--1--

An antique mahogany sign above the doors of Department 15 proclaimed "Master Criminal Calendar." Court was already in session. LeBaron was late. He checked his notes, then scanned the computer printout posted on the wall for a "Freeman." Sure enough, there it was: "Defendant: Rufus Abraham Freeman; Attorney: Collins; Violation: 459 PC, 487 PC (2 pr)." Penal Code section 459 was burglary, if LeBaron's memory served him right. He wasn't sure what a 487 was, though. Probably some kind of theft. The defendant had two prior convictions. The printout didn't say what it was on calendar for today.

LeBaron jerked open the heavy door and slipped inside. The air was heavy with stale cigarette smoke, humidity, and body odor. Too many people were packed inside. The underlying commotion was Felliniesque, reminding LeBaron of a back lot circus audience impatient for the freak show action to begin. On this side of the bar, in the worn, dirty theater seats, glum defendants with their families and friends, mostly black, whispered and fidgeted. Orange clad in-custodies, linked together by shining silver chains, waited forlornly in the jury box for the other shoe to come down. A brace of stony-faced bailiffs stood, back to back, watched them. In worn coats and mismatched slacks seedy defense lawyers milled about the long tables up front, whispering deals with a battery of slick young deputy district attorneys or else staring blankly, waiting their turn. Above it all Judge Waverly's voice could be heard through slender loudspeakers mounted halfway up the paneled wall, next to the "No Smoking" signs, conducting business as usual.

"Freeman?" LeBaron called out in a loud whisper, first to one side of the aisle, then the other. "Rufus Freeman?"

A slender young black man in a sharkskin suit jerked up his head and studied LeBaron. His impish face wore a mask of extreme displeasure. "Wha'd'a you want, Jack?"

"Are you Rufus Freeman?"

"Yeah, I'm Rufus Freeman. So what?"

LeBaron motioned for him to come to the aisle. "My name's Jed LeBaron. I'm from Mr. Collins' office. He couldn't make it. He sent me--"

"Wha'd'ya mean he couldn't make it!" Freeman demanded in much too loud a voice.

Judge Waverly's even drone broke off. He looked up through eye glasses thick as petri dishes, which magnified his pupils to the size of pale plums. He looked haggard and unhappy. "Ah, Mr. LeBaron. Glad you could finally join us. You're here on Mr. Collin's matter." He shuffled through a stack of files. "I was about to issue a bench warrant for Mr. Collins."

"No need for that, your honor." LeBaron couldn't tell if he was joking. It really didn't matter now. Things were under control. "It's the Freeman matter, if it please the court."

"Here we are. People verses Rufus Abraham Freeman."

"Ready for the defendant, your honor." LeBaron grasped his querulous client firmly by the arm and guided him through the jostling bodies to the front bar. "Mr. Freeman is present in court."

"Let the record show that Mr. Freeman is present with his attorney Mr. LeBaron." The judge leaned over to his clerk. "Do we still have Department Twenty-three available?" He muttered something LeBaron couldn't make out. His clerk laughed and handed him a sheet of paper. "Good." Judge Waverly smiled as he studied the list of available courts. The smile did not sit well on his thin lips. "Very good."

LeBaron didn't like the drift things were taking. "If there's going to be a hearing, your honor, Mr. Collins wanted to handle this matter personally."

"Counsel," the judge said icily, "this matter is on for trial today. Are you ready to proceed?"

"Er . . . I believe Mr. Collins intended to handle the trial himself, your honor. Can we put this over to tomorrow's calendar?"

The Judge Waverly glared at him with those terrible plum eyes. "Mr. Frank?"

Deputy District Attorney Ivan Frank was new on the felony prosecution circuit, but not so new that he would miss an opportunity to put LeBaron in a jam. He bellied up to the counsel table. "Yes, your honor. Witness've been subpoenaed. Jury panel's summoned." He pushed his glasses up on his nose with a fat thumb. "The people're ready to proceed."

