Night on Fire

by Douglas Corleone

  The judge lifts her brows as though she agrees, but of course she is not putting anything like that on the record. Instead, she says, “Are you complaining, Counselor? Because I believe that number, as odd as it might sound, is exceedingly fair, if not generous to your client, considering the serious charges pending against her.”

  I open my file and stare down at the retainer agreement printed up just yesterday by Hoshi, and signed by both of Erin’s parents. I know exactly what this bastard is up to, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

  So I make my prepared argument for an even lower bail. It’s weak, I know, and I don’t hit too hard with it for fear of losing credibility with the judge, with the media, with any prospective jurors who might be reading my words in the Star-Advertiser tomorrow morning.

  I take my seat as the judge renders her unsurprising decision: “Six hundred thousand dollars with the requested conditions.”

  Suddenly I have one hell of a decision to make.

  “Your Honor.” Luke Maddox stands again as I’m about to pack up my stuff and quite possibly head to the mens’ room to vomit. “There is one other issue I’d like to raise and be heard on.”

  Even Judge Maxa seems uninterested. “What is it, Mr. Maddox?”

  “It concerns Mr. Corvelli’s representation of Ms. Simms in this matter. We’d like to put the Court and the defendant on notice that the State will be filing a motion forthwith to have Mr. Corvelli’s law firm relieved as counsel for the accused in this case, Your Honor.”

  Maxa frowns. “On what grounds?”

  Maddox looks over at me. “On the grounds that the State intends to call Mr. Corvelli as a material witness for the prosecution.”

  Behind us the gallery buzzes and Maxa instantly calls for silence.

  “Mr. Corvelli was present at the scene of the crime,” Maddox continues, “and we have certain proof that Mr. Corvelli has specific firsthand knowledge through his own personal observations in this case.”

  Swallowing hard, I stare back at Maddox with a look of contempt, laced, I admit, with no small degree of awe.

  Fortunately, Judge Maxa simply sets a date for his papers, another for my response, and yet another for oral argument and decision. Then she slaps her gavel, adjourning these proceedings.

  I rise, already steeling myself for the questions, for the cameras, reminding myself to stick to my mantra and not to begin grandstanding, not to go off on some self-serving tangent.

  Head down, I turn and move like a bullet back up the aisle.

  So much for “There are rarely any surprises at arraignment.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “They’re trying to push you out,” Jake says, leaning against one of the colossal conference room windows.

  I sigh. “It’s bullshit. A diversion. Maddox is going to try to busy us with issues that have no relevance to this case. He’s an L.A. lawyer; I know his game.”

  Jake shakes his head and takes a seat across from me. “It’s not the motion to remove you that I’m talking about, son.”

  I knew this was coming. I avert my eyes, toss a glance at Ryan Flanagan who is staring down at his rough dock-builder hands, obviously preoccupied.

  “Everything okay Flan?” I say. “I’m going to need your full attention on this one.”

  “I’m fine,” he says, quickly masking his New Orleans frown. Divorced with two daughters who despise him, and an injury that’s left him sucking down narcotic painkillers nine, ten times a day, Flan’s probably not the best investigator in the islands. But I like him. And that goes a long way.

  “Good,” I say, “then let’s mov—”

  “Just that Casey showed up today.”

  As my mind works to process this, somehow Jake—brain three parts whiskey—picks up on it right away. “Your oldest daughter? What’s she doing in town?”

  Far as I know, Flan hasn’t seen her, hasn’t even spoken to her in years.

  “She had a falling out with Lucifer,” Flan says.

  That’s an easier one. Lucifer (née Victoria) is Flan’s hellish ex-wife on the mainland.

  “Casey’s staying at a hostel in Waikiki right now,” Flan adds, “but she’s asked to move in with me.”

  I don’t know what to say. I’m no good at this, this hand-holding, this comforting others during times of crisis, especially when it pertains to family. Seems the only time I’m able to aid anyone is after they’ve been arrested. Out of nowhere I find myself saying, “I’ve got to do something about my Jeep.”

