The Whole Truth

by James Scott Bell

  Another pause. This was obviously an effort. Steve waited for her to go on.

  Sienna said, “You’ve heard the stories about women who get fixated on prisoners? I think there’s a name for that. There’s something about a different world that you can be a part of, because somebody in that world wants you to be part of them. Maybe he’s got some savior thing going on. Then there was just the attraction.”

  She shook her head and seemed to be searching for words.

  “I can see how it might have happened,” Steve said. “You were messed up. But you’re smart, Sienna. How could you let him drag you into this thing?”

  “I’ll tell you how,” she said without hesitation. “It’s like my dad always told me. There’s an enemy who wants to bring us down, and if you open the door, he’ll take the invitation.”

  “Enemy?”

  “The devil.”

  “What, you’re saying you were possessed by the devil?”

  “No. But I felt like I was possessed by Johnny LaSalle. And when I was with him, even when I thought I was totally in love with him, there was a part of me whispering to get out, get away. I should have listened. Just like I should have listened to my father. I want to be able to listen again.”

  He started to wonder if she was just feeding him more lies, setting him up for her trial, manipulating him to her side. She’d mouthed so many cool, stiletto lies. “Shouldn’t be too hard. You just do it.”

  A pained smile curved her mouth. “If it was only that simple. I didn’t listen the whole time I was with him. We set you up. We lied to you. To your face. At first I could do it, but then I started to . . .”

  “To what?”

  She looked at him. “Have feelings.”

  “You sound like a Hallmark card,” Steve said.

  “I guess I do. But I’m saying it anyway. I was pulled in two directions, and Johnny seemed to know it. His pull was stronger in me. When they took you off that day, the day you saw Johnny and me in the window, I was about ready to die myself.”

  “Not much help,” Steve said.

  “Then Johnny told me it was all right, that you were just going to be taken away for a while. Until Eldon was . . . removed. By then he had some feelings too, if you can believe it.”

  Steve said nothing.

  “You know the rest,” she said.

  “It’s not over yet,” Steve said. “The feds think you were a hostage. As soon as they start questioning you, things might get hairy. Even for a good liar like you.”

  “I’m through with that.”

  “Sure,” Steve said, not at all sure of anything. “I strongly advise you get a lawyer, preferably one who is not me.”

  Sienna shook her head. “I’m going to tell the FBI everything it wants to know about Beth-El and the LaSalles.”

  “That could lead to a conspiracy rap. Get representation.”

  She smiled. “Still holding up the finest traditions of the bar, huh?”

  “At this point, Sienna, I’m holding on for dear life. But there’s one thing I’m not able to do, try as I might.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hate you.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Steve thought she meant it, really meant it this time, in spite of the past. Maybe that was the best way to leave it. “I know a guy,” he said. “Good federal defense lawyer. I’ll send him your way.”

  She shook here head. “Forget it. I’m talking. If I go away, I go away. I guess I’ll never practice law, though, huh?”

  “Most states’ll let you, even after a conviction, when some time passes. Who knows? Maybe going through all this will make you a better lawyer. Maybe I’ll be a better lawyer too.”

  “There’s no doubt in my mind,” she said.

  “One more question,” Steve said.

  She waited.

  “All that time you were lying to me,” he said, “and giving me the line that you were a good girl and all, did you ever think there might be a God looking down and thinking, Hey, I do not like what she’s doing.”

  “All the time,” she said without hesitation. “Call it perverse, but there it was. And still I went on. Now I’ll have plenty of time to beg him to forgive me.”

  “Well,” Steve said, “I hope he does. I guess we all need that in one way or another. So I really hope he does, Sienna.”

  “He will,” she said. “That’s the only thing I’m sure of now, the one thing I have to hold on to.”

  “Then hold,” Steve said.

  EIGHTY

  Three days later, Steve stopped at the Sheridan Arms and found that his old apartment was still for rent.

  “You come back!” Jong Choi said, not asking a question.

  “I come back,” Steve said.

  “Oh! You know seven? You call cops.” He produced a card from a drawer and handed it to Steve.

  The card was LAPD. A detective named Holmes. Not Sherlock. Lee.

  “Seven?” Steve said.

  “Arrest,” Jong Choi said.

  “The kid in number seven?”

  Choi nodded vigorously.

  Steve went out to the courtyard and called the number. Holmes was in. Told him that Chris Riley, Numba Sev’n’s real name, had been caught with a lot of hot stuff, including Steve’s computer. So Numba had turned thief, and was now residing in the county jail. And, Holmes wanted to know, would Steve come in and make a statement?

  Yeah, he would. And as he clicked off the phone he decided something else. He didn’t know where it came from, but there it was. He would go down to the jail to see the kid. Try to talk some sense into him.

  He’d tell him a story, about prisons and cons, about the way they end up by staying stupid. He’d give the kid one shot because there aren’t too many breaks in the world. Steve had been given one. So he’d pass it along to somebody else.

  It didn’t make much sense. Steve knew the odds. But he also knew he just had to do it.

  He heard a mew at his feet.

