The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly [43]
It wasn’t there.
To say I was angry was an understatement. I shoved the file back into its slot and slammed the lid. I pulled my phone and called Lisa as I headed back to the ramp. The call went to message.
“Lisa, this is your attorney. I thought we agreed that when I called you, you would answer. No matter what time, no matter what you were doing. But here I am calling and you’re not answering. Call… me… back. I want to talk to you about your little friend Herb and the deal he just made. I am sure you are aware of it. But what you may not be aware of is that I am going to be suing his ass for this stunt. I’m going to put him under the earth, Lisa. So call me back! Now!”
I closed the phone and squeezed it as I headed down the ramp. I barely noticed the two men walking up the ramp until one of them called to me.
“Hey, you’re that guy, right?”
I stopped, confused by the question, my mind still firmly wrapped around Herb Dahl and Lisa Trammel.
“Excuse me?”
“The lawyer. You’re the famous lawyer from TV.”
They both moved toward me. They were young guys in bomber jackets, hands in their pockets. I didn’t want to stop to make small talk.
“Uh, no, I think you’ve got the wrong—”
“No, man, that’s you. I seen you on the TV, right?”
I gave up.
“Yeah, I have a case. It gets me on TV.”
“Right, right, right… and what’s your name again?”
“Mickey Haller.”
As soon as I said my name I saw the silent one take his hands out of his jacket pockets and square his shoulders toward me. He was wearing black fingerless gloves. It wasn’t cool enough for gloves and in that moment I realized that, since there were no other cars up on the second level, these guys hadn’t been going up there. They had been looking for me.
“What’s this all—”
The silent man swung a left fist into my midsection. I doubled over just in time to feel his right fist crush three of my left ribs. I remembered dropping my phone at that point but little else. I know I tried to run but the talker blocked my way and then turned me around, pinning my elbows at my sides.
He was wearing black gloves, too.
Twelve
They left my face alone, but that was about the only thing that didn’t feel bruised or broken when I woke up in ICU at Holy Cross. The final tally included thirty-eight stitches in my scalp, nine fractured ribs, four broken fingers, two bruised kidneys and one testicle that had been twisted 180 degrees before the surgeons straightened it. My torso was the color of a grape Popsicle and my urine the dark hue of Coca-Cola.
The last time I had stayed in a hospital I got hooked on oxycodone, an addiction that nearly cost me my child and career. This time I told them I’d gut it out without the chemical help. And this of course was a painful mistake. Two hours after taking my stand I was pleading with the nurses, the orderlies and anyone who would listen to give me the drip. It finally took care of the pain but left me floating too close to the ceiling. It took them a couple days to find the right equilibrium of pain relief and consciousness. That was when I started accepting visitors.
Two of the first were a pair of detectives from the Van Nuys Division CAPs Unit. Their names were Stilwell and Eyman. They asked me basic questions so that they could complete their paperwork. They had about as much interest in determining who had attacked me as they did in the idea of working through lunch. I was, after all, the defense counsel to an alleged murderer their colleagues down the hall had popped. In other words, they weren’t going to get their own balls in a twist over this one.
When Stilwell closed his notebook I knew the interview—and