"Sure, nobody ever knows. You have a phone?"
"What?"
"A phone. A telephone."
Thorson slapped an open hand against Krasner's briefcase, a move that made the little man jump as if shocked with a cattle prod.
"Yes, yes, I have a phone. You don't have to-"
"Good. Get it out, call your receptionist and tell her to pull the wire transfer records from your file. Tell her I'll be there in fifteen minutes for a copy of it."
"You can't take-I have an attorney/client relationship with this individual that I must protect no matter what he's done. I-"
Thorson slapped a backhand off the briefcase again, which shut Krasner up in mid-sentence. I could see Thorson received a genuine sense of accomplishment from pushing the little lawyer around.
"Make the call, Krasner, and I'll tell the locals you helped out. Make the call or the next person to die is on you. Because now you do know who and what we're talking about here."
Krasner slowly nodded and began opening his briefcase.
"That's it, Counselor," Thorson said. "Now you see the light."
As Krasner called his receptionist and issued the order in a shaky voice, Thorson stood silently watching. I had never seen or heard of anyone using the bad cop routine without the good cop counterpart and still so expertly finesse the information needed from a source. I wasn't sure if I admired Thorson's skill or was appalled by it. But he had turned the posturing bluff artist into a shaking mess. As Krasner was folding the phone closed, Thorson asked what the amount of the wire transfer had been.
"Six thousand dollars even."
"Five for bail and one for you. How come you didn't squeeze him?"
"He said it was all he could afford. I believed him. May I go now?"
There was a resigned and defeated look on Krasner's face. Before Thorson answered his question the door to the courtroom opened and a bailiff leaned out.
"Artie, you're up."
"Okay, Jerry."
Without waiting for further comment from Thorson, Krasner began moving toward the door again. And once again Thorson stopped him with a hand on the chest. This time Krasner made no protest about being touched. He simply stopped, leaving his eyes staring dead ahead.
"Artie-can I call you Artie?-you better do some soul-searching. That is if you have one. You know more than you've said here. A lot more. And the more time you waste, the more there's a chance that a life will be wasted. Think about that and give me a call."
He reached over and slid a business card into the handkerchief pocket of Krasner's suit coat, then patted it gently.
"My local number is written on the back. Call me. If I get what I need from somewhere else and find out you had the same information, I will be merciless, Counselor. Fucking merciless."
Thorson then stepped back so the lawyer could slowly make his way back into the courtroom.
We were back out on the sidewalk before Thorson spoke to me.
"Think he got the message?"
"Yeah, he got it. I'd stay by the phone. He's gonna call."
"We'll see."
"Can I ask you something?"
"What?"
"Did you really check him out with the locals?"
Thorson smiled by way of an answer.
"The part about him being a pedophile. How do you know that?"
"Just takin' a shot. Pedophiles are networkers. They like to surround themselves with their own kind. They have phone nets, computer nets, a whole support system. They view it as them against society. The misunderstood minority, that kind of bullshit. So I figured maybe he got Krasner's name on a referral list somewhere. It was worth the shot. The way I read Krasner, I think it hit him. He wouldn't have given up the wire records if it didn't."
"Maybe. Maybe he was telling the truth about not knowing who Gladden was. Maybe he just has a conscience and doesn't want to see anybody else hurt."
"I take it you don't know that many lawyers."
Ten minutes later we were waiting for the elevator outside the Krasner amp; Peacock law offices, Thorson looking at the wire transfer receipt for the sum of $6,000.
"It's a bank out of Jacksonville," he said without looking up. "We'll have to get Rach on it."
I noticed his use of the diminutive of her name. There was something intimate about it.
"Why her?" I asked.
" 'Cause she's in Florida."
He looked up from the receipt at me. He was smiling.
"Didn't I tell you?"
"No, you didn't tell me."
"Yeah, Backus sent her out this morning. She went to see Horace the Hypnotist and work with the Florida team. Tell you what, let's stop in the lobby and use the phone, see if I can get somebody to get this account number to her."
38
Very little was said between us on the way out from downtown to Santa Monica. I was thinking about Rachel in Florida. I couldn't understand why Backus would send her when the front line seemed to be out here. There were two possibilities, I decided. One was that Rachel was being disciplined for some reason, possibly me, and taken off the front line. The other was that there was some new break in the case I didn't know about and was purposely not being told. Either choice was a bad one, but I found myself secretly choosing the first.
Thorson seemed lost in thought during most of the drive, or perhaps just tired of being around me. But when we parked out front of the Santa Monica Police Department, he answered the question I had before I even asked it.
"We just need to pick up the property they took from Gladden when he was arrested. We want to consolidate it all."
"And they're going to let you do that?"
I knew how small departments, in fact, all departments, tended to react to being bigfooted by the Big G.
"We'll see."
At the front counter of the detective bureau, we were told that Constance Delpy was in court but her partner, Ron Sweetzer, would be with us shortly. Shortly to Sweetzer turned out to be ten minutes. A period of time that didn't sit well with Thorson. I got the idea that the FBI, in the embodiment of Gordon Thorson at least, didn't appreciate having to wait for anybody, especially a small-town gold badge.
When Sweetzer finally appeared, he stood behind the counter and asked how he could help us. He gave me a second glance, probably computing how my beard and clothes did not jibe with his image of the FBI. He said nothing and made no movement that could have been translated as an invitation back to his office. Thorson responded in kind with short sentences and his own brand of rudeness. He took a folded white page from his inside pocket and spread it on the counter.
"That's the property inventory from the arrest of William Gladden, AKA Harold Brisbane. I'm here to accept custody of the property."
"What are you talking about?" Sweetzer said.
"I'm talking about what I just said. The FBI has entered the case and is heading the nationwide investigation of William Gladden. We need to have some experts look over what you've got here."
"Wait a minute, Mr. Agent. We've got our own experts and we've got a case against this guy. We're not turning over the evidence to anybody. Not without a court order or the DA's approval."
Thorson took a deep breath but he seemed to me to be going through an act he had performed countless times before. The bully who comes into town and picks on the little guy.
"First of all," he said, "you know and I know your case is for shit. And secondly, we're not talking about evidence, anyway. You've got a camera, a bag of candy. That's not evidence of anything. He's charged with fleeing an officer, vandalism and polluting a waterway. Where's the camera come into it?"
Sweetzer started to say something, then stopped, apparently stymied for a reply.
"Just wait here, please?"
Sweetzer started away from the computer.