“It’s called, ‘So You Wanna Be a Gangbanger,’ ” Tejada said, unperturbed.
He took a few minutes describing the show. Start with a dozen ghetto teens. They spray graffiti on expressway overpasses, then move on to shoplifting, purse snatching, car theft, maybe dealing some crank on street corners. Drive-by shootings with paintball guns, extra credit if you nail a cop. Real gang members decide who goes to the next level. In the season finale, there’d be an initiation ceremony, laced with sex and violence.
“Not a bad idea,” Ziegler said, when the spiel was over.
Thinking, great fucking idea. The next generation of reality shows. Edgy, urban, street-wise, it punched all the buttons. Ziegler imagined a franchise of inner-city spinoffs, starting with
“Not bad?” Tejada said. “That’s it?”
Ziegler felt in command. He loved being pitched because it gave him a chance to bust men’s balls and break women’s hearts. “It’s okay. Like it, don’t love it. Either way, it’s really generic, not specific at all.”
“You shitting me,
“Problem is, I don’t see where you fit in.”
“I’d be the whadayacallit, the executive producer,” Tejada said.
Ziegler wondered if the bastard read
“The top dude, yeah.”
“You need experience. Credits in the biz.”
“I got credits on the street.”
“Thing is, I could hire any ex-con as a consultant for five hundred bucks a week and all the Colt 45 he can drink.”
Tejada straightened in his chair, deltoids flexing. “You’re a bigger asshole than Mr. P thought.”
Ziegler placed his thumb on a red button below his desk. “I got a guy in the next office named Ray Decker. He’s an ex-cop and he’s licensed to carry a concealed firearm. If you try any shit, he’ll come in here and put a bullet in your thick fucking skull.”
Feeling unbeatable.
“Mr. P taught me that violence is only a last resort,” Tejada said, placidly. “Instead of hitting a man, just find his weakest spot and press gently. If he doesn’t respond, press a little harder.”
Ziegler knew he was leaping at the bait, but he didn’t care. Perlow was dead and he was in charge. “So, Nestor, what’s my weakest spot?”
“I saw you kill Mr. P.”
The words spoken softly, almost apologetically.
Ziegler tried not to blink, failed. Felt something thud inside his skull, hoped he wasn’t having a stroke. “The fuck you talking about?”
“I was sitting in Mr. P’s Bentley, windows down, when I heard the gunshot. I ran around the back of the house and saw you through the glass stomping on the old man’s chest.”
Ziegler remembered the moment, the blood pumping, Max wheezing. Now he felt as if his own aorta might burst. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I thought about it. Almost did it. That old Jew was good to me.”
“Screw that! You wanted the slots business! You wanted him to die!”
“Yeah, maybe. But I’m not the one who killed him. You are.”
Ziegler swallowed hard. “About the show …”
“Yeah?”
“A man of your experience, I could see as co-exec producer. It’s one notch from the top. Let someone else do the heavy lifting.”
Tejada nodded. “As long as it pays, I don’t give a shit about the title.”
“Smart,” Ziegler agreed.
“How does fifty grand an episode sound?”
Like highway robbery, Ziegler thought.
“Like a good deal, all around,” he said.
48 The Maniacal Obsession
“My name is Jake Lassiter. Before we go on the record in
Nestor Tejada kept his cool and turned to Castiel. “Can he talk that way to me?”
“Technically, no. But you’ll get used to it.”
“Do you want me to take this down?” the court stenographer asked, fingers curled over her keyboard.
“Not yet,” I told her.
We were in a Justice Building conference room, and I was supposed to be taking Tejada’s pre-trial deposition, not threatening him.
“Wasn’t my idea, Lassiter,” Tejada said. “Mr. P wanted me to scare the kid to get at you.”
“Why don’t you try to scare me, tough guy?”
“Jake, you made your point,” Castiel said.
“It’s okay,” Tejada said. “I apologize to the man. We shouldn’t mess with family.” He turned to me. “We cool?”
“We’re cool, dickwad. Now state your name for the record.”
His testimony was less interesting than the preliminaries. He’d been sitting in front of Ziegler’s house in Perlow’s car. Heard a gunshot, ran to the back of the house, didn’t see the shooter.
Discovery was moving along smoothly. I had waived preliminary hearing and accepted the state’s discovery without whining about documents being withheld. I made no combative motions and quickly prepared for trial.
Most defense lawyers love delay. With enough time, the state’s case can fall apart. Witnesses die or forget or change their minds. Evidence is lost or mishandled. The prosecutor gets a better job and dumps the case onto the desk of some overworked kid.
I am not like most defense lawyers. I like to move for a speedy trial. My theory is that the state has harder work to do. It must gather evidence, prepare its witnesses, do the lab tests, and prepare a logical case where A leads to B and B leads to C, and “C” stands for “conviction.” The state needs boxes and files and color-coded notebooks. The state has the burden of proof, and I have the burden of staying awake. I can defend a case with a blank yellow pad and my slashing cross-examination.
In the legal world, the prosecutor is a carpenter, pounding his nails with a steady hand, building a house out of sturdy beams, while the defense lawyer is a vandal with a can of gasoline and a Zippo lighter. Sometimes you don’t even need the pyromania. Just huff and puff and the state’s shaky house will crumble.
Castiel’s case, however, was built of sturdy stuff, starting with a truckload of physical evidence. Fingerprints on the window, a solid match with Amy. A speck of fabric in the bushes, positive link to Amy’s unitard. We had answers for both pieces of evidence, though extremely risky ones. Amy would have to take the stand and admit she trespassed on Ziegler’s property several days before the shooting. She’d crept up to the solarium window through those thorny bushes, and that’s when the fabric and prints were left behind.
We’d be conceding that Amy had a maniacal obsession with Ziegler. She blamed him for her sister’s disappearance. She stalked him from next door, sneaked onto his property, and peeped at him through the windows. How much more difficult is it to believe that she came back another time, gun in hand?
Our case had other problems, too. Even if I cast doubt on the forensic evidence, I had no answer for the ballistics. The bullet pulled from Perlow was fired from the same weapon that Amy used to mortally wound my tires. Her uncorroborated story that the gun had been stolen two nights before the shooting was so lame, it ought to be taken out, blindfolded, and shot.
Then the biggest problem of all. Charlie Ziegler. On deposition, he had testified that he saw the shooter through the window. Amy Larkin. He would repeat the story at trial. If I couldn’t prove he was either lying or