  Jake folds his arms, asks me what I mean.

  “The color,” I say. “Too conspicuous. Led Tatupu right to our client.”

  When Jeep introduced an electric-orange Wrangler, I snatched one up, certain they were going to be the next big thing. Months later, I couldn’t spot another one on the road, and Jeep discontinued the color the following season. Thus, I have what is perhaps the only bright orange Wrangler that Jeep ever made. In my line of work, it’s not always a shining idea to stand out in a crowd.

  “Our client…” Jake says. “Son, that’s something we have to—”

  I deflect Jake’s latest objection by turning my head toward our investigator and saying, “What do you think about the Jeep, Flan?”

  “Wanna sell it?” he says. “Casey’s already hinting that she’s going to need a car here on the island.”

  I shake my head. “I’m going to have it painted. White, like every other vehicle in the state of Hawaii.”

  I pick up the conference room phone and dial Hoshi’s extension, ask her to check the Paradise Yellow Pages for a decent detailer.

  “How will I know if they’re any good?” Hoshi says.

  “Call each of them,” I tell her. “Whoever quotes the highest price, we go with them.”

  Jake and Flan crease their brows.

  “You get what you pay for,” I say.

  Jake plants his palms on the conference room table and leans forward, raising his voice for, perhaps, only the second or third time since I’ve known him. “Which leads back to the issue of our representation of Erin Simms.”

  All right. There’s no ducking this any longer. I bow my head, let Jake have his say.

  “When I said earlier that the prosecution was trying to push you out, son, I wasn’t referring to Maddox’s bullshit motion to have you relieved. I was referring to the stunt Maddox pulled with respect to bail. That girl wants out of jail, and hell, I don’t blame her. Her parents want her out, and I don’t blame them. But we both know—and, apparently, so does the prosecution—that Erin’s parents have only six hundred grand to put up, whether it’s for bail or attorneys’ fees. They can’t pay both. And until you have a conversation with the three of them, I don’t think you should be referring to Erin Simms as a client of this firm, or putting much of the firm’s energy and resources into her case.”

  “If we walk out on her,” I say calmly, “she’s going to end up with the dregs of the Hawaii Criminal Bar. Someone like Mickey Fallon, or Russ Dracano, for hell’s sake. That’s precisely what the prosecution wants—some lawyer they can roll over without so much as an objection at trial. We can’t let that happen.”

  “We don’t have much of a choice,” Jake says.

  I take a deep breath and swallow hard. “Yes. We. Do.”

  The conference room falls silent. I’ve made my decision and now I’m ready to go to bat for it. Ready to defy my better judgments, to fly in the face of everything the great Milt Cashman taught me back in New York. Ready to tear up my partnership agreement with my friend Jake Harper and work out of my six-room Ko Olina villa if I have to. Ready. Able. And willing.

  “We can accept her bail assignment,” I say.

  Jake nearly falls over. “Bail assignment?”

  Yup. Bail assignment. Dirty words in our business. Just a filthy piece of paper signed and notarized, granting us ownership of the amount of bail put up, if and when it is ordered returned to the defendant by the Court. Meaning if and when there is a final d
isposition in the case. If and when the defendant has made all her court appearances, has been acquitted or tried, found guilty or not guilty, been remanded to prison or released unto the world.

  In the meantime, so much could go wrong. A mistrial. An appeal that goes on for years while bail is continued. Or worst of all, an escape. In which case, the bail money is held indefinitely.

  Jake’s not pulling any punches. “Are you outta your fucking mind, son?”

  In fact, I have been meaning to see a shrink. But for now I keep that tidbit between myself and the other voices in my head.

  Jake throws his hands in the air. “Not-Guilty Milty would have the State revoke your law license if he heard this.”

  True enough. It’s the first of Cashman’s Ten Commandments: Though shalt not take a case without being paid up front.

