Illegal

TEN

Payne called 911 and was immediately cross-examined.

"Yes, I'm sure it was a gunshot."

"No, I'm not at the judge's house."

"No, I'm not armed! Jeez, get the paramedics over there!"

A woman at the other end of the line asked him to hold a moment.

Payne paced in a tight circle. Fully awake now, wound tight, filled with regret. Judge Rollins was corrupt, but he didn't deserve this.

"Is this Mr. James Payne?" asked the woman on the phone.

Oh, shit.

He hadn't given his name.

The woman recited his home address and the fact that he had three unpaid parking tickets and two citations for failing to clear brush from his property.

The L.A.P.D.'s enhanced caller I.D. The city can't fix the potholes, but it can snoop into our living rooms.

Technology would lead the cops straight to his front door. They would ask all those nosy cop questions about his visit to the judge. They probably wouldn't do a Rodney King on his skull, but who wants another Grand Jury looking into his affairs?

Payne clicked off without saying good-bye. He needed time to think, and this wasn't the place. He dressed hurriedly, grabbed the envelope with the five grand he had skimmed, and hopped into his car. Headed west on Oxnard, hung a right on Van Nuys, and parked on Delano, two blocks from his office. Payne was seldom in his office between nine and five, much less in the middle of the night. Still, no use advertising his presence with his Lexus by the door.

The chambers of J. Atticus Payne, Esquire, solo practitioner, occupied a one-story, wood-shingled bungalow built in the 1920s and not updated since. The paint was peeling, the porch sagging, and the siding tearing loose. A California Craftsman gone to seed.

Rent was cheap, and the place was close to the courthouse, bail bondsman's office, and the police station. The small backyard had been paved over to provide parking for three cars, even though many of Payne's clients arrived by bus, walking the last few blocks from the Van Nuys Civic Center.

The shelves were lined with law books that Payne never read, the desk cluttered with mail never to be answered. Atop his first-generation fax machine, a single slice of pepperoni pizza looked alarmingly like a chunk of plasterboard with skin cancer. He tossed the envelope with the hundred-dollar bills into a desk drawer and opened a cabinet that was intended for litigation files but contained vodka, bourbon, Scotch, tequila, and coffee liqueur. Payne had not been much of a drinker until the accident. After his surgery, he sought relief from the pain by washing down Vicodin with white Russians.

He contented himself now with some Maker's Mark, neat, in a dirty cup. He kicked some files off an old corduroy sofa and stretched out. He did not know what he would do in the morning, though he vaguely recollected that he had an eight a.m. hearing in Superior Court, just down the street.

Exhaustion kicked in along with the bourbon. His eyes drifted closed, then opened, then descended again like balky garage doors. His last conscious thought was of Adam tossing a ball to him. The boy was rangy, all legs and elbows, with a rubbery arm. He could throw hard. Just like Payne at that age, fast but wild. With that thought, and the timeless echo of a leather ball smacking into the pocket of a finely oiled glove, Jimmy finally cruised into a restless sleep.