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Prologue

Now and then someone is born to a middle-class man and woman who is content to participate in the flow of industrial commerce without being motivated to achieve some higher place in the commercial hierarchy.

The more sophisticated people might characterize those people as underachievers. Others might marvel that they were somehow able to resist the urge to compete for goals that always seemed just out of their reach. The people who say that might also endorse laziness as a virtue.

But regardless of what people say, most people did do the one thing nature intended for them to do, they created another person. And the person born to one such middle-class couple, the character featured in this book, was named Carson Adams. Unlike his parents, Carson was a new age person. He wasn’t content to be an underachiever. He wanted to be all that he could be.

The sophisticated people would say, “Well, isn’t it his right to reach as high as he chose to reach. Carson should be able to achieve all that he could touch, driven by his motivation and conquered by the strength of his intellect.

“Carson’s birthplace, no one’s really, should be a barrier to what his place in the new age society might become. In his day and age of equal opportunity, Carson was the only barrier to what he wanted to become and he should never stop to consider that barrier as an impediment to his goals.” And that is what this story is about; what Carson believed and had believed since the time he was able to look at the life-long financial struggles of his parents and after that decided that he would not endure the same humiliation during his life.

His parents’ names were Carl and Mary Adams.

Carl told their friends who had several children, “We could have only one child because Mary suffered preeclampsia with organ failure during her labor. It took a nasty c-section to bring Carson into the world.

He didn’t say that Carson was very underweight at birth and almost died as a result but most took it for granted that the child would have been born with problems.

A number of times during the pregnancy they had been sorely tempted to abort the baby but did not and were pleased with their decision. However, they were not inclined to have another child.

Mary had another barrier to having more than one child. She said, “I was in my late thirties and on the old side of child bearing age anyway when Carson was conceived. We had to wait to get pregnant until we enough money and felt secure enough to bring a child into the world. We wanted to own a home first.” They explained that their doctor had strongly advised them not to have anymore and they gladly accepted his advice. One torturous experience in a lifetime, for both, was enough.

Mary’s health, after Carson’s birth, stayed on the frail side. Any germ coming close to where they lived managed to find her and lay her low, but she never used anything as an excuse for not doing her job as a mother and wife. No matter how she felt inside, she always managed a smile when dealing with friends and especially with her husband and son. Carson marveled at her resilience and her determination and was proud. At an early age, he vowed to cherish and make financially secure the woman he’d marry.

Mary didn’t shy away from telling their friends that they only had high school educations, graduating from local San Diego schools. Most of them were in the same boat.

“We dated in our senior year in high school. And we got married as soon as Carl got a job after we’d graduated,” she said during their dinner parties when the subject came up.

Carl agreed saying, “We didn’t regret our decision. We weren’t looking around for someone that might be a better catch. We loved each other. Still do.”

*****

Carl’s educational pursuits over the years were the occasional seminars or workshops his bosses asked him to attend to get the latest relevant innovations on some aspect of his job, namely what they were manufacturing and selling.

Mary limited her post high school studies to the recipe book Carl had given her as a birthday present. She used it to cook meals for her husband and son. She dutifully cooked breakfast and dinner for them each and every day. And, they always enjoyed them as much as she enjoyed cooking them. They managed lunches on their own.

After graduating from high school, Carl had gone to work for a factory making cloth-carrying bags for sports enthusiasts. He eventually rose to what the company called a mid-level manager which qualified him to supervise workers on an assembly line. They made a minimum wage and many were in the country illegally. But soon, other countries with even lower paid workers got into the business of making the sport’s bags that Carl’s employer made. And, when those bags were imported into the US, they severely cut into the profits of Carl’s employer and caused many lay-offs.

He and Mary accepted the “setback” as normal and adjusted their standard of living to survive. She shopped harder and made as many things, food and clothing, that she could.

