A Gambler's Jury Read online

  ALSO BY VICTOR METHOS

  An Invisible Client

  Neon Lawyer Series

  The Neon Lawyer

  Mercy

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 Victor Methos

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503949041 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1503949044 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781542046398 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1542046394 (paperback)

  Cover design by Jae Song

  First Edition

  For my father. Hope you’re dancing among the stars, Dad.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

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  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

  —Desmond Tutu

  1

  It was all fun and games until I showed up to court so hungover that my head felt like it was going to explode.

  I caught a reflection of myself walking into the Salt Lake City courtroom and I didn’t look good: like a haggard metalhead after a drug binge. A haggard metalhead after a drug binge who’d just woken up behind a bar with a bowl of Cap’n Crunch in her face. I don’t know what a bar was doing with Cap’n Crunch, but I can’t imagine the Cap’n would’ve been proud of whatever it was.

  I was wearing jeans and, I realized then, a sports coat that wasn’t mine. Apparently I had grabbed a man’s coat on the way out of the bar.

  The sunglasses over my eyes and unlit cigarette dangling from my lips didn’t help my image as a professional attorney-at-law. I spit the cigarette out in a trash bin but left the sunglasses on, mostly because of the hangover, as I crossed the courtroom and collapsed in the chair next to the prosecutor, Cortland Smith. She shook her head.

  “You smell like booze,” she whispered.

  “I feel like some booze. You got any? Hair of the dog and all.”

  She lifted a file and set it in front of me. “No, no booze. Sorry.”

  I shrugged and picked up the file. On the inside flap, prosecutors wrote the deals they were willing to offer. This one said: No deal.

  “Seriously?” I said.

  “He’s got a long history, Dani.”

  “Give me a plea in abeyance. Come on, you know you want to. Come on, come on, come on.”

  “Are you begging me right now?”

  “Is it working?”

  “No, it looks kind of pathetic.”

  “Ouch. You’re hurting my womanly feel-goods.” I sighed and closed the file. “Fine. Trial it is.” I looked at the judge, a portly woman named Harkin, and asked, “How is she today?”

  “In a serious mood. Watch your ass.”

  I stood up and moved toward the lectern. Attorneys were supposed to form a line and take turns, but I was so late there was no one left. I smiled at the judge. She rolled her eyes and said, “Ms. Rollins, take your sunglasses off.”

  I slipped them off and tucked one end into the front of my shirt. “You look lovely this morning, Judge. Have you done something with your hair? Cut and color?”

  “Who’s your client?”

  “Mark Rodriguez, please.”

  My client came up to the lectern and stood to the side. “Your Honor, my client is a nice young kid, nineteen years old, busted for allegedly possessing cocaine in a parking lot with a prostitute in the passenger seat. Kids these days, right? They have no sense of decency.” I looked at Mark. “You take that stuff to a shady motel room like any decent citizen from previous generations, young man.”

  “Ms. Rollins, what do you propose?” she asked, annoyed.

  “I believe the prosecution is graciously moving to dismiss the case and issue an apology to my client.”

  Cortland stood up. “Your Honor, we’d ask for a trial date.”

  “August seventh. And Ms. Rollins, please wear appropriate attire next time you’re in my courtroom. And maybe don’t be so hungover.”

  “Hungover?” I said, looking shocked. “Your Honor, I am flabbergasted that you would suggest such a thing. Horrified, really.”

  She exhaled. “Get out of my courtroom.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  We turned and left. Mark stopped in the hall and said, “So, what does that mean?”

  “It means we’re going to trial. You got a suit?”

  “A suit? Nah. I ain’t got a suit.”

  “You’re gonna need one. You’re gonna have to testify and tell the jury exactly what you told me: you didn’t know it was cocaine, and you didn’t know she was a prostitute.”

  “Okay, yeah. So you think we can win?”

  “Sure.”

  No, there definitely was no chance we could win, but a few months of hope wouldn’t hurt him. Besides, you never knew with a jury. We might get some crazy separatist nut who hated the government and the police and refused to convict.

  “Look, just stay sober, buy a suit from a secondhand store—a nice one but not too nice—and come by my office in a month so we can go through your testimony. In the meantime, no nose candy or girls named Candy. None of it. Got it?”

  He nodded. “Okay, Dani. Yeah. I got it. Come by in a month.”

  I watched him walk out of the courthouse and knew what I was saying to him wasn’t getting through. He would keep using and possibly get busted again before the trial. I’d go check on him and talk to his mother, see if I could influence events in any way, but unfortunately, everyone had free will.