  Nick Nolte padded around him with a feline nonchalance that said, I didn’t really miss you but I’m glad you’re back anyway.

  “I love you too,” Steve said as he picked up the cat. “Come on and give me a hand. I mean, a paw.”

  He started moving some of his belongings into the apartment. Managed to get half the stuff in before Mrs. Stanky stuck her head out as he walked by and carped about needing some Milk of Magnesia as if he’d never left. He assured her he’d get it.

  Then she said, “Get rid of that cat.”

  He was home.

  Jong Choi helped Steve with his last item, the old trunk. It had been with him the whole way, through every ugly turn and every ray of light. He put it against the bare wall where he once had a sofa.

  When he was alone at last, Steve opened the trunk. The photos and papers were scattered around, a random pattern that seemed to match his own patchwork life.

  He found the picture of Robert in his train pajamas. The cereal picture. Looked at it for a long time.

  Then he got on his knees. He put his hands together over the trunk. And just like when he was five years old, stumbling over words but putting his whole soul into it, he said a prayer for Robert Conroy.

  And somewhere in there he said a prayer for himself. It felt good. It felt like he was talking and someone was really listening. It freaked him not at all.

  He’d tell Gincy about it in the morning. Gincy would show him what to do next.

  When Steve finished his prayer, he lay on the carpet and looked at the ceiling. Full circle. For better or worse he’d landed back in LA.

  For better or worse.

  He knew then there was one more thing he had to do.

  EIGHTY-ONE

  He knocked tentatively on Ashley’s door. He hoped the shock wouldn’t curl her hair. He hoped a lot of things. It was close to evening and she might not even be home.

  But she was. She answered in jeans
and a crimson sweatshirt, looking like the Ashley he’d known in law school.

  “Steve!”

  He put his hands out. “Tah dah.”

  “I can’t believe you’re — come in.”

  He tried not to look too relieved as he walked through the door.

  “You’re limping,” she said.

  “Have you been following the news?”

  “It’s all over the place. The ACLU’s already filing wrongful-death actions against the government. You weren’t inside, were you?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  They went to the living room. He sat on the sofa, like he’d just come back from court ready to spend an evening with his wife. He remembered doing that. Remembered they had some good times amid all the bad.

  He missed even the bad now. Because she had been there with him. At least she’d been there.

  “I’m not taking you away from something, am I?” Steve said.

  “Not at all,” she said.

  “Or somebody?” He let the implication hang in the air.

  “No.”

  Now Steve tried not to look too happy.

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” Ashley said. “Can you tell me about it?”

  He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  “If you can’t right now,” she said, “that’s fine. Maybe you need — ”

  He was crying.

  “Steve.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m — ” The tears kept coming. “Sorry.” He got up and almost ran to the kitchen. He tore off a paper towel and put it to his face.

  He felt Ashley’s hands on his back. “It’s okay. Go ahead.”

  He did, for about a minute, full out. When it was over the paper towel was soaked. All the time Ashley just stood there, touching his back.

  “Man, I’m sorry,” Steve said.

  “No.”

  “I don’t know what happened there.”

  “It’s okay.”

  He turned to face Ashley and she hugged him. Held him.

  Steve said, “Would you consider doing something?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Would you let me take you for a hot dog dinner?”

  She stepped back and looked at him. “Hot dogs? Are you serious?”

  “I just got this wild idea.”

  She shook her head, then smiled. “Fries too?”

  They drove to Jelty Park, where the carnival was. He parked the car without a word and looked at her.

  “Remember?” he said.

  She looked pleased for a moment. Then her face got serious. “Steve — ”

  “I know. No obligation. Just hot dogs. Deal?”

  She paused. “Deal.”

  They went in, lights all around, got their dogs and fries at the stand. After that it was talk and even laughs.

  An hour passed, then another. They rode the little roller coaster and played a few games. Steve won a stuffed tiger at the milk-bottle throw and gave it to Ashley. She said it reminded her of Steve when he was in trial. “A real tiger,” she said. He liked that.

  Then it was cotton candy and the Ferris wheel. They stopped at the top, looked down at the lights of the carnival and the San Fernando Valley. It was a warm night. The breeze carried the scent of eucalyptus, dry grass, and a touch of LA perfume from the freeway.

  Just before the descent he caught sight of the ride at the end of the park. He turned to Ashley. “Let’s go on that next,” he said.

  She looked where he pointed. “What, the Zipper?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you hated those rides,” she said.

  “I want to try it,” he said. “I want to try it with you.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  The wheel slowed as they neared the ground.

  “The Zipper makes me nervous,” she said.

  “Have a little faith,” Steve said.

  Ashley looked at him as if trying to read his thoughts. Steve held her gaze. The colored lights reflected in her eyes like a neon dream. A dream of good things.

  She smiled then and took his hand.

  “Let’s go for it,” she said.

  ONE

  1.

  Hey, buddy! Long time! Tracked you down after reading your blurb on the Prominent Alumni page. Prominent! You made it, buddy. I always knew you would, though it was all pretty crazy back there freshman year. Remember that? Wild times, oh yes. How’d we ever make it out of the dorm!

