you’re good. I want you.”
“Then you have two choices. You can help me find this alibi witness you have, or you can start planning what you’re going to do with twenty-five to life.”
He thought about it. His forehead pinched. He looked at the table. Took a deep breath. Then he said, “Okay, Turk Bacon. That’s the guy.”
“He’s the one between you and Miss Long Beach?”
“Yeah,” Eric said.
“Now you’re being straight with me. That’s a good start. How do I find this Turk Bacon? I don’t imagine he’s listed in the white pages.”
“The bartender at a place called Addie Qs. Her name’s Tosca.”
“All right. Next time I see you is at the arraignment.” I started to get up. “By the way, has your wife been to see you?”
“No.”
“She has to be told,” I said. “You want me to be the bearer of the news?”
“Maybe you better,” he said. “She might reach through this glass and kill me if I told her. Oh man, I messed up big time.”
I didn’t argue with him.
48
WHEN I GOT back to reception, Sister Mary was sitting next to a Hispanic woman. It looked like she was comforting her.
She was, in other words, doing her thing, just as I’d been doing mine. I chatted with a deputy sheriff until she was finished.
As we drove toward the freeway I said, “So you want to talk about Sister Hildegarde now?”
“What? Why?”
“She’s trying to muscle you out.”
Sister Mary looked straight ahead. “You don’t know the first thing about what we do.”
She was right, and I reminded myself again not to get involved in the workings of a religious community whose religion I did not share. Then I ignored the reminder.
“I know this,” I said. “You and Sister Hildegarde are like Oscar and Felix.”
“You’re calling us the Odd Couple?”
“Only it’s not neatness you argue about, it’s nun stuff.”
“Nun stuff?”
“Theological term,” I said. “But you’ve talked about it before. You want to go back to when nuns were nuns. When they brushed their teeth with Brillo. Sister Hildegarde is more, what’s the word, progressive? She likes politics. You like to pray. You two are bound to clash.”
“That’s always part of community life,” she said. “It’s why God puts us together. To learn how to humble ourselves.”
“There’s a difference between humility and doormats,” I said.
“And between lawyers and nuns,” she said. “Speaking of which, what did your client say?”
I pulled onto the 101, heading toward Hollywood. “It’s what he didn’t say that bothers me.”
“Is he guilty?”
“Not for me to say.”
“Can’t you tell if he’s guilty or not?”
“Not my job,” I said.
“Don’t you even want to know?”
“No.”
“Why in heaven’s name not?”
“Leave heaven out of it,” I said. “I got enough trouble on earth. And the answer is, I don’t want to know. I want to know the evidence. Unless I think a plea deal and allocution is best, I want to be free to do my job. Can you work under those conditions?”
“Yes, Mr. Buchanan, I believe I can.”
“Good. Let’s get a drink.”
“Excuse me?”
49
WE KILLED A little time in Hollywood first. Went to a bookstore. Browsed.
Sister Mary picked up a copy of Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by Merton.
I found a book called Never Plead Guilty, about a lawyer named Jake Ehrlich. According to the back of the book, Ehrlich was a legendary criminal lawyer back in the mid-twentieth century.
A quick scan told me this was a guy who loved to fight it out in court. And he was apparently pretty good—if gaining acquittals for almost all his clients accused of murder is pretty good.
“Here,” I said, when I met up with her at the front of the store. “My book versus your book. Your guy pleads guilty, my guy says never.”
“Never confess?” she said. “Did you notice I’m Catholic?”
“So that’s it. I knew there was something about you. The clothes. The beads. You’re a nun, aren’t you?”
“And you’re a failed comedian, am I right?”
“Looks like I need that drink. Let’s go.”
50
AROUND FOUR-THIRTY WE drove to Addie Qs. It was at the eastern mouth of the Sunset Strip, just past Crescent Heights. Upscale, catering to professionals.
A number of whom were at the bar for what the sign said was happy hour.
We sat at the end of the bar. The conversation got very quiet as we did. Heads craned our way.
One middle-aged joker said, way too loudly, “Hey, a nun and a parrot walk into a bar…”
A healthy knot of the people cracked up.
“What about the Irishman?” Sister Mary said.
The guy slapped the bar top.