on over let’s talk about it.” Meyer talked without any pause between words. He motioned Steve to follow him down the corridor and looked over his shoulder as he walked. “So you came down to do what?”
“Talk to the victim.”
“Did you think I would let you do that?”
“Why not? I’m interested in the facts.”
“So am I. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you talk to the vic.”
“Are you charging my client?”
The little dynamo turned. “Oh you can bet your ever-loving we’re charging him and I’ll be there first thing Monday morning my friend.”
“Slow down a second.”
“What’s that?”
“Have you done any investigating?”
“Yeah I investigated the vic’s face is what I investigated and I’ll tell you something right now there’s no way this isn’t a felony assault under Penal Code 245 my friend.”
“So there’s no way I convince you not to file right away?” Steve said.
“No way my friend.”
“Can I ask you something Mr. Meyer?”
“Shoot.”
“Do you call everybody my friend?”
“It’s a way I have of talking sort of breaks the ice and makes it all informal if you prefer to do business that way and that’s the way I prefer to do business.”
“Here is how I prefer to do business: I like. To know. The facts. First.”
With each enunciation, Mal Meyer blinked as if to count the wasted seconds.
“Got the facts all the facts I need,” Meyer said.
“You don’t have a witness. I do.”
Meyer smiled. At least it looked that way under the mustache. “You’re talking about another one of those crazies up in the mountains aren’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“What do you know about ’em?”
“What am I supposed to know?”
“We been dealing with that ilk for as long as I can remember, and I grew up here just over the county line. I know all about ’em and if you’re going to get involved you better get involved with your eyes open.”
“Thanks, Meyer, but I think I can make my own decisions regarding my professional life.” Oh no he couldn’t, but he was not going to let some wet-behind-the-legal-briefs deputy DA know that. “But facts are stubborn things, as one president used to say, and the fact is you don’t have a witness and I do.”
“Who said I don’t have a witness?” Meyer pushed his glasses up with his middle finger, a gesture that looked both smug and insulting.
“Who?” Steve asked.
“Not so fast not so fast. We’ll do discovery at the right time.”
Steve said, “I thought you wanted to do business informally, my friend. What happened to that?”
“You think I’m going to show you my hole cards when I don’t have to? Don’t you watch the Poker Channel?”
Meyer knew his cards all right. The discovery statute in California only required the prosecutor to disclose witnesses thirty days before trial. And no case had yet come down requiring the ID of wits before a preliminary hearing.
“Then I guess,” Steve said, “we’re not really friends after all.”
“See you tomorrow,” Meyer said and blew by Steve back toward the elevators.
54
He called Sienna from his car. “Me again,” he said. “You still studying?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Good. You ready to go to work?”
“Mr. Conroy—”
“I’ll put a check in the mail. I’ve got an arraignment coming up. One of the LaSalle people. Only there’s a little problem.”
“And what’s that?”
“He may be guilty as sin.”
“This is a shock to you?”
“Of course not. But in this case the chief witness is a lying son—he’s not telling the truth, let’s put it that way.”
“Who is it?”
“A big hulk of a guy. An enforcer type.”
“How do you know he’s lying?”
“Saran Wrap couldn’t be more transparent. Now, Ms. Law Student, Ms. Ethics Advisory Board, what do you do when you have a lying witness, and he’s your only one?”
She paused only a moment. “You cannot suborn perjury.”
“Right. But what if I don’t know it’s perjury? What if I just suspect it because the guy’s face is a ten-foot Liar! sign in blinking lights?”
“Then it’s a real problem.”
“You’re so helpful.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Wait for you to come out here and join me, and the two of us—”
“I don’t think so. No, really, what?”
Steve thought a minute. “Will you do a memo for me?”
“On what?”
“On what my obligations are to talk to law enforcement. What do I need to know, and what do I have to reveal? Find that out for me, will you?”
“All right.”
“And . . . just thanks for being there. It means a lot.”
As he drove back to his office, he wondered why he hadn’t chosen to be a