"I'm not going to put this over 'til tomorrow or any other time," Judge Waverly barked. "This case is being assigned to trial right now. Now are you ready to proceed or what, Mr. LeBaron?"

His client was tugging on his sleeve, trying to tell him something, but LeBaron waved him down. "Ready to proceed, your honor."

"Good. I'm assigning this matter to Department Twenty-three."

A collective groan rumbled through the assembled defense bar. "It's your ass now, LeBaron," someone snickered from behind him. "That's Judge Kroner."

"Department twenty-three, your honor? That's Judge Kroner, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mr. LeBaron. Your case is assigned to Judge Kroner for trial. The bailiff will take the file over. Right now."

Judge Kroner was poison, and LeBaron knew it. He was pro-police, hated blacks, and was probably a heavy closet contributor to the American Nazi Party. Mr. Collins had instructed LeBaron to never, under any circumstances, allow a case to come before Judge Kroner. "Excuse me, your honor."

"Now what, Mr. LeBaron?"

"If I may be sworn, I'd like to make a declaration under C.C.P. section one-seventy- point-six." California Code of Civil Procedure section 170.6 gives a defendant the right to challenge any judge, without cause, upon a declaration by the client or his counsel that he feels he cannot receive a fair trial before that judge. It provides for one free judicial disqualification, no questions asked. LeBaron always hated to have to make the declaration, but in this case the alternative was clearly worse.

"Sorry, Counsel," Judge Waverly purred, that humorless, unnatural smile twisting his lips. "Mr. Collins already used up your client's peremptory challenge last month, on the fourteenth to be exact, disqualifying Judge Kemperson. Now you better not keep Judge Kroner waiting."

"You' honor!" Freeman suddenly shouted.

"Quiet!" the judge snarled. "If you've got something to say, talk to your attorney, Mr. LeBaron."

Out of the corner of his eye LeBaron saw two uniformed bailiffs begin to maneuver into place behind them. He tightened his grip, but his client squirmed like a two-year-old.

"This dude's not my attorney--"

"He is now!" Judge Waverly brought down his gavel with a conclusive bang.

"Be quiet!" LeBaron rasped, jerking his client around and dragging him down the aisle. "D'you want him to revoke your bail?"

As soon as they were out of the courtroom, Freeman was in his face. "Say, man, what is this shit! Where's my main man? I retained Cedrick P. Collins, Esquire, to handle my beef, not some honky dude no-soul college jive trainee white boy. And what's this Judge Kroner shit? I don' want no Judge Kroner. That dude's bad news. He's the hanging judge, am I right? Am I right? What'a'we goin' before that dude for, anyway? I wanna talk t' my main man."

A thick-necked bailiff with unpleasant eyes had followed them out into the hallway. He looked like he'd learned his trade as a night guard in some sadistic maximum security hellhole. Tensely he followed the exchange.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Freeman, but we really don't have very much choice at this time." LeBaron tried to steer his client further down the hall.

But Rufus Freeman balked. He was twenty-four years old, unmarried, a high school dropout, last employed by the Quickie Car Wash on East 14th Street, and on trial for two felony counts of burglary and grand theft, with two priors. State prison was a distinct possibility. He was not very happy. "Wha' you mean, honky, no choice? This America. I got my rights. I wanna talk t' my main man. Where's Esquire Collins?"

"Pipe down!" LeBaron glanced over his shoulder. "Let's get out of here so we can talk."

"I gots nothin' to talk to you about, honky." He folded his arms across his chest.

Exasperated, LeBaron looked at his watch. It was after four o'clock already, and nothing much was going to happen today. He drew a deep breath and tried a different approach. "Just settle down a second and think, will you? You hired Mr. Collins because he's a professional and knows what he's doing, am I right? Did it ever occur to you that Mr. Collins sent me here for a reason? Think about it."

Freeman stared at LeBaron dubiously, then his eyes began to soften. After a moment a conspiratorial grin spread over his lean face. "Say, what is Esquire Collins up to, my man? You got an uncle on the take, maybe?"