  See, not only is there a chance that we’d never see the money; there is an assurance that we wouldn’t see a dime at least through the conclusion of her case. A minimum of a year in a matter like this. Meaning we’d work for twelve straight months while receiving zilch, zero as salary, while putting up expenses for experts and trial exhibits, not to mention our own already hefty overhead, out of our own pockets.

  “Keep in mind, she already tried to run once, son!”

  There’s that, of course. And I’m no goddamn Dog the Bounty Hunter.

  “And you’re no goddamn Dog the Bounty Hunter,” Flan adds.

  I push my chair out and stand. “I’ve made my decision, gentlemen. Now you’ve got to choose. You’re either with me, or you’re with the terrorists.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “We’re in,” Jake tells me when I return to the office from my two-scotch lunch at Sand Bar, “but we’ve gotta be able to handle other cases as well. We don’t turn clients away, and we don’t pour every available man-hour into the Simms case, okay?”

  “Deal,” I say, as I move through the reception area toward the conference room.

  “And one more thing,” Jake says, following me.

  “What’s that?”

  “I reserve the right to say ‘I told you so’ when all this is over.”

  When we enter the conference room, Flan is sitting there, his chair turned toward the mammoth windows, his eyes set on the Ko’olau Mountains. Clearly he’s still in a daze.

  I tear a blank page from my yellow legal pad, crumple it up, and hurl it at the side of his face. Direct hit.

  “I’m heading over to SID to request the file on the Simms case,” I say. “Barb Davenport there is a doll; she’ll give me everything they have right away, so we can get to work.”

  SID is the Screening and Intake Division of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. The division chief, Barbara Davenport, shocked me the first time I met her during the Gianforte murder case by handing me the full file with no hassle whatsoever. Kind as a Girl Scout, generous as a grandmother. Meeting Barb marked the first time I fully realized I was no longer practicing law in the Big Bad Apple.

  Barb and I have had a splendid professional relationship ever since.

  “Before I return with the file,” I say, looking at Flan, “I’d like you to get down to the Kapolei fire station, have a talk with some of the guys. Spread some of that magical Irish charm and get some answers. I want to know how and why investigators determined this was a case of arson as quickly as they did.”

  I turn to Jake. “Head over to the Kupulupulu Beach Resort. Start with Maintenance and work your way up. I want to know why the sprinkler system didn’t go off. And why I couldn’t get my cougar a cup of water from the bathroom sink just about an hour before the fire.”

  Flan perks up. “Sounds like the water main was shut off.”

  I point to him. “If so, we should know today whether or not the valve was dusted for prints. If it wasn’t, we’ve found our first hole in their case.”

  “How about the guest list for the Simms-Downey wedding?” Jake says. “We have that yet?”

  “It’s a short list. Erin’s mother is e-mailing it to me today. Once I have it, I’m going to go over every name with Erin herself. Then we’ll divvy the list up and begin interviews.”

  Flan’s cell phone starts blowing up on his belt, and I give him a look. He knows how I feel about those things in the office, especially during a crucial meeting.

  He silences the cell, then glances at the display. “Casey,” he says, sighing. “I’ll take this, then head right over to the fire station in Kapolei.” He opens the phone, says “Hi, sweetheart,” then he’s out the conference room door and it’s just me and Jake.

  “You gonna be okay with all this?” Jake says, leaning back against a wall-length bookshelf. “I mean the media and all. Been a slow summer on the twenty-four-hour cable news networks. No presidential election, the economy’s getting old. Betcha Gretchen Hurst and Marcy Faith are licking their chops already about this Hawaii hotel fire.”

  “They’re like pit bulls,” I say. “Ignore ’em and they’ll leave you alone.”

  “Or maul you to death.”

  I shrug, glance at my watch. I want to make it to SID by two o’clock, catch Barb right after she returns from lunch.

  I buzz Hoshi. “Have a name and number of a detailer for me yet?”

  “Not yet,” she says back. “But you do have a couple of guests.”

  “Guests?” I look at Jake, who shrugs. “Wanna give me a hint who?”

  “Well,” Hoshi says quietly, “one of them is about three feet tall. And he’s picking his nose.”

