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Friday, January 3

T
HE LAWYER, WHO WAS IN HIS EARLY
50
S
,
leaned so far back in his swivel chair that I thought that maybe he wanted me to give him a shampoo or a facial.

“OK,” he sighed, closing his heavy-lidded eyes. “What's your story?”

“Mr. Nuppi, I'm innocent.”

“So who the fuck cares?”

“I'm not guilty, that's what.”

“All my clients are guilty. You'd be the first guy in five years that wasn't.”

“Well, I'm not.”

“OK. Fine. So what's your story already?”

I told him the same story about Lyman and the will. And about Lyman and Headlights getting Frizzhead to lie about me raping her so I'd be in jail and Lyman would get the money. Exactly what I told Dirty Harriet.

When I finished he opened his tired, dark-ringed eyes and sat up again, with a big smile on his face. “You'll get a lot of laughs with that story when you tell it on the yard at San Quentin.”

“It's true.”

“Who the fuck cares? Nobody will buy it.”

“You got a better story for me?”

“Let's work on it.” He paused for a few seconds. “Other than what you told me, is there any other reason she'd frame you?”

“No.”

“More than anything else yesterday, what did that cop try to get you to admit?”

I thought about it for a few seconds. “Probably that the girl consented to getting fucked.”

“What'd you tell her?”

“That I never fucked her. With or without her consent. And that's the truth.”

“Who cares about the truth? You know why she wanted you to admit that?”

“Not exactly.”

“Because the victim is only seventeen.”

“So?”

“So that means that she can't consent because she's not old enough. Like fucking a twelve year-old even if she jams your dick in her. Called statutory rape. You could get ten years for it.”

“How do you know she's only seventeen?”

“Because you're the fourth guy from the fraternity to call me about this case this morning.” He reached for a yellow legal pad on his desk that was next to a newspaper that was folded to the Obituary section where some death notices were circled with a yellow highlighter. “You know a guy named Castle?”

“Yeah, he's a pledge with me.”

He read from the pad again. “And Delacroix?”

“Yeah, he's a pledge too. We call him Froggy.”

“And Breckshire?”

“Yeah, him too. We call him Holmes.”

“Well, I told all three of them like I told you, I only take cash since I'm not exactly partners with the IRS. I took your case since you're the first guy here with the money. Anyway, I checked with Detective Montelino after Castle's phone call so I'd know something about the case if somebody hired me. She told
me the victim's age.”

Considering I found this guy from his ad in the weekly school newspaper, I was lucky, since his ethics were like my father's: shaped like a corkscrew.

Nuppi leaned so far back again in his chair that if the spring broke, he'd be propelled like a rocket, straight through the window behind him and out onto a branch of the huge tree behind the glass.

“Anything about your interview with the cop that made you suspicious of her?”

“Um, yeah. Come to think of it, she didn't take notes. How could she remember who said what?”

“She have her briefcase on a table between you?”

“Yeah.”

“She's got a hidden tape recorder in it with the microphone near the handles.” He scratched the back of his styled, razor-cut, salt-and-pepper hair. “Any of the other guys make any statements to her as far as you know?”

“Watson told the cop that he fucked her, sometimes twice a day, when she came over to their apartment.”

“They'll probably nail him for it. How stupid.”

“You mean to fuck her?”

“No. To admit it.”

“He told us his roommate fucked her all the time too.”

“The roommate tell the cops that?”

“No. He denied everything.”

“Smart. But the guy who confessed, he's an idiot. Pretty soon he'll be changing positions on the prison football team; going into the joint as a tight end and leaving as a wide receiver.”

Both of us laughed at his joke that was probably true.

“Did the detective tell you anything else about the case?”

By this time Nuppi's feet were nearly parallel to the floor. Then he started speaking again it was as if he was reading his words off the ceiling.