"No, nothing like that." He began leading his client away from the brutal bailiff and toward the bank of elevators. "It's just that Mr. Collins wants me to make the pretrial motions, and maybe even participate in jury selection. It's all very technical. It kind of softens up the whites and gets their sympathy, don't you see? Then when it's time for the trial to start, in comes Mr. Collins with a flourish and handles the rest of the trial himself."

Freeman was still dubious. "What about this Judge Kroner shit?"

"That?" LeBaron shrugged. "Mr. Collins himself couldn't have done anything about that. You just had the bad luck of getting assigned to two hanging judges in a row, and you only have one challenge. Mr. Collins already used it up last month, keeping you out of Judge Kemperson's court. It's pure bad luck. Believe me, there's nothing that can be done." LeBaron punched the ornate brass elevator button. "We're just going to have to make the best of it. And as soon as Judge Kroner's through with us today, I'll call the office. Mr. Collins will probably be here in the morning to handle the trial personally."

Freeman sulked.

"Oh, there is one other thing." LeBaron faced him squarely and held out his hand. "Mr. Collins told me you were going to have some money for me."

"Money?" Rufus Freeman looked stunned, like he just remembered something very important that he had fully intended to do long before now. "Yeah. Thass right! Say, I'm gonna have t' bring that five hundred in later, dude. It completely slipped m'mind, don' ya know?"

The elevator arrived, and LeBaron ushered Freeman in. "Basement" he said to the operator, then cornered his client. "Now we're going to go over to Judge Kroner's courtroom for preliminary motions, and we're going to act nice and polite and we're not going to swear or holler or piss him off in any way. Do you understand? In fact, you're going to be so nice and polite, the judge is going to think, hey, they surely must've caught the wrong man. Tonight I'll talk to Mr. Collins and we'll straighten this whole thing out. Tomorrow you'll bring in some money. Do you understand?"

Freeman opened his mouth, but all that came out was a whimper. For the first time LeBaron understood how frightened and helpless the young man really was.

It was already dusk as LeBaron hurried up Broadway toward the office. A sporadic, numbing chill drizzled down through the low overcast, permeating everything. He opened and closed his fists as he walked, trying to bring feeling back into his fingers.

Judge Kroner was a whining, officious old prick. An obvious Napoleon complex. Pretrial motions had been a farce. How could LeBaron make any motions when he knew absolutely nothing about Freeman's alleged offense? When it became clear that LeBaron knew nothing about the case, Kroner had baited him even more. It particularly irritated LeBaron that the little prick judge had kept them until well after five for no apparent reason except to flex his judicial muscle. And now LeBaron feared he would miss Mr. Collins, and then where would he be?

Tomorrow morning the jury panel would be called in at dawn. The analogy of the firing squad didn't escape his exhausted imagination. If Mr. Collins wanted him to handle jury selection, LeBaron was going to have to learn a hell of a lot more about the case. Surely there was a file somewhere at the office with an arrest report, rap sheet, complaint, perhaps even notes from an initial interview. Enough to put together some questions for voir dire, select the jury, and then turn the matter over to Mr. Collins. Or did Mr. Collins have something more ambitious in mind for him?

He pushed through the revolving glass doors of the Bay Area Bank and Trust Building. The night guard was on duty already and touched the brim of his hat as LeBaron passed. The elevator bank was empty, an elevator waiting for him. He punched fourteen.

There seemed to be two criteria a case must meet before Collins dumped it off on LeBaron to try. First, the client had to be seriously delinquent in his payments. Freeman had clearly passed that test. The second was that there had to be no chance whatsoever of avoiding a full conviction on every count. LeBaron couldn't determine if that one had been met until he had a look at the file. But his suspicions were aroused. Just like the damned Hampstead case all over again. If Mr. Collins was going to have him try a case, why couldn't he tell him so in advance, so he could prepare.

