Page 95 of The 1 Lawyer

He pressed me. “Is it worth it, fighting the urinalysis? If I want to go that route, I’ll have to hire a lawyer. Will I be throwing my money away?”

I wasn’t in the mood to hand out free legal advice. “I couldn’t say.”

He slumped down on the bed, looking disappointed. After a moment of silence, he abruptly broke wind with a long, wet release of gas.

He struggled to his feet. “You wouldn’t believe what they feed you—it’s about done me in. How many times can a man eat sauerkraut?” He jerked his pants down and sat on the toilet. “They really ought to give us more privacy in here.”

Fervently, I agreed.

After he flushed and returned to the bed, he snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “So you were Caro’s lawyer. That guy, the son of the casino owner.”

“Yeah.”

“You got him off, right? How much he pay you for that? What’s it cost, getting a guy off?”

“The fee is confidential. But, Lou, the client pays for representation, legal services. The outcome isn’t guaranteed. It’s in the jury’s hands.”

He didn’t look convinced. “I caught some of that trial on TV when I was doing time. I remember when they showed that doctor’s wife on the news. She’s good-looking in a tight-ass way. But hell, I’d nail that.”

I didn’t upbraid him for the disrespect. He probably didn’t know that Iris Caro was dead. How could he? He’d been closed off in this cell.

“I hope you hit the Caros up for a big payday. They can afford it. You ever go to the old man’s casino, ever play there?”

I’d been to the casino the week before. The detectives had drilled me on it for over an hour. But I didn’t mention it.

Lou wasn’t put off by my uncommunicative attitude. He kept talking. “Caro’s slots don’t pay out, especially for max bet. And I’m in a position to know. From time to time, I’ve used the slots to avoid RICO problems. My partners deposit my payment in a slot machine, then I sit down and play for a while before I cash it out. Caro’s machines never pay! How do you think he controls that? Like, they got some button or something they push to make the machines so tight? Seems like you’d have to win once in a while unless he’s rigging it.”

He rambled on, talking about the table games, card games he’d played and money he’d lost. The words swirled overhead like a swarm of birds flying in circles. My mind drifted.

“You ever feel like doing that?” he said.

The question broke into my reverie. “Doing what?”

“You know, I just told you how my buddy thought the dealer was cheating, and he punched his face in. But what good does it do to hit the dealer? We ought to be kicking Hiram Caro’s ass, right? He’s the one who’s cheating us.” Lou leaned back on the cot in a relaxed posture. But his eyes were sharp and piercing as he regarded me. They reminded me of a possum’s eyes, dark and beady. “You ever feel like doing that?” he asked again. “Getting back at Caro for something?”

I clenched my jaw. I finally understood. Maybe the trauma or the shock had kept me from catching on sooner. They were setting me up for a jailhouse confession. They’d struck a bargain with my shithouse buddy. Lou was on a mission to trick me into making incriminating statements.

CHAPTER 75

THEY KEPT me in the Biloxi jail overnight. At some point, they dragged in a second cot. It was a tight squeeze. I stretched out, lying flat on my back, to avoid bumping into my cellmate, Lou.

The next day, the jailer took me out and led me through a maze of corridors. I asked what was going on, but he didn’t respond. When we reached a holding cell, he pulled open the door and announced, “You got visitors.”

In the room, Mason and Jenny sat at a folding table.

Jenny pushed back her metal chair and stood, looking like she might burst into tears. She leaned toward me as if to give me a hug. Glad as I was to see her, I just couldn’t accept it. My self-control was hanging by a thread, and I couldn’t let it break. I dropped into an empty chair and focused on Mason.

The question I needed to ask him stuck in my throat for a second, and not because I was afraid of being overheard. The holding cell was reserved for criminal defendants to meet with counsel. There were no cameras mounted on the wall, no ears listening at the crack of the door. I didn’t have to be on my guard, not in there.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

Mason and Jenny exchanged a look. She ducked her head, bent over her phone, and swiped at the screen. Mason picked up a pen and tapped it on his legal pad in a rapid beat.

I knew Mason. The news was bad enough to make him nervous. But he wouldn’t conceal the information. Mason wouldn’t bullshit me.

“It’s bad,” he said. “We’re trying to read tea leaves here because no one is saying exactly what it is that they’ve got. But they’ve set your bail at the same amount as Rue’s, and they’re proceeding against you and Rue as codefendants.”

Jenny said in a hushed voice, “Coconspirators.”

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