Short Stories

THE PERFECT TRIANGLE

It was the first time I had ever had a client conference in which the client was naked — and not only that, but trying to sit on my lap.

However, it had been Linda Sandoval who had insisted on the time and place to meet. She was the one who got naked, not me. We were in a privacy booth at the Snake Pit North in Van Nuys. Deep down I knew it might come to something like this — her getting naked. It was probably why I agreed to meet her in the first place.

"Linda, please," I said, gently pushing her away. "Sit over there and I'll sit here and we'll keep talking. And please put your clothes back on."

She sat down on the changing stool in the booth's corner and crossed her legs. I was maybe three feet away from her but could still pick up her scent of sweat and orange-blossom perfume.

"I can't," she said.

"You can't? What are you talking about? Sure you can."

"No, if my clothes are on I'm not making money. Tommy will see me and he'll fine me."

"Who's Tommy?"

"The manager. He watches us."

"In here? I thought this was a privacy booth."

I looked around. I didn't see any cameras, but one wall of the booth was a mirror.

"Behind the mirror?"

"Probably. I know he knows what goes on in here."

"Jeez, you can't even trust the privacy booths in a strip club. But look, it doesn't matter. If the California Bar heard this was how I conduct client conferences, I'd get suspended again in two seconds. You should remember that yourself when you start practicing. The Bar is like Tommy, always watching."

"Don't worry, I'll never be in a place like this again — if I get to practice."

She frowned at the reminder of her situation.

"Don't worry. I'll get it handled. One way or another, it'll work out. The information you've given me should help a lot. I'll crack the statutes and check it out tonight."

"Good. I hope so, Mick. By the way, what were you suspended for before? I didn't know about that when I hired you."

"It's a long story and it was a long time ago. Just put your clothes on, and if Tommy gets upset I'll talk to him. You must have guys that come in here and just want to talk, don't you?"

"Yeah, but they still have to pay."

"Well, I'm not paying. You're paying me. This was a bad idea, meeting here."

I picked up her G-string and silk camisole off the floor and tossed them to her. She put a false pout on her face and started getting dressed. I took one last look at her surgically enhanced breasts before they disappeared under the leopard-skin camisole. I imagined her standing before a jury someday and thought she was going to do very well once she got out of law school.

"How much will this cost me?" she asked.

"Twenty-five hundred for starters payable right now. I can take a check or credit card. Then I go see Seiver tomorrow, and if it ends there, that will be it. If it goes further, then you pay as you go. Just like it works in here."

She stood up to pull on the G-string. Her pubic hair was shaved and cropped into a dark triangle no bigger than a matchbook.There was glitter dust in it so the stage lights would make that perfect triangle glow.

"You sure you don't want to take it in trade?" she asked.

"Sorry, darling. A man's gotta eat."

Once she snapped the G-string into place in the back, she stepped toward me and leaned down in an oft-practiced move that made her brown curls tumble over my shoulders.

"A man's gotta eat pussy, too," she whispered in my ear.

"Well, that, too. But I still think I'll take the money this time."

"You don't know what you're missing."

She stood up and raised her right foot, removing her spike. She wobbled for a moment but then steadied herself on one foot. From the toe of her shoe she pulled out a fold of cash. It was all hundred-dollar bills. She counted out twenty-five and gave them to me.

"I'll write you out a receipt. Did you make all of that tonight?"

"And then some."

I shook my head.

"You're going in the wrong direction if you're going to give this up to practice law."

"Doesn't matter. I need something to fall back on. I'm about to hit the big three-oh. And when you lose it, it goes fast."

I appraised her flat stomach and thin hips, and the agility with which she raised her leg and put her spike back on.

"I don't think you're losing anything."

"You're sweet. But it's a young girl's game."

She bent over and kissed me on the cheek.

"You know what?" she said. "I bet it's the first time in the history of this place that a girl paid a guy off in a privacy booth."

I smiled and took two of my hundreds and slid them under the garter on her thigh.

"There. A professional discount. You being in law school and all."

She quickly slid back onto my lap and bounced a few times.

"Thank you, Sweetie. That'll make Tommy happy. But are you sure I can't do something for you? I think you're feeling the urge."

She bounced up and down a couple more times centered on me. She was feeling my urge all right.

"I'm glad Tommy'll be happy. But I better go now."

