“What am I missing here?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Minton said. “You’re the one with the high-powered defense. What could you be missing?”

I stared at him for a moment and then knew. There was a glitch in the discovery. There was something in his thin file that was not in the thick one Levin had put together. Something that would get the prosecution past the fact that Reggie Campo was selling it. Minton had so much as told me already. Prostitutes can be victims, too.

I wanted to stop everything and look through the state’s discovery file to compare it with everything about the case that I knew. But I could not do it now in front of him.

“Okay,” I said. “What’s your offer? He won’t take it but I’ll present it.”

“Well, he’s got to do prison time. That’s a given. We’re willing to drop it all down to an ADW and attempted sexual battery. We’ll go to the middle of the guidelines, which would put him at about seven years.”

I nodded. Assault with a deadly weapon and attempted sexual battery. A seven-year sentence would likely mean four years actual. It wasn’t a bad offer but only from the standpoint of Roulet having committed the crime. If he was innocent, then no offer was acceptable.

I shrugged.

“I’ll take it to him,” I said.

“Remember, only until the arraignment. So if he wants it you better call me Monday morning first thing.”

“Right.”

I closed my briefcase and stood up to go. I was thinking about how Roulet was probably waiting for a phone call from me, telling him the nightmare was over. Instead, I would be calling about a seven-year deal.

Minton and I shook hands and I said I would call him, then I headed out. In the hallway leading to the reception area I ran into Maggie McPherson.

“Hayley had a great time Saturday,” she said about our daughter. “She’s still talking about it. She said you were going to see her this weekend, too.”

“Yeah, if that’s okay.”

“Are you all right? You look like you’re in a daze.”

“It’s turning into a long week. I’m glad I have an empty calendar tomorrow. Which works better for Hayley, Saturday or Sunday?”

“Either’s fine. Were you just meeting Ted on the Roulet thing?”

“Yeah. I got his offer.”

I raised my briefcase to show I was taking the prosecution’s plea offer with me.

“Now I have to go try to sell it,” I added. “That’s going to be tough. Guy says he didn’t do it.”

“I thought they all said that.”

“Not like this guy.”

“Well, good luck.”

“Thanks.”

We headed opposite ways in the hallway and then I remembered something and called back to her.

“Hey, Happy St. Patrick’s.”

“Oh.”

She turned and came back toward me.

“Stacey’s staying a couple hours late with Hayley and a bunch of us are going over to Four Green Fields after work. You feel like a pint of green beer?”

Four Green Fields was an Irish pub not far from the civic center. It was frequented by lawyers from both sides of the bar. Animosities grew slack under the taste of room-temperature Guinness.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I have to head over the hill to see my client but you never know, I might come back.”

“Well, I only have till eight and then I have to go relieve Stacey.”

“Okay.”

We parted again and I left the courthouse. The bench where I had sat with Roulet and then Kurlen was empty. I sat down, opened my case and pulled out the discovery file Minton had given me. I flipped through reports I already had gotten copies of through Levin. There seemed to be nothing new until I came to a comparative fingerprint analysis report that confirmed what we had thought all along; the bloody fingerprints on the knife belonged to my client, Louis Roulet.

It still wasn’t enough to justify Minton’s demeanor. I kept looking and then I found it in the weapon analysis report. The report I had gotten from Levin was completely different, as if from another case and another weapon. As I quickly read it I felt perspiration popping in my hair. I had been set up. I had been embarrassed in the meeting with Minton and worse yet had tipped him early to my hole card. He had the video from Morgan’s and had all the time he would need to prepare for it in court.

Finally, I slapped the folder closed and pulled out my cell phone. Levin answered after two rings.

“How’d it go?” he asked. “Bonuses for everybody?”

“Not quite. Do you know where Roulet’s office is?”

“Yeah, on Canon in Beverly Hills. I’ve got the exact address in the file.”

“Meet me there.”

“Now?”

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

I punched the button, ending the call without further discussion, and then called Earl on speed dial. He must have had his iPod plugs in his ears because he didn’t answer until the seventh ring.

“Come get me,” I said. “We’re going over the hill.”

I closed the phone and got off the bench. Walking toward the opening between the two courthouses and the place where Earl would pick me up, I felt angry. At Roulet, at Levin, and most of all at myself. But I also was aware of the positive side of this. The one thing that was certain now was that the franchise-and the big payday that came with it-was back in play. The case was going to go the distance to trial unless Roulet took the state’s offer. And I thought the chances of that were about the same as the chances for snow in L.A. It could happen but I wouldn’t believe it until I saw it.

FIFTEEN

When the rich in Beverly Hills want to drop small fortunes on clothes and jewelry, they go to Rodeo Drive. When they want to drop larger fortunes on houses and condominiums, they walk a few blocks over to Canon Drive, where the high-line real estate companies roost, photographs of their multimillion-dollar offerings presented in showroom windows on ornate gold easels like Picassos and Van Goghs. This is where I found Windsor Residential Estates and Louis Roulet on Thursday afternoon.

By the time I got there, Raul Levin was already waiting-and I mean waiting. He had been kept in the showroom with a fresh bottle of water while Louis worked the phone in his private office. The receptionist, an overly tanned blonde with a haircut that hung down one side of her face like a scythe, told me it would be just a few minutes more and then we both could go in. I nodded and stepped away from her desk.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Levin asked.

“Yeah, when we get in there with him.”

The showroom was lined on both sides with steel wires that ran from ceiling to floor and on which were attached 8 ¥ 10 frames containing the photos and pedigrees of the estates offered for sale. Acting like I was studying the rows of houses I couldn’t hope to afford in a hundred years, I moved toward the back hallway that led to the offices. When I got there I noticed an open door and heard Louis Roulet’s voice. It sounded like he was setting up a showing of a Mulholland Drive mansion for a client he told the realtor on the other end of the phone wanted his name kept confidential. I looked back at Levin, who was still near the front of the showroom.

“This is bullshit,” I said and signaled him back.

I walked down the hallway and into Roulet’s plush office. There was the requisite desk stacked with paperwork and thick multiple-listing catalogs. But Roulet wasn’t there. He was in a sitting area to the right of the desk, slouched on a sofa with a cigarette in one hand and the phone in the other. He looked shocked to see me and I thought maybe the receptionist hadn’t even told him he had visitors.

Levin came into the office behind me, followed by the receptionist, the hair scythe swinging back and forth as she hurried to catch up. I was worried that the blade might cut off her nose.

“Mr. Roulet, I’m sorry, these men just came back here.”