  CHAPTER 12

  As I move down the street I pull my Panama Jack Bermuda hat low over my eyes, not just to keep my retinas from burning, but also as part of a disguise. And not just because I’m still ducking the media. The real reason is that at my side is the little guy I rescued from the fire the other night.

  “Are you a policeman?” Josh says.

  He insisted on holding my hand; I insisted he not. So for the time being we compromised, his tiny claws now latched to the tail end of my suit jacket like a pint-size water-skier to a motorboat.

  “No,” I tell him as we cross Richards Street toward the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office at Alii Place. “I’m the opposite of a policeman.”

  The kid’s aunt needed an impromptu babysitter and swore the kid had been begging for me. Why, I have no idea; I don’t even enjoy the notion of spending time with myself. I’d been about to say no (hell no, to be exact), when Aunt Naomi dropped a bit of a bomb on us, said she had an appointment with her oncologist.

  I immediately lost my voice, and Jake said yes for me.

  “You mean, you’re a bad guy?” the kid says.

  I shrug, loosen my tie against the heat. “That would depend on who you ask. But no, what I mean is that I represent bad guys, defend them in the courts.”

  “Like in a sword fight?”

  “Sometimes,” I say. “But usually we just use words.”

  “Bad words?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “Why do you defend bad guys?” he asks.

  “Well,” I tell him, “so that I can eat, for one. Buy nice clothes, keep gas in my Jeep, pay the rent on my villa in Ko Olina.” I stop short and the kid bumps into me. I straighten him up and get down on one knee, careful my slacks don’t touch the ground. I think of Turi Ahina. “But also because sometimes bad guys aren’t really so bad.” Then I think of Joey Gianforte. “And because sometimes the policemen accuse people of being bad guys when they really aren’t bad guys at all.”

  The kid appears nonplussed. It’s the same reaction I receive from most adults.

  “Hey, Mistah C!” I hear from up the street. “When did you go and get yourself a keiki?”

  “Speak of the not-so-bad devil,” I say under my breath, as I watch the big man waddle down the street.

  Turi Ahina, one of the “bad guys” I represent, is one of the best men I know. Technically speaking, he leads a life of crime, selling ice (aka crystal meth) on the street, but he’s friendly and always
smiling. He has something else going for him, as far as I’m concerned: A few months ago, Turi saved my life.

  “The kid’s not mine,” I say, maybe a little too defensively. I glance down and Josh is paying no attention whatsoever, just staring up the side of one of the tall buildings and picking his nose again. “Picked him up at a fire sale, you could say.”

  I wince. Bad joke. It’s that same twisted voice inside of me that celebrated the fact that Erin Simms is single again.

  “Oh, shit,” Turi says. “This is the keiki you rescued from the blaze, brah? I read all about that shit in the Star-Advertiser. You one hero, brah!”

  Turi claps me on the back so hard my Panama Jack hat falls off my head and into my hands.

  “I think you inspired me that night,” I say, referring with a wink to the night on the streets of Kailua when Turi put two bullets into a crazed gunman in order to save my life.

  “Hey, that’s what we do here in the islands, brah. We watch each other’s backs, yeah?”

  “You keeping out of trouble, Turi?” I ask.

  He smiles, his big round visage lighting up the street like no sun ever could. “Actually,” he says, “that’s what I was coming to see you about. I got picked up for possession last night.”

  “No worries,” I tell him. “I’ve got to head over to the prosecutor’s office now, but I’ll call you tonight. We’ll meet up this weekend, get it all straightened out.”

  The smile grows even wider as he places a pudgy, sweaty palm on my shoulder. “T’anks, Mistah C. T’anks so much.”

  “Hey,” I say, slapping the Panama Jack back on my head. “What are friends for?”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later the kid and I are standing, waiting in front of the receptionist’s desk for Barbara Davenport at the Screening and Intake Division of the Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. I glance several times at my watch, not recalling her ever taking this long to make an appearance.

  When she finally does arrive, it’s not with the same sweet old smile I remember.