  So I found your law firm website and then you and here I am! I’m in town! We have a lot of catching up to do. Call me, man. Can’t wait to see you.

  Sam Trask vaguely remembered the name at the end of the email. You remember guys named Nicky, even if you don’t think about them for twenty-five years.

  Nicky Oberlin. That’s how he’d signed the email, along with a phone number.

  The tightness in his chest, the clenching he’d been feeling for the last few weeks, returned. Why should that happen because of one random email? Because it presented a complication, a thing that called for a response. He did not need that now, not with the way things were at home.

  Sam took a deep breath, leaned back in his chair in his Beverly Hills office, and tried to relax. Didn’t happen. He kept seeing his daughter’s face in his mind. She was screaming at him.

  A quick knock on his door bumped Sam from his thoughts. Lew poked his head in. “A minute?”

  Sam motioned him in. Lew Newman was Sam’s age, forty-seven, and wore his sandy hair short, which gave his sharp nose and alert eyes added prominence. When Lew was with the Brooklyn DA’s office he was known as the Hawk, and Sam could see why. He would’ve hated to be a witness about to be pecked by the Hawk’s cross-examination. He was glad they were partners and not adversaries.

  “We’re going into high gear against the good old US of A this week,” Lew said.

  Sam nodded. “Got it on the radar.” The FulCo case was by far the biggest Newman & Trask had ever handled. Potentially a billion at stake. That thought gave Sam’s chest another squeeze.

  “Cleared everything else?” Lew said.

  “One matter to take care of.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Harper.”

  Lew rolled his eyes. “Hasn’t that settled?”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Please do.”

  “I said I would, okay?”

  Lew put his hands up. “Just asking. I get to ask, don’t I?”

  “Of course. Sorry.”

  “Need you, buddy. I know things haven’t been the best with — ”

  “I can handle it, Lew.”

  His partner nodded. “How’s Heather doing, anyway?”

  Sam did not want to talk about his daughter, not now. “We’re working on it.”

  “Good. She’ll pull through. She’s a good kid.”

  Sam said nothing.

  “So on Harper — ”

  “Lew, please — ”

  “Let me just say this once, okay? We do have a business to run, and — ”

  “You want me to get rid of the Harper file ASAP.”

  “That would be nice. Can you settle?”

  “Not right away.”

  “Why not?”

  “I need more discovery or it’ll be undervalued.”

  “Come on, Sam. What about your value to the shop?”

  Always preoccupied with the cost-benefit analysis, Lew was. Maybe that was what really had changed for Sam in the last four years. After his conversion, a little of the drive for the dollar had gone from his life.

  As if sensing he’d stuck a foot over the line, Lew said, “Look, I trust your judgment, of course. But a quick settlement surely is going to be within the ballpark, give or take, and what’s the problem with that?”

  “No problem at all. Girl goes blind, we can toss her a few bones and move on.”

  “Come on, I don’t mean that. Just think about it for me, will you? Harper off the table. I love yo
u, sweetie.” He made a golfing motion. “How about eighteen next week?”

  Golf was always the way Lew made up. “Sure.”

  “I love you more,” Lew said, then left.

  For a long time Sam swiveled in his chair, as if the motion would gently rock his thoughts into some cohesive order. But it wasn’t happening, because Sarah Harper was not a case he wanted to expedite.

  The tightness came back. Come on, he scolded himself. No heart attack. You’re not even fifty years old yet. Guys like you don’t die before fifty. He kept in shape, ran three miles every other day, didn’t have too many extra pounds. But he knew there was no guarantee. One of his old friends from UCLA Law had just gone to the cooling rack after playing pickup basketball.

  One minute Tom had been a hard-charging partner at O’Melveny, and boom, the next he’s an obit in California Lawyer. It could happen to anyone.

  Sam rubbed his chest and looked back at the monitor. Nicky Oberlin. He tried to remember the face that went with the name. Didn’t come to him.

  Truth was, a lot of that first year at UC Santa Barbara up the coast was lost in a brain fog. He was still a long way off from a sober life then, and most of what he remembered of freshman year was a dorm known for grass and beer and late-night parties.

  So this blast from the past was hearkening back to days he’d just as soon forget.

  Was he the guy who came into his dorm room one night, hammered to the gills, and tried to roll out Sam’s bed — while Sam was still in it? A lot of crazy things happened back then. It was a wonder any of them passed their classes.

  Yeah, that might have been Nicky, a little guy with a moustache. But then again . . . brain fog.

  And in the fog, like the trill of a night bird, a faint vibration of unease. Oberlin had sent this to Sam’s private email address. It wasn’t posted on the firm’s site. It would have taken some doing to find it. Apparently, Oberlin had. Which bothered him no end. It was like . . . an intrusion, and by a guy he really didn’t know.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and expressed his favorite prayer of late, for wisdom. Having a seventeen-year-old daughter who seemed determined to throw her life down the toilet necessitated divine intervention on a daily basis.