I decided to change topics. “Tell me about Smith. What’s his story?”

It took him some time to decompress. His only bodily movement was a faint shrug of his shoulders. “Guy says he represents some interested parties or shit.”

“Other victims? Their families?”

“You’re the guy went to college.”

“Shit, Sammy, what the fuck do I know about this guy? I don’t even know his real name.”

Sammy took out some frustration on his cigarette, stubbing it into oblivion. “Guy says people wanna help me. They got money. They can get me some fancy lawyers to spring me. I say, you gonna get me a fancy law yer, I want Kolarich. He says he can get me someone better. I say it’s gotta be someone I—”

He stopped there, emotion choking his throat. Someone I trust, he was going to say. Sammy probably hadn’t received sparkling representation in his previous forays into the criminal justice process. He was counting on an old friend.

“You should’ve called me day one, Sammy. I don’t care about money.”

“Well, you’re here now, and you’re gettin’ your money, so win this fuckin’ case. I’ve been sitting in here for a year and I ain’t waitin’ more than four weeks, and I sure as shit ain’t gonna say I was crazy. This guy Smith, he’ll give you what you want. So win this case, all right, varsity athlete?”

With that, Sammy pushed himself out of his chair, though he couldn’t move from his position with the manacles. He nodded to the guard, who walked to the glass room and opened the door. “You owe me, Koke,” he said. The guard unlocked him from the table and led him out.

“I know,” I answered, after he’d left the room.

11

YEAH, that Sammy’s one piece a work.”

Patrick Oleari, the public defender assigned to Sammy Cutler, parked himself in a chair in the diner located in the criminal courthouse basement. All around us, defense lawyers and prosecutors negotiated plea deals and traded war stories over weak coffee and crappy deli sandwiches. I’d caught up with Oleari after court, just after four. He’d been in a hearing all day and was having a very late lunch, the life of a trial lawyer. Oleari had been out of law school for five years, compared to my nine, but he had plenty of experience as one of the state-provided defense attorneys to the lowest of the low.

I remember being this guy, though as a prosecutor, not a PD, grinding through the intermediate levels of the county attorney’s office—traffic, juvie, misdemeanors, the three-days-on, three-days-off of felony review—waiting for the Show, the felony courtroom. It was a noble endeavor, to be sure, putting away the bad guys, but in truth it felt more like selfish fulfillment. I was like most of them; I would never be a “lifer.” I wasn’t a true believer, but I relished the sport of the thing and dreamed of a payoff in the private sector one day.

“Anyway.” Oleari wiped at his mouth. “They have eyes on Cutler leaving the house. They have a store vid of his car parked outside the vic’s apartment building. And Sammy didn’t exactly distinguish himself in the interview.” Oleari shook his head. “I mean, this thing has ‘diminished capacity’ written all over it. But try telling him that.”

I did. Apparently Oleari had struck out on that score, too.

“Did Sammy tell you he killed Perlini?” I asked.

Oleari made a face. “No, but the evidence did.”

Right. I said, “I have to get Perlini’s past in front of the jury. If they know who they’re dealing with, they’ll acquit anyone the prosecution puts in front of them.”

“I know it. I know it.” Oleari gave up on his soggy roast beef sandwich and wiped his hands with a napkin. “Judge already ruled on that, y’know.”

I didn’t know. I didn’t have the entire file yet.

“Judge Poker said Griffin Perlini’s priors for child molestation are irrelevant.”

I was afraid of that. As long as Sammy was claiming he didn’t kill Perlini, it made no difference whether Griffin Perlini was the pope, the CEO of General Motors, or a two-bit child predator. I would have made the same ruling if I were the judge. The murder victim’s history makes no difference if the defendant is merely claiming that he didn’t do it.

But Sammy wouldn’t plead diminished capacity. He wouldn’t claim he temporarily lost control. That left me with a case that looked pretty damn strong for the prosecution.

“There’s one guy.” Oleari was using a toothpick. “One guy who says he saw some black guy running from the apartment building at around that same time.”

A black guy fleeing the scene. As a defense attorney, I wasn’t above stereotypes, and white jurors might be willing to buy into the idea.

“Was he wearing a brown jacket and green stocking cap?”

Oleari smiled, then shrugged. The truth, I figured, was that he didn’t know the answer. The interview had probably been conducted by one of the PD’s investigators, and a trial that was four weeks away, in the chaotic life of a public defender, might as well be four years away. “So you got a nice elderly couple that ID’d Cutler, you got a neighbor that saw the same guy with the bomber jacket and ski cap just outside the vic’s apartment, plus the store vids, plus Cutler’s incriminating statements to the cops—”

“And on the other side, I have one guy who saw a black man running.”

“Right. So unless you got a jury from Simi Valley, you better talk Sammy into a temporary insanity defense.”

By the tone of his voice, it was clear that Oleari didn’t expect me to have any more success than he did in that area. But a lightbulb went on. I still had a couple of synapses firing in my brain. “You got Griffin Perlini’s criminal history in your file?”

“Sure. Yeah. We’ll get the whole thing over to you tomorrow, after the judge lets you in.”

Tomorrow, I would appear before Judge Kathleen Poker and formally substitute into the case for Patrick Oleari. I was looking forward to a closer inspection of the entire file.

“Hey, not for nothin’.” Oleari nodded at me. “This is a long way from defending politicians in federal court.”

Apparently, Oleari had followed the Almundo case, too. The federal government doesn’t lose too often, and a lot of people took note. He probably figured I was still at my former, blue-chip law firm. I didn’t have the stomach to correct him and explain myself. Oleari was wondering what in the name of Clarence Darrow I was doing representing Sammy Cutler.

“We have history, Sammy and me,” I explained. I thanked him and left.

I had an idea about how I would get Griffin Perlini’s sordid life before the jury. It was a long shot, and I only had four weeks to pull it off, but it was the only chance we had.

I would need help. I would need a private investigator. A prayer wouldn’t hurt, either, if I still believed in that crap.

I drove back to my office in silence. I thought about old times, back in the day, Leland Park. I don’t remember life before Sammy. He was my first friend and my best friend. Both of our mothers worked part-time and they switched off baby-sitting chores, so whether it was my house or his, we were together from the time we were infants with one of the moms watching us. I made little distinction between his house and mine. If we couldn’t find a toy or a sock or a pack of Crayolas, the first order of business was not a search of my bedroom but a trip next door. I ate half my meals next door. I shit in half my diapers next door.

Sammy and I against the world, it felt like, though it was unspoken. People put us together, Fric and Frac, whatever we did, as if we were twins. My first fight, in kindergarten no less, I didn’t even throw the first punch; Sammy did, coming out of nowhere and popping Joe Kinzley in the kisser after he’d pushed me.

We were never apart, and it felt like we’d never be apart.