Ah, but that was just the point, wasn't it? Mr. Collins didn't want him wasting his time preparing a defense that hadn't been paid for. Not when there were so many other appearances to be made. Appearances for paying clients.

The elevator doors whispered open, and there stood Mr. Collins, stoop-shouldered in his ermine-trimmed cashmere top coat and matching stingy-brim hat, the laptop computer he had christened "Gideon" dangling from his left fist. LeBaron could see the longshoreman in him now, after a bruising day at the docks, too exhausted to bother standing straight, shrunken, almost withered in his borrowed ermine finery. Instantly his welling indignation vanished, and his heart went out to his aging mentor.

Collins' expression slumped even further when he saw LeBaron step out. "Evening, LeBaron," he mumbled, and tried to slip past into the elevator car.

LeBaron wouldn't stand aside to let him past. "Mr. Collins, I've got to talk to you now." Gently he took him by the arm and swung him around.

Collins sighed. He had almost gotten away. "C'mon. Let's go in the back way. There's some fellas from the IRS in the lobby, an' I'd jus' as soon not talk to 'em right now." He fished out the key to the back door of the suite. "How'd it go?"

"Not so good."

"Uh." Collins unlocked the door and pushed through.

"The Freeman matter was on for trial today."

"Uh. What's he charged with?"

"Burglary and some kind of theft. Two counts. Two priors."

"Uh. Sit down, LeBaron." Collins set Gideon on the sofa, peeled off his top coat, and hung it from the coat tree. Delicately he perched his stingy-brim on top. He eased himself down in his overstuffed leather desk chair and smiled. "Didja get some money from him?"

"No. He said he'd bring something in by the end of the week."

"Uh." Collins' smile flickered, lost its substance. "Did it get sent out?"

"Yes. Jury selection starts first thing in morning."

"Uh. What judge didja get?"

"Judge Kroner."

"Felix Kroner? You got Judge Felix 'Maximum' Kroner? How many times have I told you never, under any circumstances, ever allow anything t'go t'Judge Felix Kroner, 'specially if it involves a black man. That man is the worst excuse for a human being to ever sit on the bench of an Alameda County court." Collins was starting to get worked up. "Did you know he tried t'put me in jail for contempt o'court once. I hadda go up on a writ t'the Court of Appeal t'get'im reversed. He jus' laughed. Knew all the time he was wrong. Jus' wanted t'see my black ass sweat. Even the Public Defender's office's issued instructions to all deputies t'challenge him every time one o'their cases gets assigned to'im. What happened? Didja forget about your one-seventy-point-six challenge?"

"No. We didn't have one left."

"We didn't?"

"You used it up last month?"

"I did? Who'd I challenge?"

"Judge Kemperson."

"Uh." For a moment Collins seemed more tired than LeBaron had ever seen him. Over his vulnerable bald head a quotation from Abraham Lincoln silently reminded clients that "An attorney's stock in trade is his time." Beside him a bookcase full of the United States Code Annotated waited, dark red bindings lurid against the mahogany paneling of the office walls, an antique brass ship's clock on top ticking quietly.

Slowly the older man gathered himself, shifted his weight, and looked LeBaron in the eye. "Okay, LeBaron, nothin' you could o' done about it. Shake it off. This Freeman boy's havin' a mighty string o' bad luck an' he's into a world o' hurt. But it can't be he'ped. You done what y'could. Better it happens to Freeman than a good payin' client." Like magic that charismatic grin burst forth, a swath of ivory sunlight across a face of tar. "Now, you gonna pick me a good jury tomorrow? Like you did on that Rodriguez case a coupla months back? I still don't know how you did that, LeBaron, but they couldn't o' been in more of a rush t'turn my man loose. Yes siree. Jury was back in ten minutes with a 'Not guilty, Judge.' You shoulda seen ol' Ernie Stillman's face. He was handling it himself for the D.A.'s office. Thought they had Rodriguez dead t'rights. 'Not Guilty, Judge!' You know, LeBaron, I think you got some sort of God-given knack for pickin' juries. I truly do."

