Illegal Read Free

pitch-andcatch. But first, there was a judge to bribe.
    The day was already steaming. The sidewalk cafés, with their forlorn potted palms, were deserted, except for the Coffee Beans, Starbucks, and Peet's, where wannabe screenwriters pounded at their laptops, dreams of Oscar statuettes, A-list parties, and Malibu mansions warping their brains.
    It was a short drive to Van Nuys, Payne's favorite venue for justice to be miscarried. The Lexus spoke then, the pleasant but distant female voice instructing him to "Turn right in two hundred yards. Van Nuys Boulevard." She didn't bother to thank him for the five grand under her floor mat.
    Payne followed instructions and headed for the courthouse, thinking this wasn't so bad. He was a decent enough liar. He'd get out of the heat, do his civic duty, and pocket five grand. What could go wrong?

FIVE
     
    "You think I'm stupid?" Judge Rollins aimed the gun a few inches north of Payne's shrinking testicles. "Your wife's a cop."
    "Ex-wife."
    "I remember. She shot you."
    "An accident," Payne said. "She was aiming at my client."
    "That how you got the scar on your leg?" Gesturing toward a ridge of purple tissue on Payne 's bare thigh.
    "No." Payne reflexively touched the spot. Beneath his fingertips, fastened to his femur, was a metal plate and five locking screws. "Got the scars in a crash on the P.C.H."
    "Jesus, Payne. Bad luck sticks to you like flies on shit." A fuzzy thought came to the judge, and he squinted like a sailor peering through the fog. "What I don't get, is why you think I'd tank a case."
    "Not tank it, Your Honor. Just give me the identity of the C.I."
    "That's even worse!" The judge was reddening, his tone growing angry. "I give up a confidential informant, your client will have him killed."
    I messed it all up, Payne thought. Career. Marriage. Life.
    I can't even bribe a crooked judge.
    Payne's hands trembled, his fingers jerking like piano keys. He made a vow.
    If I get out of this, I really will change.
    "Your Honor. I gotta tell you the truth about what I'm doing here."
    Judge Rollins waved the gun toward the stacks of hundred-dollar bills. "The money speaks for itself."
    "That's the thing, Judge. Ramon Carollo—"
    "Is scum. And so's Pedro Martinez. Fuck 'em both."
    "Who?"
    "Pedro Martinez, for Christ's sake. The C.I. I signed the warrants. I oughta know."
    Payne wasn't sure he heard correctly. "You just gave me the informant's name."
    "You paid for it, didn't you?" The judge lifted his robes and slipped the .38 back into its shoulder holster. He swept the stacks of currency into a desk drawer like a croupier cleaning up chips. "Sorry I scared you. But with the Grand Jury running wild, I take precautions."
    Payne moved robotically. One leg, and then the other, into his boxers. He had trouble believing what had just happened. He was going home, and the judge was going to jail.
    "Martinez has a house on the beach in Rosarito, just south of the border," the judge said. "Plus a condo in La Jolla. He shouldn't be hard for your people to find."
    My people, Payne thought, will be busting down your door and putting you in handcuffs. He finished dressing in silence and made for the door.
    "Take care of yourself, Payne," the judge called after him. "And next time, make it the full fifty thousand."

SIX
     
    An hour after fleeing the courthouse, Payne's hands were still shaking. Either that, or a 5.0 trembler had rocked the Chimney Sweep, a windowless tavern squeezed between a Lebanese restaurant and a discount dentist in a Sherman Oaks strip mall. Payne wrapped a hand around the leaded base of his glass, trying to steady it, but the Jack Daniel's swirled between the ice cubes like molten lava through porous rocks.
    "Good work, Payne," Rigney had told him on the phone, minutes earlier.
    A pimp high-fiving a hooker, Payne thought, cheerlessly.
    "I knew you'd make a great bag man." Rigney's laugh jangled like steel handcuffs.
    Bag man.
    In Payne's mind, other names floated to the