When a friend who always drove a new car asked, “What don’t you guys ever buy a new car? I have a friend who can get you a good one for not a hell of a lot of money.” Carl told him, “We’ve bought used cars because they were affordable, just like we buy VA/FHA “track” houses with little or nothing down. That keeps our mortgages low.” They did, kind of, buy up with their third house but after that they quit buying “up” and settled down to enjoy life without the aggravation of always looking for something better and having to move. Their last home was in the Hillcrest area of San Diego. It had a good- sized lot and a big yard that backed onto an alley.

The other reason they quit “buying up” was Carl’s income. His company was having to make sacrifices to meet the competitive threats of the lower priced imports. Those sacrifices were endured primarily by their employees.

So, Carl’s salary stayed pretty much fixed over the last ten years of his working life. Even though the company did what it could to stay competitive and remain in business. To that end, the directors brought in a consulting engineering firm to “automate” their manufacturing process. The new system eliminated the assembly line workers, the biggest cost item in their sport’s bags.

Carl told people who asked, “After that new system was installed, my job was to manage two of the automated assembly lines.” He told them how a machine would feed raw materials for their sports bags into an assembly line and he’d punch buttons and pull levers and watch for any problems that would stop the bags from coming out the other end of the assembly line.

“When that happened,” Carl said, “I’d have to stop the line right away and fix the problem as quick as I could.” To keep their prices competitive, Carl didn’t mind saying, he had to keep that assembly line moving. He did and did it well and stayed employed as a result.

Helped by an increasing population of men and women in the country with leisure time and enough money enough to buy bags, the factory stayed in business long enough for Carl to retire.

Like many retirees, he accepted his new lot in life, that of being idle, and dedicated himself to enjoying it with his wife. They made a few driving trips to parks and attractions, man-made and natural, around the country.

“Hell,” he said, “I became a handyman and gardener when we weren’t making trips.” And Mary kept cooking and keeping house as before. She never wavered or complained about anything, even though it often seemed to Carl and Carson that she was always “reaching for the knob of death’s door.”

*****

Carson was born with a decent level of intelligence which, when blended with the circumstances of his life, gave birth to a high ambition and motivation to excel.

A teacher once said, “None of us would have thought it possible knowing his mother and father. I don’t think either of them showed signs of an ambition to do anything but survive. If they did, I never saw it..” Their few friends, though, marveled that they always appeared happy and stress free.

But Carson had watched them over the years and had witnessed what he considered were their financial struggles to just “make it through one more week.” One of Carson’s teachers remarked to another teacher, “That boy has one of the fastest working minds of any student I’ve ever taught.

He went on to say, “Carson might not be the smartest boy I’ve ever had in one of my classes. I’m not saying he isn’t, but what I want to say is that he’s such a fast thinker and works so hard, he gets through problems and discovers solutions before the other students have gotten half way through them.” Carson did make good grades in high school. And, as remarked by most of his teachers, his determination to succeed seemed “built in.” He never rested. “Goofed off” was the way they’d put it.

Of course, most knew that Carson’s determination was a reaction to the plight of his mother and father, their struggles, and his genetic blessing, a high intelligence.

He wasn’t big enough for sports although he grew to be almost six feet tall by the time he’d graduated and was blessed with a metabolism that burned up the calories so he rarely gained weight. But when he was growing up, the other boys in school were taller and bigger than he was and better suited for sports so he contented himself to the “books” they all were supposed to study and became good at it.

Carson wasn’t handsome and was not, what girls liked to call “sexy” in school. He was more a plain looking boy, taking after the way his mother looked. But, his dad did play a part in the way he looked. He had his dad’s rugged look.

At any rate, Carson wasn’t burdened or distracted by girls chasing him around for any reason. As a result, he had more time to study and therefore became a notable student.

After high school, he went to a local junior college while living at home. Because money was always tight, he worked part time and managed to keep up the yard as well. When he’d graduated, he was accepted into the closest university and elected to study business finance.

