“Walter, I’m not fucking around with you. I need to know – not only to defend you, but to protect myself.”

He put his empty glass to the side of the table and someone whisked it away within two seconds. He nodded as if in agreement with me and then he spoke.

“I think you may have found the reason for his death,” he said. “It was in the file. You even mentioned it to me.”

“I don’t understand. What did I mention?”

Elliot responded in an impatient tone.

“He planned to delay the trial. You found the motion. He was killed before he could file it.”

I tried to put it together but I didn’t have enough of the parts.

“I don’t understand, Walter. He wanted to delay the trial and that got him killed? Why?”

Elliot leaned across the table toward me. He spoke in a tone just above a whisper.

“Okay, you asked for it and I’ll tell you. But don’t blame me when you wish you didn’t know what you know. Yes, there was a bribe. He paid it and everything was fine. The trial was scheduled and all we had to do was be ready to go. We had to stay on schedule. No delays, no continuances. But then he changed his mind and wanted to delay.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I think he actually thought he could win the case without the fix.”

It appeared that Elliot didn’t know about the FBI’s phone calls and apparent interest in Vincent. If he did know, now would have been the time to mention it. The FBI’s focus on Vincent would have been as good a reason as any to delay a trial involving a bribery scheme.

“So delaying the trial got him killed?”

“That’s my guess, yes.”

“Did you kill him, Walter?”

“I don’t kill people.”

“You had him killed.”

Elliot shook his head wearily.

“I don’t have people killed either.”

A waiter moved up to the booth with a tray and a stand and we both leaned back to let him work. He deboned our fish, plated them and put them down on the table along with two small serving pitchers with beurre blanc sauce in them. He then placed Elliot’s fresh martini down along with two wineglasses. He uncorked the bottle Elliot had ordered and asked if he wanted to taste the wine yet. Elliot shook his head and told the waiter to go away.

“Okay,” I said when we were left alone. “Let’s go back to the bribe. Who was bribed?”

Elliot took down half his new martini in one gulp.

“That should be obvious when you think about it.”

“Then I’m stupid. Help me out.”

“A trial that cannot be delayed. Why?”

My eyes stayed on him but I was no longer looking at him. I went inside to work the riddle until it came to me. I ticked off the possibilities – judge, prosecutor, cops, witnesses, jury… I realized that there was only one place where a bribe and an unmovable trial intersected. There was only one aspect that would change if the trial were delayed and rescheduled. The judge, prosecutor and all the witnesses would remain the same no matter when it was scheduled. But the jury pool changes week to week.

“There’s a sleeper on the jury,” I said. “You got to somebody.”

Elliot didn’t react. He let me run with it and I did. My mind swept along the faces in the jury box. Two rows of six. I stopped on juror number seven.

“Number seven. You wanted him in the box. You knew. He’s the sleeper. Who is he?”

Elliot nodded slightly and gave me that half smile. He took his first bite of fish before answering my question as calmly as if we were talking about the Lakers’ chances at the playoffs and not the rigging of a murder trial.

“I have no idea who he is and don’t really care to know. But he’s ours. We were told that number seven would be ours. And he’s no sleeper. He’s a persuader. When it gets to deliberations, he will go in there and turn the tide for the defense. With the case Vincent built and you’re delivering, it probably won’t take more than a little push. I’m banking on us getting our verdict. But at minimum he will hold out for acquittal and we’ll have a hung jury. If that happens, we just start all over and do it again. They will never convict me, Mickey. Never.”

I pushed my plate aside. I couldn’t eat.

“Walter, no more riddles. Tell me how this went down. Tell me from the start.”

“From the start?”

“From the start.”

Elliot chuckled at the thought of it and poured himself a glass of wine without first tasting from the bottle. A waiter swooped in to take over the operation but Elliot waved him away with the bottle.

“This is a long story, Mickey. Would you like a glass of wine to go with it?”

He held the mouth of the bottle poised over my empty glass. I was tempted but I shook my head.

“No, Walter, I don’t drink.”

“I’m not sure I can trust someone who doesn’t take a drink from time to time.”

“I’m your lawyer. You can trust me.”

“I trusted the last one, too, and look what happened to him.”

“Don’t threaten me, Walter. Just tell me the story.”

He drank heavily from his wineglass and then put it down too hard on the table. He looked around to see if anyone in the restaurant had noticed and I got the sense that it was all an act. He was really checking to see if we were being watched. I scanned the angles I had without being obvious. I didn’t see Bosch or anyone else I pegged as a cop in the restaurant.

Elliot began his story.

“When you come to Hollywood, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from as long as you’ve got one thing in your pocket.”

“Money.”

“That’s right. I came here twenty-five years ago and I had money. I put it in a couple of movies first and then into a half-assed studio nobody gave two shits about. And I built that place into a contender. Another five years and it will no longer be the Big Four they talk about. It will be the Big Five. Archway will be right up there with Paramount and Warner’s and the rest.”

I wasn’t anticipating going back twenty-five years when I told him to start the story from the beginning.

“Okay, Walter, I get all of that about your success. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it wasn’t my money. When I came here, it wasn’t my money.”

“I thought the story was that you came from a family that owned a phosphate mine or shipping operation in Florida.”

He nodded emphatically.

“All true, but it depends on your definition of family.”

It slowly came to me.

“Are you talking about the mob, Walter?”

“I am talking about an organization in Florida with a tremendous cash flow that needed legitimate businesses to move it through and legitimate front men to operate those businesses. I was an accountant. I was one of those men.”

It was easy to put together. Florida twenty-five years ago. The heyday of the uninhibited flow of cocaine and money.

“I was sent west,” Elliot said. “I had a story and I had suitcases full of money. And I loved movies. I knew how to pick ’em and put ’ em together. I took Archway and turned it into a billion-dollar enterprise. And then my wife…”

A sad look of regret crossed his face.

“What, Walter?”

He shook his head.

“On the morning after our twelfth anniversary – after the prenuptial agreement was vested – she told me she was leaving. She was going to get a divorce.”

I nodded. I understood. With the prenup vested, Mitzi Elliot would be entitled to half of Walter Elliot’s holdings in Archway Studios. Only he was just a front. His holdings actually belonged to the organization and it wasn’t the type of organization that would allow half of its investment to walk out the door in a skirt.

“I tried to change her mind,” Elliot said. “She wouldn’t listen. She was in love with that Nazi bastard and thought he could protect her.”

“The organization had her killed.”

It sounded so strange to say those words out loud. It made me look around and sweep my eyes across the restaurant.