“How could a verdict possibly be worse than life?”
“Well, it could be the exact opposite of life.” I closed the door. “Look, Oz, the decision is yours.”
“But you brought the offer to me for a reason.”
“And the reason is I have an ethical obligation to present all offers to my client.”
“Do you think I should take it?”
I slid into the chair on the other side of the table. I’d had this same conversation at other times with other clients, and it was never pleasant. “You’re the only person who can answer that question.”
“Because you don’t know if I’m guilty or not.”
“Frankly, that’s not even relevant. The question is how much you’re willing to risk on what the prosecutor might do next. I know this—Thrillkill is determined to put you away. He’s got the eyes of the world on him, and he’s going to make sure this case gives him the political boost he wants. Handled correctly, there’s no limit to how far this could take him.”
“Thanks. I feel much better now.”
“It’s not my job to make you feel better,” I said, with as much force as I could muster. “It’s my job to take care of you.”
“So tell me whether to take the offer.”
“I can’t.”
“What would be the reason to reject it?”
I shrugged. “If you accept, you’ll have to enter a plea of guilty. Even though it was a plea bargain, most people will only remember that you confessed and were convicted.”
“Okay. And what would be the reason to accept it?”
“There’s only one. To guarantee you won’t be executed.”
“How long do you think I’ll last in prison?”
As a convicted terrorist who plotted against the US of A? “No telling.”
He walked to the window. I could see the pistons pumping behind his eyes. I hoped to God I never had to make a decision of this magnitude. “Tell Thrillkill I say no thanks.”
“Are you sure?”
“Was I not emphatic enough? Let me rephrase. Tell him to go—”
“I got the idea. I’ll deliver the message.”
“I know I’m probably making a hideous mistake. But I didn’t kill that man, much as I might’ve liked to. And I’m not going to let the government steamroller me, not this easily. The world needs to know what the CIA and NSA and people like Nazir are doing. I will have my day in court.”
“I never said I’d put you on the witness stand.”
“But you will.”
“I’ll make that decision later.”
“I thought the client got to make that decision.”
I squirmed uncomfortably. He was right, of course. “We don’t have to decide now.”
“You’re delaying the inevitable, Ben.”
“Maybe. We’ll see.”
He smiled. Just a little, but it was a welcome change of pace. Something I hadn’t seen on his face since this mess began.
He slapped his hands against his thighs. “It’s about to get worse, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But we’ll get through it. One way or the other.”
43
“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” I said, trying to keep my voice down. “I thought we were having trial by law. Not trial by ambush.”
“Stay calm, Mr. Kincaid.”
“How can I stay calm? This is inexcusable. Witness lists were finalized a long time ago.” I paced from one side of the judge’s chambers to the other, which took only about three giant steps. “This is a third-rate shyster trick.”
“It’s not, Ben.” As always, Thrillkill remained cool and unflappable. Of course, he had no reason to be upset. He was the one pulling the trick. “We literally just got word of this witness this morning.”
“I’m sure.”
Thrillkill’s brow creased. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“I’m saying this is damned convenient for you.”
“I disagree. It would’ve been much more convenient if the witness had appeared two weeks ago.”
“If he had, I’d have demanded an opportunity to talk to him.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you still can. Take a week for all I care.”
“I’m going to veto that,” the judge said. “No way I’m going to recess the trial for a week so you two can have a chat. Too hard on the jurors.”
“If you let this man testify, it will be hard on the defendant.”
“Only if he’s guilty.”
I gave the judge a long look. Unfortunately, it isn’t wise to tell the judge when he’s being an empty-headed simpleton, or worse, predisposed to convict. But I did my best to imply it with my expression.
“I will give you all the latitude in cross-examination you need.”
“Golly, thanks.”
“That’s the best I can do, I’m afraid. If you really think Mr. Thrillkill is lying, you can file a complaint with the disciplinary committee. But I assume every lawyer is telling me the truth. Even defense attorneys.”
Hardy har har.
He rapped the top of his desk. “Okay, then. Trial resumes in ten minutes.”
***
A deathlike pallor blanketed the courtroom. Or maybe that was just inside my head. But either way, I felt it.
I’d received all the relevant information back in chambers. Stanley Bell was the classic jailhouse snitch, the sort that turns up all too frequently when the prosecution feels the need to give their case a little extra oomph. Their eagerness to testify is understandable. They want a Get Out of Jail Free card. Or at least a reduction in sentence. They might do it for an extra snack ration or a trip outside the prison gates. Who can say? When your life is lived at that level of monotony, anything is possible.
Sure, as a defense attorney I can bring out the fact that they’ve made a deal for their testimony, but it never seems to have much impact on the jury. If experts admit they’re being paid to testify, as they always are, it can impact their credibility. But the fact that a snitch has made a deal never seems to prevent juries from believing them. Somehow, that gets outweighed by the inclination of the cynical to believe the worst about the accused.
