Revolution Number 9 Read Free Page A

something, Brucie?”
    “Depends,” said Brucie, demonstrating one of his rare and always inappropriately timed outbreaks of low cunning.
    “Why,” asked Nuncio, “were you doing eighty-five on the Golden Gate Bridge on a night when you had two hundred grand in counterfeit paper in your glove compartment?”
    “ ’Cause of Laverne,” said Brucie. “I was late. For picking her up for our date, see? That pisses her off like you wouldn’t believe. You know what I’m saying?”
    Nuncio didn’t know. He didn’t want to know anything about Laverne.
    “Besides,” added Brucie with some pride, “I got the fuzzbuster.”
    “The fuzzbuster.”
    “For picking up cop radar.”
    “If they got their radar turned on,” Nuncio said.
    “Huh? Oh. Right, sure.”
    “So I guess it was when you zipped by that squad car on the inside that they musta got suspicious.”
    “Suspicious?” asked Brucie.
    “That you might be exceeding the speed limit.”
    “Oh. Yeah. They hit the siren right away, Mr. Nuncio. But what right did they have to search the car? Tell me that.” Brucie was sticking out his soft recessive chin in an aggressive manner. Whatever happened, he had to be kept off the stand.
    “It was the open bottle of Bud on your dash, Brucie. That gives them the right.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Probable cause,” Nuncio said. Brucie looked blank. “Brucie, I want you to think very carefully about something I’m going to ask you. Take your time with the answer.”
    “Shoot.”
    “Could anybody have had access to your car?”
    “Access?”
    “Could somebody have gotten into your car without your knowledge?”
    “Are you shitting me, Mr. Nuncio? That’s a brand-new Trans-Am. Loaded. Don’t even have a thousand miles on the odometer, and it’s been hooked up the whole time. That baby’s locked in the garage under the house every night. And I lock up the car too, and set the burglar alarm. I’m talking about the car alarm and the garage alarm. Plus there’s Flipper.”
    “Flipper?”
    “My pit bull, chained up outside. You should see him, Mr. Nuncio.”
    Nuncio didn’t want to see Flipper. Except for the fact that he was often in trouble and always paid up, Brucie was a poor client. You couldn’t counsel a client to lie exactly, to make up a false story. That would be unethical. Worse, it could lead to criminal charges, probably disbarment. On the other hand, there was no law against gently guiding a client toward an interpretation of the facts of the case that might raise reasonable doubt as to guilt. That was what the practice of criminal law was all about. Raising reasonable doubts. Raising reasonable doubts meant coming up with one measly crackpot theory and planting it in the mind of one measly crackpot juror. Finding the right juror during the impaneling was Nuncio’s job. No problem. He’d done it hundreds of times. Where he needed Brucie’s cooperation was in coming up with the crackpot theory. But Brucie was tapping his foot again, and knocking ash on the carpet.
    “Brucie?”
    Brucie looked like he was about to—Yes, he yawned. “Yeah?”
    “Think again.”
    “What about?”
    “About the possibility, however remote, of someone getting into the glove compartment of your car before you drove to Laverne’s.” Maybe he hadn’t been clear enough. Maybe he should have said “getting into the glove compartment andplanting that counterfeit money.” Dangerously close to the ethical line, though. Besides, wasn’t it perfectly obvious what he was fishing for? What kind of a human being could now fail to say: “My God, Mr. Nuncio! Someone must have planted that stuff in my glove compartment!” Then they could rise on wings of creativity, spinning tales of enemies, setups, dark deeds.
    Brucie Wine said: “But how could they, Mr. Nuncio? I already told you. I lock the car. I lock the garage. I even lock the goddamn glove compartment. And then there’s the alarms.”
    “You left out