Late the next morning, I walked into Dean Seiver's office in the district attorney's office in the Santa Monica Courthouse annex. I carried my briefcase in one hand and a bag from Jerry's Deli in the other. More important than the files I had in my case were the sandwiches I had in the bag. Brisket on toasted poppy-seed bagels. This was what we always ate. When I came to Seiver about a case, I always came late in the morning and I always brought lunch.

Seiver was a lifer who had always called them like he saw them, regardless of the whims of politics and public morals. This explained why after twenty-two years in the DA's office he was still filing misdemeanors off cases spawned in the unincorporated areas in the west county.

This is also why we were friends. Dean Seiver still called them like he saw them.

I had not been here in a while but his office had not changed a bit. He had so many cases and so many files stacked on and in front of his desk that they created a solid wall that he sat behind. He looked up and peered over the top at me.

"Well, well, well. Mickey Haller."

I reached over the wall and put the bag down on the small workspace he kept clear.

"The usual," I said.

He didn't touch the bag. He leaned back and looked at it as if it was a suspicious package.

"The usual?" he said. "That implies routine, Haller. But this is no routine. I haven't seen you in at least a year. Where you been?"

"Busy — and trying to keep away from misdemeanors. They don't pay."

I sat down on the chair on the visitor's side of his desk. The wall of files cut off most of his face. I could only see his eyes. Finally he relented and leaned forward and I heard him open the bag. Soon a wrapped sandwich was handed over the wall to me. Then a napkin. Then a can of soda. Seiver's head then dropped down out of sight when he leaned into the first bite of his sandwich.

"So your office called," he said after taking some time to chew and swallow. "You're representing one Linda Sandoval on an indecent exposure and you want to talk about a dispo before I even file it. Remember, Haller, I have sixty days to file and I haven't used half of them. But I'm always open to a dispo."

"Actually, no dispo. I want to talk about making the case go away. Completely. Before it's filed."

Seiver's head came up sharply and he looked at me.

"This chick was caught completely naked on Broad Beach. She's an exhibitionist, Haller. It's a slam-bang conviction. Why would I make it go away? Oh, wait, don't tell me. I get it. The sandwich was really a bribe. You're working with the FBI in the latest investigation into corruption of the Justice system. I didn't know it was called Operation Brisket."

I smiled but also shook my head.

"Open your shirt," Seiver said. "Let me see the wire."

"Settle down, Seiver. Let me ask you, did you pull the case after my office called?"

"I did indeed."

"Did you read the deputy's arrest report and did you compare the information to the statute?"

His eyebrows came together in curiosity.

"I read the arrest report. The statute is up here."

He tapped a finger on his temple.

"Then you know that under the statute the deputy must visually observe the trespass of the law in order to make an arrest for indecent exposure."

"I know that, Haller. He did. Says right in the report that she came out of the water completely naked. Completely, Mick. That means she didn't have any clothes on. I think it's safe to say that this academy-trained deputy had the skill to notice this distinction. And by the way, do you know how cold the Pacific is right now? Do you have any idea what that would do to a woman's nipples?"

"Irrelevant, but I get the picture. But you miss the point. Read the report again. No, wait. I have it right here. I'll read it to you."

I took the first bite of my own sandwich, and while chewing it pulled the file from my case. Once I swallowed I read aloud the arrest summary, which I had highlighted when I had reviewed the case file the day before.

"Suspect Linda Sandoval, twenty-nine years of age, was in the water when responding deputy responded to call. Multiple witnesses pointed her out. R/D told suspect to come out of the water and suspect refused several times. R/D finally enlisted help of lifeguards Kennedy and Valdez and suspect was physically removed from the ocean where she was confirmed as completely naked. Suspect willingly dressed at this time and was arrested and transported. Suspect was verbally abusive toward R/D at the time of her arrest and during transport."

That was all I had highlighted but it was enough.

"I've got the same thing right here, Haller. Looks like slam-dunk material to me. By the way, did you see that under occupation on the arrest sheet she put down 'exotic dancer?' She's a stripper and she was out there getting rid of her tan lines and she broke the law."

"Her occupation isn't germane to the filing and you might want to look again at the report there, Einstein. The crime of indecent exposure was created by your own deputy sheriff."

"What are you talking about?"

