and Jane Doe had quickly covered it with her hand. After I’d gone out, she’d squeezed it in her fist and pressed the point against her throat, then with horrifying deliberateness measured her blow and slammed her face against the bench. The ballpoint was driven through her jugular and into her trachea.

  Once she’d finally stabilized, they kept her shackled to a bed in the locked jail ward at San Francisco General, with a round-the-clock suicide watch, a deputy at her side. For the first twenty-four hours she’d remained sedated and couldn’t have talked to me if she’d wanted to.

  After that, she didn’t want to talk. While she lay silent, the clock hands traced their silent arcs.

  The next day, Wednesday, I had to wait outside while the doctors made their rounds, then an intern explained the situation. There was nothing wrong with her vocal cords. They didn’t want to let me in, but they couldn’t very well deny my client access to her lawyer, and, after a hurried phone call, the sheriff’s deputy nodded me through. When the doctors had filed out, I sat beside the hospital bed, the deputy having agreed to remain just outside the door. In the room, there was something wrong with the TV, or maybe they’d unplugged the cable, because the TV monitor high in the corner showed only crackling fuzz.