“The only thing the detective would tell me about this case, besides the girl's age, is that she passed out from drinking at a Christmas party and woke up in the pledge bedroom at the
fraternity house with a blanket over her head while somebody was raping her. And that somehow, the girl knew it was a pledge. That's it.” He paused and lowered the chair so he was facing me again with his eyes open. “She reported it the next day. Cops got a search warrant and took some sheets that are at the lab now.” He looked at me sharply. “You know anything about it?”

“No. But why didn't she call the cops that night?”

“Said she was too embarrassed. Said she went home, took a bath and shower, and went to sleep. Told her roommate and the roommate's boyfriend the next morning about it and together they called the cops.”

“Why do they think I'm a suspect?”

“I don't know. But I got an idea. I got a client who's a cop who got arrested for his second DUI. Works at the same station as the detective. Maybe I'll call him and ask him to snoop around for me.”

I nodded. “Fine. But now what?”

“Ever have anything to do with the victim sexually?”

“She came on to me once.”

“You reject her?”

“Hell yeah.”

“What happened?”

I started telling him about meeting Frizzhead and Headlights at Lyman's apartment when we were working on the midterm Sociology project when he interrupted me.

“Get to the sex part already.”

“OK. She was sitting next to me at the table wearing fuck-me heels, a black leather miniskirt, fishnet stockings, no bra and a loose-fitting tank top showing off her tits.”

“Sounds good so far but wait a minute.” He got up and walked over to the small bar refrigerator next to the tan filing cabinet. “Want a beer?”

“Yeah.”

I laughed, thinking he was another guy who drank before noon too. Hell, the red digital clock on top of the filing cabinet said 10:49.

He handed me a can of Michelob Light and walked back to the chair behind the desk and sat down. I popped the top and sipped it. He took a long swig of the beer, draining about half the can before he set it down on the desk, carefully missing the highlighted Obituary pages.

“OK. Now let's hear the sex part.”

“She was sitting next to me and kept rubbing my ankles with her fucking shoes.”

Nuppi's smile was getting broader by the second. It was obvious that he was starting to enjoy the story. “So what's wrong with that?”

“I couldn't stand her.”

“Why?”

“Her goddamn hair stuck out so far in every direction that she'd get drenched in the rain standing under a large beach umbrella. And as if that fucking New York accent wasn't bad enough, she added a whine to it.”

“Anything else?”

I wasn't sure if he was being sarcastic or not but I continued. “Yeah. She was always complaining about having to work two waitress jobs to pay for college. Who wants to listen to that shit?”

“So what finally happened?”

“Right from the beginning of the study group she kept annoying me so I got up and left. I went outside and just as I was about to get into my truck I noticed something tied to the side mirror.”

Nuppi was almost completely motionless. “What was it?” he blurted out.

“Silver bikini panties.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah. And written across the crotch was a phone number.”

“You call it?” he asked anxiously.

“Immediately. Right from the car. Frizzhead's shrill voice answered on a machine.”

“What'd you say?”

“Nothing. I just hung up.”

“What'd you do then?”

“Used a felt tip pen and wrote across the panties the words FREE UGLY PUSSY and photographed it with the throw-away camera my father told me always to keep in my car in case I get in an accident. Then I waited until nighttime and drove over to her house. I hung the panties on the aerial of her beat-up, green Chevy and left.

“Love it,” he smirked before we both started laughing.

“And you know what was the funniest thing of all?”

“What?” He was really into the story now.

“The whole next day she drove around with the panties on her car before somebody told her about it and she yanked them off.”

“Fabulous!” Nuppi said laughing before downing the rest of beer. “That's a better reason for her to finger you than the one you gave me.”

“That's not all,” I said quickly. “There's more. The next day, after she found the panties, I spotted a BEWARE OF DOG sign on the front door of an apartment by the elevator in my building. I pried it off the door and drove over to Norm's Restaurant in Santa Monica where Frizzhead worked. I spotted her dented, wreck of a car in the parking lot and used epoxy to glue the BEWARE OF DOG sign to the bottom of her rear license plate frame and photographed it too.”

Me and Nuppi both burst out laughing again.