  I headed out of the courthouse to the Jeep parked on the street. I took the parking ticket stuffed under the windshield wiper and put it under the wiper of the cop car parked in front of me before I got into my Jeep and pulled into traffic.

  Out on the freeway, I blared Led Zeppelin as I headed to West Valley. Despite being in Utah, statistically one of the safest states in the country, Hoover County
had more crime than counties twice its size. The police force out there grew every year, and with it, the prosecutor’s office. That meant more criminal cases filed and more clients for us defense attorneys. Crime was always a growth industry.

  I stopped at a rundown house with several pimped-out cars in front. One pink Cadillac had brushed chrome trim and a couple of Hispanic gentlemen smoking joints inside. They eyed me suspiciously, and I said, “Real men drive pink,” as I walked by.

  I got up to the porch where a kid no older than twelve said, “Who the fuck is you?”

  “Now what kind of grammar is that? It’s who the fuck are you?”

  He stood up and tried to get in my face though he only came up to my chest.

  “Easy, Snoop Diapers,” I said. “I’m a friend of Franco’s.”

  He slowly lifted his shirt, revealing the .22-caliber handgun tucked in his pants.

  “You know, that’s a good way to blow off your bits and pieces. Might I humbly suggest tucking the gun into the back of your pants?”

  Franco opened the door. “Sit down, Hector. This here’s my lawyer. Quit actin’ like you hard.”

  “Shit,” Hector said, “you lucky, bitch.”

  Franco slapped the back of his head. “Show respect to women, you little shit.”

  I walked past Franco and into the house. “Charming young lad.”

  “My cousin. He ain’t so bad. Just protective.” He glanced back at me as he led me to the living room and flopped onto the couch. “How you been, Dani?”

  I sat down in the recliner across from him. A young girl was watching cartoons on the television in the front room. “Good. You?”

  He said something in Spanish to the girl and she sighed, turned off the television, and left the room.

  “I’m in some shit.”

  I held out my hands. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  “No, this ain’t like those other times. I really fucked up this time.”

  “What happened?”

  He ran his hand over his head as he leaned forward, his gaze on the carpet. The tattoos of a naked woman with a skull for a face and the blade of a knife on his right arm were incongruous with the man I knew: the man who worked two jobs to feed his daughter and put a roof over her head, the man who attended night courses at Salt Lake Community College to get a degree in business to get his family out of the ghetto and into someplace decent. Sometimes, I guess, what’s on the outside doesn’t tell us what’s on the inside.

  “Some of the guys were doin’ a deal down there in Richardson. They said they needed a ride. I told them I wasn’t into that shit no more, and they said they just needed a ride. I didn’t have to do anything else.”

  “Franco, tell me you didn’t go down on a drug deal.”

  He shook his head. “They said they just needed a ride.”

  “Are you crazy? How many times did I tell you to cut that shit out? With your record, this isn’t gonna be counselor meetings and fines anymore, man. You’re looking at real time.”

  He blew out a puff of air, unable to look at me. “It’s worse. We got pulled over. Cop said he smelled weed in the car and had us all get out. I knew they wasn’t sellin’ much, just what they had in their pockets. But they had guns. Three of ’em.” He hesitated. “One of the guys was on parole. I couldn’t let him go down like that, so I said the gun was mine.”

  “Shit,” I said, flopping back in the recliner.

  “Yeah, I know. But my homie said he’d come say it was his in court.”

  “You know that doesn’t matter, right? You already confessed. They’re gonna think you punked your friend into taking the blame.”

  “I know. I know,” he mumbled. He swallowed. “There’s more. The cop called down the task force. One of the detectives said with my record, they’re gonna make it go federal, and they’re gonna hit me as hard as they can. Twenty years. Is that true?”

  Under Utah law, if a firearm was found anywhere near illegal drugs—it didn’t matter the amount—it was assumed the weapon was being used to further drug deals. The US Attorney’s Office frequently took over such cases and filed them in federal court.

  “I haven’t looked, but with your record, yeah. It could easily be that much.”

  “Shit.” He paused. “He wants me to snitch. Says if I rat out everyone I run with, he’ll let me slide. He’s been callin’ me all day, and I haven’t answered. I wanted to talk to you first.”

  I leaned forward, putting my elbows on my knees. Snitching wasn’t anything to take lightly. If he did it, he would have a target on his back the rest of his life, as would his family. I thought of the little girl in front of the television and what some high tweakers might do to her.

  “The only time I ever recommend cooperating is if you’re looking at time you can’t do. Anything less, and you’re gonna suffer.”

  “I’m already suffering, girla. I’m already suffering.”

  I thought for a moment. “Gimme the number for the detective. I’ll talk to him.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. See if there’s anything you can do.”