It wasn’t hard to see that the next witness had spent some time in jail. Or that it was still his current residence. Prosecutors tend not to dress up snitches much. They want them to look scruffy. It adds to their credibility.
I was expecting the worst. I was not expecting to hear the two most devastating words I could imagine:
“Human trafficking.”
“And by that, you mean, sex trafficking.”
“Primarily. Labor trafficking, too.”
Thrillkill’s face was plastered with a keenly unpleasant expression. He wanted the jury to feel his distaste at having to speak to this man, even being in the same room with him. Never mind the fact that Thrillkill was the one who called him to the witness stand. And in all likelihood sent feelers into the grapevine for a snitch willing to testify. “Please describe for the jury the . . . er, activities that caused you to serve your current sentence.”
Bell nodded agreeably, striking a note somewhere in the range of entrepreneurial vigor but just short of civic pride. “I had the sweetest operation on South Robinson. In the city.”
“Are we talking about . . . prostitutes?” Technically a leading question, but if it got this testimony over more quickly, I was in favor of it.
“Sure, for the white chicks. Um, excuse me, Your Honor. I mean, for the young Caucasian ladies.”
The judge made a grunting sound and tilted his head, a grudging acceptance. He bore the same expression of distaste and didn’t seem to even want to make eye contact with the man.
“Average age of these young women?”
Bell shrugged. “Maybe fifteen.”
“Not . . . eighteen?” The age of legal consent. Not that prostitution was ever legal.
“God, no. Way too old.”
“At eighteen, they’re over the hill?”
&nb
sp; “At eighteen, they’re probably mothers. We might keep them around to see if they turn their daughters. Assuming they have daughters.”
Thrillkill tucked in his chin. “I gather you were their pimp.”
“Hell, no. I mean, sorry, judge. No, sir. I was the CEO.”
“Indeed. What does the CEO do?”
“I manage my employees.”
“Meaning the pimps.”
“Mostly.”
“So the pimps take from their prostitutes and give you a cut.”
“That’s how it worked.”
“What do you give them in exchange for your cut?”
“A proper working environment.” Eyebrows rose with the sudden elevation in vocabulary.
“You provided a room?”
“They couldn’t work my territory without my okay.”
“It’s your territory?”
“That block was, yeah.”
“And how did you earn your territory?”
He made that casual shrugging expression again. “By replacing the guy who was there before me.” Amazing how Bell could seem almost impish as he described what was probably a hit, or at the least a serious beating. Imagine what this charisma might have done for him in an honest profession. A little more education, he could’ve made it in politics. Or on the television news.
Or as a lawyer.
“How long did you command this territory?”
“Almost three years.” An eternity in pimp years. “I was the Ruler of Robinson.”
Oh God. That clicked. Now I remembered this guy. He’d gotten a lot of publicity at the time of his trial. I read about it daily, even when I lived in Tulsa. The media milked it night and day and, if nothing else, drove home how prevalent human trafficking had become right here in this sweet little red state. Many immigrants, legal and illegal, come through Texas. Even if they’re not originally from Mexico, that’s the easy way into the United States. About 17,000 people are trafficked into the country each year, mostly through Texas and California. Those immigrants, more often than not, become the labor slaves Bell mentioned, while the American girls—who often start as runaways—more often become sex slaves. Texas has had a desperately bad trafficking situation for more than a decade, and some of those people were trickling north to Oklahoma.
I could object on grounds of relevance, but Thrillkill would ask the judge to give him a little lenience, which the judge would grant. All I would do is slow the wheels and make this take longer than it already did.
“During the time you conducted this . . . business operation . . . did you have occasion to meet the defendant?”
Bell looked at Oz. I felt a chill run down my spine. I’m not simply repeating a cliché. I felt it. I knew this walk on the wild side had to get back to Oz eventually.
“I did.”
“How did you know him?”
“He lived near my block. He often walked by, going to the convenience store or Taco Bell or whatever.”
I mentally slapped myself. That’s right. That sleazy apartment Oz and the others were sharing, the one with the shed in the rear. That was on Classen, not far from South Robinson, the most notorious street in the city.
“Did you talk to him?”
“Eventually. He was more interested in talking to the girls.”
So that was it. They wanted to accuse Oz of fraternizing with hookers. It was a smear campaign.
I made a point of not looking at Oz. Even a glance his way would suggest to the jury that I had some question about whether this testimony was true. “Objection, Your Honor.”
The judge pursed his lips. “Grounds?”
“Relevance. Even if this were true, which it isn’t, it wouldn’t relate to the charges on trial today. If Mr. Thrillkill wants to file additional charges, it might become relevant. But I note that he hasn’t, which might tell us something about how credible this testimony is.”
“Goes to character,” Thrillkill said, not waiting to be invited.
The judge frowned. “If that’s all it is—”
“And it bears directly on the charges at hand,” Thrillkill added.
The judge removed his glasses. “I’m not seeing that connection.”
“Give me one more minute, Your Honor. The connection will become apparent.”