He continued to work part time but did receive a small scholarship from the college.

When asked by the scholarship committee, he said, “Dad will help me as much as he can, but it won’t be much. I’ll live at home and eat at home. That’ll save me a lot. And, I can use my mother’s old car to get back and forth.” His mother died a shortly after he’d graduated. She managed to attend his graduation and smiled through it all even though her pain was intense by that time.

Except for Carson’s graduation that she was determined not to miss, she was bed ridden until she passed away. Her doctor said it was cancer and was amazed that she had lived as long as she had.

Carson was glad she lived long enough to see him graduate. It was what they often talked about over the dinner table. Carson was the first one in their families to attend college, let alone graduate.

After graduation, Carson was offered a job with an apartment management company in San Diego as an assistant manager. There were three assistants. They shared one office and reported to a company manager who reported to a Board. The company was owned by investors who also owned most of the apartment units the company managed.

Each of the assistants was assigned one or more apartment complexes to manage. Carson was given a list of handymen, roofers, plumbers, electricians, painters and carpenters, any sub-trade that worked on housing units.

When a friend asked what he did, Carson said, “If somebody calls with a problem that we’re responsible for, I call one of the sub-trades on my list to fix it. When it’s fixed, I sign off on it before anybody gets paid.” The company manager, the assistants’ boss, mostly sat in his office and delegated “jobs” to one of the assistants and if they didn’t hop-to, he’d give them hell. In fact, Carson and the two other assistants felt that was practically all he ever did, give them hell.

Well, they did acknowledge that he did one thing religiously. He took hour-long lunches and often came back smelling of beer. And, he frequently left the building mid-afternoon for a perfumed rendezvous with someone, someplace. He was married, but wasn’t “wed” to the concept, Carson noted.

*****

Carson gave his dad most of what he made to pay for his mother’s last medical bills, the ones not covered by Medicare, and to repay him for what his dad had “lent” him to get through school. His dad had refinanced their home, where Carson lived, to pay most of her medical bills, but didn’t quite cover them all, After she’d passed on, Carson, more or less, inherited his mother’s old car that he’d been using. It was on its last legs and had been since they’d bought it, but it still got him back and forth. His dad just signed it over to him.

After eighteen months on the job, Carson told his dad, “Dad, I’m never going to make shit on this job. I’m an assistant manager and will always be an assistant manager to the lazy “bastard” who sits in his private office and tells us what to do. And, he makes all the money.” So, he applied to law school and began attending classes at night, working during the day and still living at home.

So, with his usual zeal, he went to law school and graduated with honors. He felt he had a knack for trial work and looked forward to handling his first case after passing the bar.

Hoping to avoid being relegated to being someone’s assistant preparing briefs and interrogatories, he first tried to find a lawyer’s office needing someone to jump in and take on trial work, however menial. It didn’t matter to Carson how menial. He had heard the phrase, “a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” It became his battle cry. He knew that to get to the end of the journey, he had to take that first step and he searched for ways to do just that.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t find an opening with any decent law firm. The respectable ones all seemed to want someone with connections that’d bring in new clients and Carson didn’t have a single connection. His mother and father hadn’t made many friends over their lifetimes. They figured each other were the only friends they needed.

As a result, and to get trial experience right away, Carson began doing Legal Aid work.

He told his dad, “When indigents, the poor people in this world, need an attorney, they don’t care if I just passed the bar and have never been to court. They’re desperate for a lawyer and my price is right. Low.”

*****

Carson made a few dollars working at Legal Aid but still had to live at home. His dad, already showing his age, did what he could to help Carson but it wasn’t much. His dad cooked when he felt like it. When he didn’t, they either got something out, usually fast food, or Carson cooked something.

And, that was how they got along. Carl survived his last few years putting one foot in front of the other while Carson built a legal future one indigent case after another. He took every case that came in the legal aid door no matter how difficult or simple.

