Free Lion Plays Rough by Lachlan Smith

before. Like I said, in here, out there, don’t matter. I’m through.” He looked up with a sudden idea. “How can Nikki make people believe you been my lawyer, when you’ve just been telling me you never was?”
    â€œThe thing is, I could be. These people who hired me in the first place, whoever they were, they paid me a lot of money. I guess they wanted to get your boss and Campbell pretty bad. The way I see it, that money rightfully ought to go toward paying for your defense. You can hire me, but you don’t have to. You want to go with another lawyer, that’s fine. Whoever he is, I’ll pay him.”
    I hadn’t planned to make such an offer, but that money was dirty. Jamil deserved to choose his own lawyer—even if it was inevitable that he’d take me. The last thing I wanted was to make another link in the chain of pressures that had been applied to him.
    â€œGuess I’ll go with you,” he said after a pause. “Not that it matters. I’m finished. And so are you.”
    I hoped, for both our sakes, that he was wrong. Taking a retainer form from my briefcase, I filled in the blanks, acknowledging receipt of the ten thousand dollars. We each signed it. Now it was official: now I was working for him. Which meant Jeanie and I were done.
    â€œAll right, man, now that we’ve got that cleared away, let me tell you what happened,” he said.
    I rose. The pictures were evidence that the relationship between Campbell and Damon was more complex than it ought to be, but I wasn’t ready to hear the story of the planted gun from Jamil’s mouth. “I’ll need to know what happened, but not yet. When the time comes, I’ll ask. For now, just try to remember as much as you can.”
    â€œShit, man,” he said. “Nikki didn’t want to hear it either.”
    â€œDon’t worry. When I’ve finished my investigation, we’ll talk.” I rapped on the door. “There’s no chance of getting you out on bail, unfortunately, since you were on parole when you were arrested. So you’ll just have to sit tight.”
    â€œYeah, man,” Jamil said.
    The rest of that day his despairing tone kept ringing in my ears.
    ~ ~ ~
    Back in my office, I wrote out my letter of resignation, signed it, and left it on Jeanie’s desk. I called the district attorney’s office and asked for Fowler. He wasn’t there. I called again and asked for Cassidy. When she came on the line I explained that Nikki no longer represented Jamil Robinson. I was taking over.
    â€œOkay,” she said skeptically.
    â€œHow about me?” I asked.
    â€œOfficially, I can’t say.”
    â€œAnd unofficially?”
    â€œThe only advice I can give you is to consult an attorney.”
    I laughed. I almost wanted them to go ahead and charge me. Almost.
    Later that afternoon I heard that the Oakland PD had temporarily assigned Detective Campbell to patrol duty while the department investigated his ties to Damon.
    That evening Jamil’s body was found hanging from a bed sheet in his cell.

Chapter 12
    Reading the story in the Tribune in the morning, I felt a helpless rage. I had Jeanie tear up my resignation letter, but neither of us really believed it was over, that I was finished with it. There were too many loose ends. For now, though, I sought to lose myself in the Scarsdale case.
    I spent Wednesday working on a motion to exclude the video­taped interviews of the child victim at the trial. Defending an innocent man is like walking a tightrope; you fear the tiniest slip. When you know the client is guilty, on the other hand, you’re an acrobat a foot above the ground.
    It was an interesting, complex motion, and putting it together absorbed me entirely, in the way that only legal writing does. Wednesday night I was at the office until 1:00 am . Thursday morning’s breakfast was cold pizza from the night before.
    I