“Great! How long until she spotted it?”

“Unfortunately just three or four days.”

“Hang on to the pictures. We might need them.”

“Why?”

“Motive. To show why she's framing you because she hates you. For reasons that have nothing to do with any rape.”

I nodded. “Fine with me. I don't care how you do it, just win.”

“Those other guys who called me, they friends of yours?”

“Not exactly. Just pledge brothers. Sig O's.”

He flinched a little. “I was an SAE at Michigan State. The Sig O's, they still have that Rule of Eleven bullshit?”

“Yeah.”

“Too bad. A good friend of mine got blackballed out of there. He was the last pledge to get cut, night before the Initiation
Ceremony. Said they told him The Rule of Eleven is inflexible. He still hasn't got over it, nearly thirty years later. Anyway, back to you.”

“What about the line-up?” I asked.

“You and me will go anyway even though it's a mockery since she knows you. But if you don't go, it'll look suspicious.”

“What if she picks me out which she will?”

His body stiffened and he stared harshly at me. “Look kid, I don't give a shit if you fucked her or not. If you're innocent, your best defense is for me to demand blood and hair and saliva tests to prove it.”

“What if I'm guilty? What's my best defense then?”

“Get the fuck out of town.”

Thursday, January 9
1:30
P.M
.

T
HE PACIFIC DIVISION STATION WAS A DIRTY-LOOKING
,
two-story, generic building that was obviously built by the lowest bidder, complete with landscape watered as frequently as summer rain fell in the Sahara Desert.

Like he promised, Nuppi was there waiting for me in the hallway reading the folded Obituary section of the
Times
and circling some death notices with a yellow marker. Froggy was there with some pudgy frump who had to be a woman's lib lawyer and Castle was there with a blond, freckle-faced guy who looked younger than him. Watson and Holmes, both out of breath and without lawyers, were accompanied by Lyman, and hurried down the hallway, joining us. No other suspects except us pledges were there.

I don't know why Lyman showed up; especially since he looked as nervous as Watson, who was sweating like he was in a sauna. Holmes was continually running his fingers through the front of his thick hair as if his fingertips were a comb. Lyman, that bastard, wouldn't return my glare.

Nuppi grabbed my arm and led me down the crowded hallway away from the other guys.

“Last warning,” he said. “If there's any chance of blood or hair or sperm connecting you to this girl, you're going up the fucking river.”

“No chance. I told you she's too fucking ugly.”

“OK then, let's go.”

Still with her sour look from last week, Dirty Harriet opened an inside door and came into the hallway, facing us. “Let's begin,” she called out.

I checked Lyman again, who kept rubbing the back of his right hand over his lips as he sat on the wooden hallway bench.

“Fraternity people follow me,” the cop said, “and attorneys and the others wait here.”

Me and the other guys followed the detective past Lyman down the hall and into a brightly-lit corridor. Then she walked out.

“Each of you, when I call out your name, say, ‘Scream or I'll kill you,'” Dirty Harriet's voice ordered from a ceiling speaker. Her voice sounded just a little nicer than a prison guard addressing convicted murderers.

I was getting angrier and angrier at this chickenshit farce. We followed her directions one-at-a-time. When it was my turn to speak, I scratched my balls a few times like baseball players do on TV when they don't think they're being shown, before resting my right hand directly on my crotch. Then, suddenly, my right knee started twitching, making my right heel flop up and down beyond my control.

Holmes was on one end of the line and Castle was on the other. I was next to Holmes. Then came Watson and Froggy. Castle kept pinching his lips together and opening and closing them, slurping like a feeding fish. Froggy started farting; soft rumbles at first, before he ripped one that was a fifteen second buzz saw gem. Holmes was motionless like a manikin, frozen in time and space. And Watson, with beads of sweat still dripping down his face, started licking his lips while breathing in deep, hissing gasps. On body language alone, he seemed guilty as
hell. We were obviously facing a two-way mirror but all I could see in it was our reflection.