"It doesn't matter if multiple witnesses pointed her out to him or that they saw her frolicking naked in the surf. Under the statute, the deputy can't make the arrest based on witness testimony. The arresting officer must observe the actual infraction to make the arrest. Pull down the book and check it out."

"I don't need the book. The deputy clearly met the threshold."

"Uh-uh. He clearly didn't observe the infraction until he had those two brave lifeguards pull her out of the water. He clearly created the crime and then arrested her."

"What are you talking about, an entrapment defense? Is this a joke?"

"It's not entrapment but it's not a valid arrest. The deputy created the crime and that makes it an illegal arrest. He also humiliated her by having her dragged out of the water and put on public display. I think she's probably got cause for civil action against the county."

"Is that a negotiating ploy? Public display? She's a stripper, for God's sake. This is ridic-"

He stopped midsentence as he realized I was right about the deputy creating the trespass upon the law. His head dropped down out of sight, but I don't think it was to take another bite of his sandwich. He was reading the arrest report for himself and seeing what I was explaining to him. I waited him out and finally he spoke.

"She's a stripper, what's she care? Maybe if you take the conviction and then run an appeal on it you would get some media and it would be good for business. Have her plead nolo pending the appeal, and meantime I'll make sure she only gets a slap on the wrist. But no civil action. That's the deal."

I shook my head but he couldn't see it.

"Can't do it, Deano. She's a stripper but she's also second year law at USC. So she can't take the hit on her record and gamble on an appeal. Every law firm runs background checks. She can't go in with a ding on her record. In some states she'd never be allowed to take the bar or practice. In some states she'd even have to register as a sex offender because of this."

"Then what's she doing stripping? She should be clerking somewhere."

"USC's goddamn expensive and she's paying her own way. Works the pole four nights a week. You'd have to see her to believe this, but she makes about ten times more stripping than she would clerking."

I momentarily thought about Linda Sandoval and the perfect triangle moving in rhythm on the stage. I had regretted not taking her up on her offer. I was sure I always would.

"Then she's going to make more stripping than she will practicing law," Seiver said, snapping me back to reality.

"You're stalling, Dean. What are you going to do?"

"You just want the whole thing to go away, huh?"

I nodded.

"It's a bad arrest," I said. "You refuse to file it and everybody wins. My client's record is clean and the integrity of the justice system is intact."

"Don't make me laugh. I could still go ahead with it and tie her up in appeals until she graduates."

"But you're a fair and decent guy and you know it's a bad arrest. That's why I came to you."

"Where's she work and what name does she dance under?"

"One of the Road Saints' places up in the Valley. Her professional name is Harmony."

"Of course it is. Look, Haller, things have changed since the last time you deigned to visit me. I'm restricted in what I can do here."

"Bullshit. You're the supervisor. You can do what you want. You always have."

"Actually, no. It's all about the budget now. Under some formula some genius put together at county, our budget now rises and falls with the number of cases we prosecute. So that edict resulted in an internal edict from on high which takes away my discretion. I cannot kick a case without approval from downtown. Because a nol-pros case doesn't get counted in the budget."

This sort of logic and practice did not surprise me, yet it surprised me to be confronted with it by Seiver. He had never been a company man.

"You're saying you cannot drop this case without approval because it would cost your department money from the county."

"Exactly."

"And what that means is that the interest of justice takes a backseat to budgetary considerations. My client must be illegally charged first, in order to satisfy some bureaucrat in the budget office, before you are then allowed to step in and drop the charge. Meantime, she's got an arrest on her record that may prevent or impede her eventual practice of law."

"No, I didn't say that."

"I'm paraphrasing."

"I still didn't say that last part."

"Sounded like it to me."

"No, I told you what the procedure is now. Technically, I don't have prefiling discretion in a case like this. Yes, I would have to file the case and then drop it. And, yes, we both know that the charge, no matter what the outcome of the case, will stay on her record forever."

I realized he was trying to tell me something.

"But you have an alternate plan," I prompted.

"Of course I do, Haller."

He stood up and moved what was left of his sandwich from the clear spot on his desk.

"Hold this, Haller."

I stood up and he handed me a file with the name Linda Sandoval on the tab. He then stepped up onto his desk chair and used it as a ladder to step up onto the clear spot of his desk.

"What are you doing, Seiver? Looking for a spot to tie the noose? That's not an alternative."