As he worked to gain experience, he learned the tricks of his trade. Since jury trials were the greatest challenge a lawyer faced in his practice, Carson dedicated himself to learning how to “manage” a jury, jurors to be accurate. He knew he had to bond with the jurors if he wanted to get their sympathy on a close case. Most of his “legal aid” cases were dead bang losers but he stayed optimistic and looked at all he took on as “close cases” he could win. That attitude kept him from “wanting” to throw in the towel on his cases at the earliest opportunity, usually after the DA’s first witness had been cross examined.

Carson was careful not to belittle law enforcement witnesses he had to cross examine. His law professors had told them that “what goes around, comes around.” Carson told his dad, “We took that phrase to mean that policemen had long memories. If I make them look bad on the stand, they’ll want to get even. So, I treat ‘em with respect.” “Good idea, son,” his dad agreed.

Carson knew most witnesses were inclined to shade the truth a bit and wanted the shading to be in his favor. And, his presentation to anyone he deemed important was as compelling as he could make it. He tried to give the impression of being both bright and honest and, he prided himself on being a good “actor,” someone who could change his persona to fit whatever case he had.

That “acting” ability enabled him to develop what he called his “getting close to jurors” approach during the “voir dire” or, the questioning of prospective jurors that lawyers did in the pre-trial stage of a trial. His goal was to have as many of the jurors that he could reach during the questioning stage, think of him as their friend, someone who would only tell the truth, someone they could trust. And, more importantly, he wanted them to think of him as someone they would want to vote for when they deliberated the case at the end of the trial.

He quickly recognized that elderly ladies were the most vulnerable to his “friends” approach. He figured many had lost their husbands and were lonely and wouldn’t turn away someone appearing to be a “friend” so he vowed to be one.

I’ll treat them like Mom. She was my friend, even in her last days. She didn’t want to be pitied, just treated like the person I’d always loved and respected.

Men, he knew were different. They didn’t want any BS, just respect. No supercilious or arrogant displays of importance as some attorneys proffered, he’d noticed when watching the facial reactions of the jurors when those lawyers questioned them. To avoid that reaction, Carson would treat them with respect and just give them the facts of the case before them. And, he stayed away from throwing “big words” that some lawyers did thinking they were impressing jurors with their intellect. All they were doing in reality was turning the jurors off.

Since most of his criminal cases, whether he wanted to come right out and say it or not, were losers, his plan was to shoot for a hung jury in his trials. From that, he figured to negotiate a lesser sentence with the DA, something with no prison or jail time.

If not, he’d go for a second hung jury and if he could get that, he knew the DA would be willing to “talk” about a reduced sentence. The DA always had a backlog of cases to try. And a guilty verdict, even those eventually watered down as the result of often unreal decisions by juries – those unable to reach a verdict and thusly ended up “hung” - was still a guilty verdict.

So, what if a perpetrator walked free and committed another crime? Crimes were going to happen. If one happened by a defendant who had been turned loose with a reduced sentence, because of a “hung jury” well, so be it. The DA knew the voting public didn’t pay close attention to details like that. Besides, anybody running against him would say anything to get elected, easily rebutted during a campaign.

Chapter 1

Carson’s break - at least he thought of it like that at the time – came from an attempted murder case. It was a case that came to him more accidentally than on purpose. And he’d discover it would have not only short-term importance, but long-term significance as well.

*****

The liquor store on the corner of a street at the fringes of downtown San Diego was moderately busy. Men mostly, walking hurriedly into the store and walking out more relaxed with a paper bag holding something their faces suggested they were looking forward to sampling.

The check-out stand near the door was manned by a comfortably dressed, middle-aged man with graying hair and a stomach that flopped out over a wide belt. His face held a slight smile for his customers. It was like he very well knew that what they were going to sample when they got it home was something he was also going to enjoy, even if only vicariously.

