32
Forsythe kept Fulgoni on the stand for a full ninety minutes of hardball cross-examination. If I had made the young lawyer look foolish at times, then the prosecutor made him look downright incompetent. Forsythe clearly had a mission to accomplish with his cross and that was the total destruction of Fulgoni’s credibility. I had used young Sly to get several salient points on the record. Forsythe’s only hope of undermining those points with the jury was to undermine their source. He had to leave it so the jurors would dismiss Fulgoni’s testimony in its entirety.
He came close to mission accomplished by the end of the ninety minutes. Fulgoni looked wrung out. His clothes seemed somehow wilted, his posture was slumped, and he was answering questions monosyllabically, agreeing to almost anything the prosecutor suggested in the form of a question. It was the Stockholm syndrome—he was trying to please his captor.
I tried to intervene and help where I could with objections. But Forsythe deftly kept his questioning inside the lines, and one after the other the objections went down overruled.
Finally, at four fifteen, it was over. Fulgoni was excused and he left the witness stand like a man who never wanted to set foot in a courtroom again, despite being a lawyer. I stepped back to the rail and whispered to Cisco in the first row, telling him to make sure young Sly didn’t leave. I still needed to talk to him.
The judge sent the jury home and adjourned court for the day. She invited Forsythe and me back to her chambers to work on the order to appear that would hopefully bring James Marco to court. I told Lorna that drawing up the order would not take too long and she should go down and get her car out of the underground parking garage where she left it every morning.
I caught up to Forsythe in the hallway behind the courtroom that led to the judge’s chambers.
“Nice job on Fulgoni,” I said. “At least now he has some courtroom experience.”
Forsythe turned and waited for me.
“Me? You were the one who started it—and he was your witness.”
“A sacrifice to the gods. It had to be done.”
“I don’t know what you’re hoping to get out of this Moya angle but it’s not going to fly, Mick.”
“We’ll see.”
“And what’s with all the names on the new list? I’ve got kids I’d like to spend time with tonight.”
“Give it to Lankford. He has the time. I think he ate his kids.”
Forsythe was laughing as we entered the chambers. The judge was already at her desk, turned to the computer terminal on the side.
“Gentlemen, let’s get this done so we can beat some traffic.”
Fifteen minutes later I left through the courtroom. The judge had issued the order to appear. The sheriff’s department would be charged with delivering it to the DEA’s office the next morning. It ordered the DEA to show cause as to why Agent James Marco should not appear in court by ten a.m. Wednesday. That meant either Marco or a lawyer for the DEA would need to show up. If that didn’t work, then Judge Leggoe would issue a bench warrant for Marco’s arrest and things would really get interesting.
I found Cisco and young Sly sharing a bench in the hallway. One of Moya’s men was on his own bench across the hall. The other had trailed Lorna as she went down to get the car.
I walked over to Cisco and Fulgoni and told young Sly that I knew it had been a rough day but that I greatly appreciated the help he had given my client’s case. I told him I was still looking forward to working with him on the habeas case in federal court.
“I was right about you, Haller,” he said.
“Yeah, when was that?” I asked.
“When I said you were an asshole.”
He stood up to leave.
“I nailed it.”
Cisco and I watched him stride to the elevator bank. The good thing about working late into the day in the courthouse was that the elevator crowds thinned out and the wait wasn’t so bad. Fulgoni caught a ride quickly and was gone.
“Nice guy,” Cisco said.
“You should meet his father,” I said. “Even nicer.”
“I shouldn’t speak ill, though. A guy like that, I’ll probably end up working for him someday,” Cisco said.
“You’re probably right.”
I handed him my copy of the judge’s order. Cisco unfolded the document and looked it over.
“Somebody up there at Roybal will probably use this to wipe his ass with.”
“Probably, but it’s all part of the game. Just in case, we need to be ready for Marco on Wednesday.”
“Right.”
We stood up and started heading toward the elevators. Moya’s man followed.
“You going to the loft?” I asked Cisco.
Team Haller had been meeting regularly at the loft after court each afternoon. We recounted the occurrences of the day as well as talked and brainstormed about the next one. It was a way of sharing successes and failures. Today I thought we had been more successful than not. It would be a good meeting.
“I’ll be there,” Cisco said. “I just have one stop to make first.”
“Okay, then.”
Outside the courthouse, I walked over to Spring Street and saw Lorna’s Lexus parked at the curb in front of two Lincoln Town Cars that were also waiting for lawyers from the courthouse. I walked down the sidewalk and past the Lincolns and almost opened the back door of Lorna’s car but decided not to embarrass her. I got in the front.
“I guess this makes me the Lexus Lawyer now,” I said. “Maybe the movie guys will make a sequel.”
She didn’t smile.
“Are we going to the loft?” she asked.
“If you don’t mind. I want to make sure we’re all set for tomorrow.”
“Of course.”
She abruptly pulled away from the curb without checking the traffic lane and got blasted by a motorist she’d cut off. I waited a few moments, deciding whether I should wade in. I had been married to her once briefly. I knew her moods and that the quiet, clipped dialogue version could boil over if left simmering on the stove too long.
“So what’s up? You’re upset.”
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are. Tell me.”
“Why did you make Sylvester Jr. wait for you after court today?”
I squinted, trying to see the connection between making Junior wait and her being upset.
“I don’t know, I guess because I wanted to thank him for testifying. It was a rough day for him.”
“And whose fault was that?”
Now I realized why she was flatlining me. She felt sorry for young Sly.
“Look, Lorna, that kid is a complete incompetent. I had to expose that because if I didn’t, I was going to look just as incompetent when Forsythe mopped the floor with him. Besides, someday he’s going to thank me for that. It’s better he get his shit together now than somewhere down the line.”
“Whatever.”
“Yeah, whatever. You know something, Earl never gave me any shit about how I run my cases.”
“And look what happened to him.”
That hit me like an arrow in the back.
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Lorna, don’t lay that shit on me. Don’t you think I already carry enough guilt about it?”
I was actually surprised it had taken her two months to get to this.
“You knew you were being followed. They put a tracker on the car.”
“Yeah, a tracker. So they would know where I was going. Not so they could kill us. That was never on our radar. They put a tracker on the car, not an IED, for chrissake.”