He laughed but didn't answer. He reached up and used both hands to push one of the tiles in the drop ceiling up and over. He reached a hand down to me and I gave him the file. He put it up into the space above the ceiling, then pulled the lightweight tile back into place.

Seiver got down and slapped the dust off his hands.

"There," he said.

"What did you just do?"

"The file is lost. The case won't be filed. Time will run out and then it will be too late for it to be filed. You come back in after the sixty days are up and get the arrest expunged. Harmony's record is clean by the time she takes the bar exam. If something comes up or the deputy asks questions, I say I never saw the file. Lost in transit from Malibu."

I nodded. It would work. The rules had changed but not Dean Seiver. I had to laugh.

"So that's what passes for discretion now."

"I call it Seiver's pretrial intervention."

"How many files you have up there, man?"

"A lot. In fact, tell Harmony to put some clothes on, get down on her knees, and pray to the stripper gods that the ceiling doesn't fall before her sixty days are run. 'Cause when the sky falls in here, then Chicken Little will have some 'splaining to do. I'll probably need a job when that happens."

We both looked up at the ceiling with a sense of apprehension. I wondered how many files the ceiling could hold before Seiver's pretrial intervention program came crashing down.

"Let's finish our sandwiches and not worry about it," Seiver finally said.

"Okay."

We resumed our positions on either side of the wall of files.

It was early evening and still bright outside. When I walked into the Snake Pit North I had to pause for my eyes to adjust to the darkness inside. When they did, I saw my client Harmony was on the main stage, her perfect triangle glittering in the spotlights. She moved with a natural rhythm that was as entrancing as her naked body. No tattoos as distraction. Just her, pure and beautiful.

That's why I had come. I could have delivered the good news by phone and been done with it. Said, See you around the courthouse in a year. But I had to see her one more time. Her body had left a memory imprint on me in the privacy booth. And I had started dreaming about being with her now that the case was closed and it could be argued — before the Bar if necessary — that she was no longer a client. Bar or no Bar, I wanted her. There was something intoxicating about having the smartest girl in the room moving up and down on you.

The song was an old one, "Sweet Child o' Mine," and had just started. I stood in the crowd and just watched and after a while she saw me and gave me the nod without breaking her rhythm. It might be a young girl's game but I thought she could give lessons for the next twenty years if need be. She moved with a rhythm that seemed to push the music, not the other way around.

I looked around and found an open bar table along the back wall. I sat down and watched Harmony dance until the song ended. While another dancer took the next song, she stood by the stairs at the back of the stage and put her orange G-string and zebra-striped camisole back on. The garter around her thigh was flowered with money — ones, fives, tens, and twenties. She walked down the steps, stopped at a few tables to kiss heavy donors on the cheek, and then came to me.

"Hello, Counselor. Do you have news for me?"

She took the other stool at the table.

"I sure do," I said. "The news is that your research was superb and your strategy excellent. The prosecutor bought it. He bought the whole thing."

She held still for a moment, as if basking in some unseen glow.

"What exactly is the disposition of the case?"

"It goes away. Completely."

"What about the record of my arrest?"

"I go back in a couple months from now and expunge it. There will be no record."

"Wow. I'm good."

"You sure are. And don't forget I had a little part to play in it, too."

"Thanks, Mickey. You just made my night."

"Yeah, well, I was hoping you could make mine."

"What do you have in mind?"

"I was thinking about what you said last night."

"About what?"

"About a man needing to eat pussy."

She smiled in that way that all women have, that way that says it isn't going to happen.

"That was last night, Mickey. Tonight it's a whole new world."

She slid off the stool and came around the table to me. She kissed me on the cheek the way I had just seen her kiss the big donors, the schmucks who had put twenty-dollar bills in her garter.

"Take care, baby," she said.

She started to glide away from the table.

"Wait a minute. What about the privacy booth? I thought maybe we could go back there… "

She looked back at me.

"It takes money to go back there, sugar."

"I still have the money you gave me last night "

She paused for a moment, her face hard in the red light bouncing off the mirrors in the club.

"Okay. Then let's go make Tommy happy."

She came back and took hold of my tie. She led me toward the back rooms and the whole way there I thought that there was no doubt that she was going to be a better lawyer than she was a stripper. One day she was going to be a killer in court.