He was finishing with one customer as a tall thin man walked nervously past and continued into racks filled with bottles of libations like he’d been there before and knew where the thing he wanted was located. His name was Harmon Scott.

Scott paused near the rear of the store and stared down at a rack of bourbon bottles, touching first one, then another as if trying to make a decision.

Seconds behind Scott came a man with an Oriental cast to his skin, short and wiry with dark hair. He wore a brown coat over a white shirt and tan pants. His name was Charlie Wu.

When Charlie Wu was a step or so away from the man, he glanced over his shoulder. Apparently seeing nothing threatening, he pulled a gun from inside his coat and began firing at Scott in front of the rack of whiskey bottles trying to make a selection.

After his second shot, Wu heard loud and exciting talking behind him and turned to see the store manager on the phone, apparently calling the police so he stopped shooting and ran out of the store, leaving the victim bleeding and writhing in pain on the floor.

The shooter ripped off the woven gloves he was wearing as he exited the store and threw them into a garbage barrel adjacent a street light pole. He did that without a pause, but when he rounded the corner and saw a uniformed policeman writing down his tag number pursuant to giving him a ticket for parking in a red zone, he paused long enough to throw the gun into the drain. It rattled down the drain out of sight.

The policeman turned when he heard the running steps of the man behind him. At the same time, he also heard the approaching sirens of police cars and immediately assumed the running man was somehow involved. The sirens covered the sound of the gun rattling out of sight.

He pulled his weapon, pointed it at Wu and ordered him to stop and hold up his hands.

Wu uttered an expletive but it was in Chinese and not understood. Nevertheless, he raised his arms and stood still.

When the police arrived on the scene and were told what had happened by the liquor store manager, the man was arrested and charged. He identified himself as Charlie Wu but otherwise said nothing.

Though badly injured, the man shot in the liquor store had survived.

*****

On the day set for the trial, Charlie Wu’s attorney, Walter Johnston, a big hitter from one of the larger firms in San Diego, had to have an emergency operation for a burst appendix and could not defend Wu.

The DA, ready for trial, didn’t want a postponement and pressed Charlie to go forward with a new attorney. None of the other attorneys in the firm were available so as a last resort, Legal Aid was asked if one of their attorneys was available to appear for Charlie. Carson Adams was available and immediately asked the court for a postponement.

Ordinarily the DA might have given the case against Wu to one of the attorneys on his staff but now and then, he wanted the public to see him in action. When he did, he was careful to pick a case he could easily win, as he considered the current case to be. And, with the better-known attorney out of the picture, he felt the publicity would be all his.

The DA was in his fifties with gray hair and a look on his face he’d cultivated to project a “would I lie to you” image. That’s how he got elected to the office. That honest look sat well with the voters and did likewise with jurors. Not only that, he had that slow, gentle talking trial presentation that put jurors at ease.

The other attorneys knew it and always dreaded having to try a case against him. Well, most did. Carson didn’t. He barely knew the guy. Carson looked at the DA as just another challenge to overcome.

Wu, not being that familiar with the California judicial system, had agreed to be represented by the Legal Aid attorney after he’d met Carson. Wu felt Carson had an eagerness about him that was convincing.

The DA asked Carson to proceed to trial without a postponement. After all, it looked like a “slam dunk” case. One day, even with a jury, was all The DA figured it’d take.

“All you have to do, Adams,” he told Carson with an air of pedantry, “is make an opening statement and closing argument. Tell the jury during your opening statement that you know Wu is innocent. They expect that. Do the same when you close. The defendant doesn’t have any witnesses to call according to Walt. I won’t show you up.” That last remark half way pissed Carson off, but he doubted the DA said it to belittle him so much as to address the inequities of their respective positions in the legal community. But he’d remember both the words and the thought behind it. Don’t show the other guy up unless it’s part of your case.

Walt was how the DA, familiarly, addressed the attorney who had appeared for Wu at the arraignment but who had ended up in the hospital on the day of the trial relaxing with the aid of painkillers.