"Mr. Collins?"

"What?" He eyed LeBaron suspiciously.

"You're not going to get involved in something else, like you did with the Hampstead case, are you, and leave me to try this thing on Monday?"

"Th'aint no trial gonna take place on Monday," Collins bristled. "Judge Kroner's got juvenile court all day Monday. Hasn't got a single free minute. So alls you gotta do is t' kill tomorrow with jury selection and we'll see what happens come Tuesday mornin'."

"You mean, we'll see if Rufus Freeman can come up with some money by Tuesday morning?"

"That would surely help straighten things out." He leafed through his engagement book. "Otherwise, I might get assigned to any one o' three or four trials come Tuesday. I can't be in two places at once, can I? You let that boy know how important it is that he pays up."

"So what you're saying is, I should be prepared to try this case myself."

"Freeman ain't paid enough for you to do very much preparin', LeBaron. You'll do jus' fine learnin' the case as it unfolds in the courtroom, jus' like everybody else. Now if you're dead set on doin' some preparin' on your own free time, well of course that's none o' my business. But Freeman sure hasn't paid for no preparin' yet, an' I can't pay you for it."

"What if he agrees to pay as soon as he can?" As soon as he said it, LeBaron knew it was ridiculous.

Collins shook his head. "Don't seem like he'll be earnin' a whole lot o' money in state prison for the next three to five years. Y'got to be practical, LeBaron."

"Jeeze, Mr. Collins, this is a felony! I've never done a felony jury trial."

"Everybody's gotta start somewhere. You tried the Hampstead case, didn't you?"

"That was a misdemeanor."

"Ain't no different. Except in a felony everybody takes 'emselves too damn' serious."

"But shouldn't I interview witnesses, investigate the scene of the crime, do something to prepare?"

"This ain't the Public Defender's office or some public funded legal aid clinic. This's a business. An' the whole idea of a business is t'show a profit. Y'understan'? Freeman hasn't paid enough t'go diggin' up a lot of irrelevant jazz in order t'confuse the jury. We got t'fall back to a more frugal line of defense. We gotta hope a material witness don't show up, or evidence was illegally seized, or the jury for no reason at all takes a shine to our boy. Maybe the D.A.'ll botch up the case all by himself. Freeman ain't paid for the Cadillac defense, y'un'erstan'?"

LeBaron sighed. "Yes sir. But I would like to take a look at the file, if we have one."

"Sure we have one!" Collins grinned and punched the intercom. "There's always a file. Not sure if it'll do you much good, but there's always a file."

"Yessir, Mr. Collins." The voice on the intercom oozed with the honeyed sexuality of soul.

"Wanda Jean, were you able t'find that Freeman file I a'ksed you about."

"Sho'nuf. D'you want me t' bring it in?"

"No. Put it on LeBaron's desk, will ya, gal?"

"Yessir, Mr. Collins."

Collins stood up and began pulling on his overcoat again. "I'd tell you more about the case myself, LeBaron, but I can't seem t'remember too much. I do remember it didn't look so hot. Said he was a relative of Brown's, second cousins or something. Thass why I took it without gettin' 'nough money up front. 'Course Brown denies any relation." Lovingly he lifted his ermine-trimmed stingy-brim and eased it onto his bald head. "Now as soon as I sneak out the back door here, you go out front and a'ks Wanda Jean for that file. An' you watch out for ol' Judge Kroner, hear? He likes t' play you along for a while before he reels y'in. Get everything put on the record. Don' let'im pull that 'Approach the bench' stuff, y'un'erstan'? Get it all on the record."

"Yes, sir."

With Gideon, his faithful laptop computer, stuck under his arm and one hand on the doorknob, Collins swung around and peered at LeBaron over the top of his wire-rimmed reading glasses. "Don' look so damn' glum, LeBaron. You' gonna be all right. They ain't sendin' you off to state prison, are they? G'night."

"G'night, Mr. Collins."