  “I’ll see. But if I can’t, you may need to do something drastic. You feel me?”

  “Drastic?”

  Technically, a lawyer couldn’t tell a client to run. So I said as delicately as possible, “Run.”

  “What?”

  “If I can’t take care of this, run your ass off and don’t look back. Go to Mexico. Hell, go farther south. Go to Brazil. But get outta here and don’t come back. Even if I worked out a deal for you, it’d still be at least fifteen years. Run. In fact, don’t wait for me to work anything out. Just run. Get your girl, get all your money, and run.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, all right. All right.”

  On my way out of Franco’s, I saw the little man on the porch staring up at me. I crouched to eye level with him and said, “The small are the ones who need to carry a gun to feel big. Guns don’t get you respect.” I tapped my temple with my finger. “This is what gets you respect—being able to outsmart your opponents.”

  He rolled his eyes, and I left.

  2

  My office took up the corner of a floor in a building at least fifty years past its prime. The offices of criminal defense lawyers didn’t matter. Clients wanted to know you could keep them out of jail, and the flash didn’t matter one bit. In fact, the worst criminal defense lawyers in any city were found in the fanciest buildings, charging hourly rates that would make high-priced escorts blush. Better to hire the lawyers who shared office space with Pizza Hut or worked out of their shitty apartments—the lawyers willing to get their hands dirty, who would send an investigator out to see if the cop who arrested you was having an affair or if the prosecutor was going through a divorce that could be exploited to catch him off guard. It wasn’t pretty, but it was necessary. The odds were stacked against defendants from the start, and they had to take any advantage they could get.

  But I didn’t feel like going back to the office, and I didn’t feel like going home, so I headed to the bar.

  The Lizard—yes, the actual name of the club—was in a section of the city crowded with sex-related businesses. Utah wasn’t exactly the friendliest place for strip clubs or peep shows, but it couldn’t just outlaw them either because of a little hindrance called the Constitution. So they put them as far from public view as possible, in a grimy section of the city known for factories and shady chop shops. My friend Michelle, who owned the Lizard, just happened to prefer the sleazier parts of town. Many of her clientele were judges, politicians, police chiefs, and doctors, so when they came out to play, they preferred to be on the wrong side of the tracks where nobody knew them.

  I parked out front and went inside. Though it was around four in the afternoon, several cars were already there. The bouncer, a big guy wearing a sleeveless shirt, nodded to me and I nodded back.

  The inside was almost too dark to see, and I had to let my eyes adjust before going farther. I saw the bartender restocking and I s
aid, “Hey, where’s Michelle?”

  Someone slapped my back just then and I smelled the unmistakable scent of weed. “I missed you, Rollins,” she said.

  “Are you high already? It’s like four in the afternoon.”

  “Drink with me,” she said, slapping the bar top.

  “Kinda early, ain’t it? I was hoping for something to eat.”

  “We’ll eat later.” She turned to another bartender and said, “Tequila, Jim.”

  I lit a cigarette and sat on a bar stool. I didn’t know how Michelle kept it together enough to own not one, but two bars. Maybe alcohol didn’t require any business acumen or even sanity. It would be hard to fail when everyone wants the product.

  “How you doin’?” Michelle asked.

  “Same.” I blew smoke out of my nose. “I think Stefan’s really gonna marry that girl.”

  “Your ex is gonna marry a girl that’s been in Guns & Ammo?”

  “Looks like it.”

  The shots came. We tapped glasses, then swallowed the poison down. Michelle held up her fingers for two more.

  “It’s your fault, you know,” she said.

  “I know. Thanks for your support, friend.”

  “Hey, I’m proud of all my mistakes. Made me who I am.”

  “How can I be proud of it? My ex-husband is marrying someone else. It doesn’t feel exactly like winning the lottery.”

  “There’s only two ways to make it in life, Rollins. Jim Morrison, or John Rockefeller.”

  “What?”

  “Life as art or life as project, woman. See, Rockefeller knew what he wanted from an early age. He built his life around it. He told himself that his life was going to be a certain way, and he planned the trajectory so it would go in that direction. Anything that didn’t add to his vision of that life, his project, he wouldn’t do. His family, his friends, his health, all of it came second to his project.

  “Morrison went the opposite way. He painted a canvas with his time—a beautiful painting of emotion, imagination, and poetry. Experience coming together to weave this tapestry of pleasure and pain. That’s it, sister. That’s all you got. Life as art or project. So you gotta choose. In my opinion, the best choice is the painting. Make life your painting.”

  I stared at her. “Are you the same girl I saw projectile vomit red wine over a cop?”