The DA tried to act like he was everybody’s friend, kind of like he was always on the campaign trail.

Carson, aware that the defendant was Chinese asked about an interpreter and was told that one had been brought in to translate for him. He was granted thirty minutes by the judge to interview his client with the aid of the interpreter.

Carson noted that the “defendant” appeared somewhat bewildered by the legal maneuvering but reluctantly, it seemed, agreed to the legal substitution.

“He says he just wants to get it over with,” the interpreter said.

Carson figured he’d reconsider that if and when he was facing execution but had no doubt, he could defend the man as well as anybody, even old “Walt.” Through the interpreter, Wu did ask Carson if he could negotiate a deal with the DA to avoid jail time. He practically admitted having tried to kill the man in the liquor store but figured since he was a Chinese citizen, he should get favorable treatment.

Carson wasn’t so sure about that, but told him he’d get into that possibility after the trial had begun and he knew more of the facts. He figured he’d find out more about the DA’s case as he called witnesses. Assuming he saw weaknesses in the DA’s case, he’d be in a better position to negotiate a deal. Wu agreed with a shrug.

From what he’d learned during his interview with the defendant, Carson believed that the only certain witness against his client was the store manager. Wu wasn’t sure if the shooting victim had seen him or not. He said he didn’t care at first if the man had seen him since he figured the man would be dead.

Wu hadn’t seen any other customers in the store but wasn’t sure there weren’t any. He was too concerned with shooting the man to check for any. He figured he’d get away before anybody could show up.

He also assumed he’d be in and out of the store before anybody, like the traffic policeman, would notice his illegally parked car. That turned out to be his big mistake. If he hadn’t been parked in the red zone, he could have escaped before the other police car arrived.

Wu didn’t know and didn’t care why he was hired to kill the man. He’d had a call with information about who he was to kill and where the man was. He followed the man from his apartment for two days before tracking him into the liquor store.

Carson was told by Wu how he’d thrown away the gun when he saw he was getting a ticket and heard the police sirens coming closer.

Fortunately, Carson thought, Charlie didn’t tell the DA any of that.

He knew his client was guilty but he also knew his duty was to make sure the DA proved him guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. And, that was what he would try to plant in the minds of the jurors during his pre-trial questioning of them, especially in the minds of the ladies who smiled back at him when he looked them in the eyes with a slight smile. He could only hope for the best with the male jurors. He figured they might be harder to convince.

*****

Before he began questioning the jurors, his voir dire of the jury panel, Carson decided how he would attack what he assumed would be the DA’s case. He would try to convince the jury that no one actually saw his client shoot anybody. The fact that he ran from the store was easily explained. Charlie heard the shooting and wanted to get to safety before he too was shot.

Naturally, the defendant held up his hands when he saw the traffic policeman. “Wouldn’t you?” he asked the jurors. “My client is a law-abiding citizen, even if he isn’t totally knowledgeable about our laws so when the policeman touched his weapon, my client became frightened and raised his hands.” Carson quit talking for a couple of seconds as if thinking, then said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I know you understand that Mr. Wu didn’t hold up his hands because he was guilty of anything. He just didn’t want to get shot. I would have done the same thing and I bet you would too if a policeman looked at you with his hand on his gun. And, … my client had no gun! How could he have shot anybody?” He was pleased to see several jurors nodding their approval.

The DA would try to convince them that Wu had “obviously” thrown the gun away even if it couldn’t be found.

When Carson talked to the prospective jurors, he watched their eyes and their mouths, in particular the female jurors. Were they receptive to what he was saying? Did they like him? And, would they vote “not guilty” when the question arose? For the men, he talked more matter of fact, more logically about the case. What the DA had to prove. His client was a “kind of ” foreigner. Was the DA being prejudicial and trying to “railroad” him because of that? All Carson wanted was to create a doubt in their minds, men and women. Enough of a doubt would mean that Wu would walk free.