The judgeexhaled audibly. “If this is just mudslinging, I will consider your representations to me otherwise to be deliberate falsehoods, Mr. Thrillkill. And I will act accordingly.”
“I would never do that, Your Honor.”
“I hope not. You may proceed. I’ll hold Mr. Kincaid’s objection in abeyance for the moment.”
Thrillkill continued. “What did the defendant discuss with these prostitutes?”
“Objection. Calls for hearsay.”
Thrillkill bowed his head. “Allow me to rephrase. Were you present during these conversations?”
“Almost always.”
“What was the defendant saying to your young women?”
“He was talking business.”
“Was he interested in procuring a prostitute?”
I was already rising to object when Bell answered. “No, he was making sure they had what they were promised. Occasionally asking if they knew anyone else who might like to join them.”
Thrillkill squinted. “I’m afraid I’m confused.”
Bell was so casual it was almost frightening. “He’s the one who brought them over.”
“I’m not sure—”
“He got them across the border. He’s the trafficker.”
The courtroom erupted. The gallery lit up like a pinball machine, chaotic and noisy. In the jury box, lips parted and brows creased.
“Objection, Your Honor. This is exactly what I said it would be. Irrelevant mudslinging from a witness bribed into testifying.”
“That’s completely wrong,” Thrillkill replied, calmly redirecting his attention to the bench. “This goes to motive. It provides one more reason why Nazir, a federal agent, would be investigating the defendant. And it gives the defendant one more reason to want Nazir dead.”
I pursed my lips and tried not to sneer. “Motion to strike that talking objection, Your Honor. The fact is Mr. Thrillkill assured the court this would not be mudslinging. And it was exactly that.”
The judge craned his neck. “I’m afraid I can’t agree with you, Mr. Kincaid. Evidence of additional federal crimes gives the man one more reason to want a federal agent out of the way.”
I loved the way the judge acted as if Oz had already been convicted, when in fact he’d only been smeared by a jailhouse snitch. “Your Honor, this is about the lowest, most unreliable form of testimony—”
“And I’m sure you’ll go into that chapter and verse during your cross-examination. But as for this evidence, I’m ruling it admissible. Objection overruled.”
A few minutes later I stood up for cross, completely torn. I knew nothing I said would make the jurors forget what they’d heard. And the longer I spent with this odious man, the more firmly his words would be etched on the jurors’ collective consciousness.
Well, go big or go home. “You’ve told lies before, haven’t you, Mr. Bell?”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.”
“Let me rephrase. You’ve been convicted of perjury on a previous occasion, haven’t you?”
“Yeah. They nailed me when I denied running my operation on Robinson.”
“You lied.”
“Well, wouldn’t you? I didn’t want to go to jail.”
“And you’d probably like to get out of jail now, huh?”
“True. But I’m not lying, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“So you say. But if you didn’t have something juicy to offer, Mr. Thrillkill wouldn’t have offered you a deal, would he?”
“I guess not. But it’s still the truth.”
And so it went. After ten minutes of this parrying, I sat down. I was doing Oz no good and probably making matters worse.
I did my best to comfort my client. “Try not to worry. I don’t think anyone believed that tall tale,” I told him during the break.
“I’m not so sure, Ben. I watched the jurors’ faces. They were interested. At best, they’re unsure.”
“Let them sleep on it. Once the shock wears off, they’ll see how unlikely this is.”
“I’m going to testify, Ben. We have to show them I’m not a total sleaze.”
“Oz, this is not about your reputation. Focus on the endgame.”
“What’s the point of winning if everyone thinks I’m a sex trafficker?”
“Better than being dead,” I replied, but I wished I hadn’t. Tried to bite it back, but it was too late.
“One way or another,” I assured him, “when we put on our case, I’ll rehabilitate your reputation. It can only get better from here.”
In retrospect, it would seem I have an endless talent for being completely wrong.
44
I’d known the sex video was coming since before the trial started, since that fateful day when the genius judge, a paragon of disinterestedness, declared the defendant’s sex life to be perfectly relevant. I thought the ruling disastrous at the time.
As it turned out, disastrous was too mild a word. For starters, at the time of the ruling, I didn’t know that my little sis was involved with the man, which raised the all-too-icky possibility that I would be listening to a long series of oohs and aahs from my sister. This most recent testimony, however, raised an even worse fear. Now we had to wonder whether we were listening to my client having sex with a chemist or one of the underage women smuggled in and corralled by the alleged trafficking ring.
Thrillkill’s plan seemed obvious. I beat myself over the head for not seeing it sooner. Yes, his case was imperfect. His evidence was mostly a long series of suggestions and innuendos, with no hard evidence that did anything more than tie Oz to the scene of the crime with a gun in his hand. But Thrillkill filled the gaps by painting Oz as a disgusting human being, and if he did that well enough, the jury would fight for the chance to put him behind bars—or in a grave.
I asked to meet with Judge Santino in chambers. I also asked that the court reporter be present. I wanted to make sure we had a record for the appeal court.
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