questions about the 911 calls and what Steele was doing when he wasn’t on the phone. Your typical bullshit.” Wilson shook his head. “Nut cases. This city’s full of them.”
Detective Wilson left me with the bill and a bad taste in my mouth. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking through Chinatown, thinking it over. How certain Wilson was that he had the right guy. How honest Steele seemed. One of them was wrong.
When I made it back to the office I had a voicemail from Morgan Stapleton. I recognized her voice immediately even though I’d only exchanged those few words with her. She said, “I hope I haven’t missed you, but a bunch of us are going out tonight and I was hoping you could join us. We’re meeting at some place called Bar Marmont around nine. Hope to see you there, bye.”
I felt a flush of excitement. What did she mean that she was hoping I could join them? I replayed the message, listening to the intonation of the words. Then I shook my head and thought of Liz. Don’t be an idiot, I told myself.
I leaned back in my Aeron chair and swiveled around to look out the window. I could see the buildings stretch out and away from downtown — the high rises of Koreatown and Miracle Mile, the thoroughfares of Wilshire, Pico, and Olympic clogged with midday traffic. Morgan’s message echoed in my head. It wasn’t worth thinking about. I couldn’t go even if I wanted to. I already had other plans. I erased Morgan’s message and headed for the west side, hoping to beat the traffic.
7
I found Mark Jendrek sitting at the end of the bar in a restaurant attached to the Century City mall.
“Hey, hey, there he is,” he said when he saw me. He stuck out his hand. “Mr. Bigtime, are the rich staying that way?”
“They are this week.” I smiled and slid onto a stool. “How goes the fight against the man?”
“Ah, you know the man. Bastard never takes a break. What can I get you?” Jendrek waved to the bartender and ordered.
Professor Mark Jendrek was in his early fifties. With his oval face and gray, shoulder-length hair that swooped back over his head with a slight curl, he looked like Benjamin Franklin without glasses. He was an adjunct on the UCLA law faculty and taught my first year legal writing course. I guess I impressed him because he asked me to be his teaching assistant during my second year. I was going to be his teaching assistant again next year and we’d planned to meet a few times over the summer to prepare the materials for the class.
Twenty-five years earlier, Jendrek had been a brilliant law student and, as the son of immigrant parents who ran a small restaurant in Glendale, he still identified with outsiders to the profession. He joined the ACLU right out of school and was now a solo practitioner who took civil rights cases and taught legal writing every semester. He’d found my choice of Kohlberg & Crowley surprising.
We talked idly about everything except the class. I could tell Jendrek was far more interested in life at K&C than the writing course. It was a hot June afternoon and the smog was blotting out the hills of West Hollywood, less than two miles away. Just beyond the patio behind us, the traffic sat motionless on Santa Monica Boulevard. Cars exhaled exhaust like cancerous steel lungs as they waited their turn to cross Wilshire into Beverly Hills. The palm trees stood absolutely still. And everywhere the air was stagnant and heavy, as though the very atmosphere was denying the existence of the ocean that lay only five miles to the west.
“So what’ve they got you working on over there?”
“It’s a pro bono thing.”
Jendrek chuckled and slapped the bar lightly. “Ha, giving out the work that doesn’t pay. I should’ve figured as much.” He took another drink and smiled. “Something good though, I hope.”
“It’s a habeas petition.” I smiled back and wondered how much I could really say. “Everyone thinks it’s a loser, but at least I get to write the first draft.”
“They’re always losers. But hell, getting to draft the petition, that’s not bad.”
“You’ve done ‘em, haven’t you? Habeas petitions?”
“Sure, we did lots of them when I was at the ACLU. But hell, that’s been a long time ago now. I guess I shouldn’t discourage you; they’re not always losers.” He raised his eyebrows and grinned.