In closing his questioning of the jury panel, he said, “The DA has to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt Mr. Wu tried to shoot anyone. He will testify that he was looking for a job. The DA can’t get by on maybes or what somebody thought or believed. He has to present evidence that is clear and convincing in order to convict my client. He won’t be able to do that, ladies and gentlemen.” Carson wrapped up by saying, “I know that’s all the DA has against my client, lots of maybes and what people thought and believed. I want my client, my innocent client, to walk out of here, a free man and I’m betting that you will want the same thing after hearing the DA’s case. I thank you ladies and gentlemen.”

*****

Carson was worried that the shooting victim had seen his client. He knew what Wu had said, but was he certain? The DA’s trial brief didn’t say anything about it so Carson figured the victim may have seen something.

The DA was going to say that the man who was shot had substantial gambling debts – “crooked gambling debts”- which he’d been refusing to pay. The DA would try to prove that Charlie Wu was a professional gunman who’d been hired to shoot the guy as an example of what happens to people who don’t pay their debts, and especially, gambling debts.

*****

The judge called for a morning break to allow Carson to prepare a bit more for the trial. That meant to Carson that the trial probably wouldn’t begin until near noon and even if it was a “slam dunk” as described by the DA, it’d at least run into the next day.

At the break, Carson had a text message on his cell phone from a man who said he had interviewed Wu for a job. He gave his name as Angelo Jorgan.

Carson had a chuckle about that, Wu, hired to kill a man who wouldn’t pay his gambling debts, had been interviewing for a job. And bird droppings taste like popcorn.

Hell, I could use a witness. So, he called Jorgan and asked about the so-called job Wu had interviewed for.

Angelo had said his business was selling “time shares” in vacation condos and wanted to hire Wu to sell them to Chinese buyers. “Good market,” Angelo said.

Carson accepted what he’d said as the gospel and told him he would need his testimony. The man would give credence to Wu’s testimony that he was in the country looking for work instead of being there as a paid gunman.

“Count on me. I’ll be there. Charlie impressed me.” Another suppressed chuckle from Carson.

*****

The morning break ordered by the judge extended into a noon break. The judge had an office meeting and wouldn’t be ready for trial until after one.

So, Carson met with the man who’d called. He was somewhat heavy and well under six feet tall. His face was fleshy and white like he’d never been in the sun. He wore his hair like somebody on a pop music tour, to be noticed. And he looked seedy, very, and, Carson concluded, was most likely a phony, but he didn’t much care. He’d be sworn to tell the truth and it’d be up to the DA to prove he wasn’t real.

Carson briefed him on what he wanted him to say and how to say it. He also decided to send him out to get a haircut and to change into clothes that didn’t look like he worked in a house of ill repute.

“Nobody’ll believe anything you say, looking like you do,” Carson told him.

He probably does work in a whore house, Carson thought. If not, he probably visits one regularly.

The guy returned, looking like a real person and did a good job testifying.

Looks like he’s been in a court room before, Carson thought, during the briefing of the guy. Maybe as a defendant. He laughed to himself.

And the day after the guy had left the stand, Carson’s bank account magically, as far as he was concerned, received a handsome transfer which he took to be a retainer for Wu’s representation.

So, the guy is somehow connected to what Wu was doing. Could be, he was a conduit for shooting requests. I wonder.

He’d find out.

*****

After opening statements by both attorneys, the trial began. Carson was excited. It was his first big case even if he knew the facts were stacked against him. Not only that, he would be going against the DA himself, practically a legend around the San Diego courtrooms.

The DA was like the “daddy” attorney in most attorney’s minds, folksy and friendly and always ready, it seemed, with words of advice.

How could anybody not like him? But Carson didn’t care about any of that. All he cared about was his client and his first big case. It was a case, he told himself, that even if he lost, he would win. The publicity alone, if he did a half way decent job, would bring him clients.