The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

took the other side of the cell. It was a form of Darwinian segregation. They were all strangers but there was strength
     in numbers.
    Since Roulet supposedly came from Beverly Hills money, I looked at the two white men and it was easy to choose between them.
     One was rail thin with the desperate wet eyes of a hype who was long past fix time. The other looked like the proverbial deer
     in the headlights. I chose him.
    “Mr. Roulet?” I said, pronouncing the name the way Valenzuela had told me to.
    The deer nodded. I signaled him over to the bars so I could talk quietly.
    “My name is Michael Haller. People call me Mickey. I will be representing you during your first appearance today.”
    We were in the holding area behind the arraignment court, where attorneys are routinely allowed access to confer with clients
     before court begins. There is a blue line painted on the floor outside the cells. The three-foot line. I had to keep that
     distance from my client.
    Roulet grasped the bars in front of me. Like the others in the cage, he had on ankle, wrist and belly chains. They wouldn’t
     come off until he was taken into the courtroom. He was in his early thirtiesand, though at least six feet tall and 180 pounds, he seemed slight. Jail will do that to you. His eyes were pale blue and
     it was rare for me to see the kind of panic that was so clearly set in them. Most of the time my clients have been in lockup
     before and they have the stone-cold look of the predator. It’s how they get by in jail.
    But Roulet was different. He looked like prey. He was scared and he didn’t care who saw it and knew it.
    “This is a setup,” he said urgently and loudly. “You have to get me out of here. I made a mistake with that woman, that’s
     all. She’s trying to set me up and—”
    I put my hands up to stop him.
    “Be careful what you say in here,” I said in a low voice. “In fact, be careful what you say until we get you out of here and
     can talk in private.”
    He looked around, seemingly not understanding.
    “You never know who is listening,” I said. “And you never know who will say he heard you say something, even if you didn’t
     say anything. Best thing is to not talk about the case at all. You understand? Best thing is not to talk to anyone about anything,
     period.”
    He nodded and I signaled him down to the bench next to the bars. There was a bench against the opposite wall and I sat down.
    “I am really here just to meet you and tell you who I am,” I said. “We’ll talk about the case after we get you out. I already
     spoke to your family lawyer, Mr. Dobbs, out there and we will tell the judge that we are prepared to post bail. Do I have
     all of that right?”
    I opened a leather Mont Blanc folder and prepared to take notes on a legal pad. Roulet nodded. He was learning.
    “Good,” I said. “Tell me about yourself. How old you are, whether you’re married, what ties you have to the community.”
    “Um, I’m thirty-two. I’ve lived here my whole life—even went to school here. UCLA. Not married. No kids. I work—”
    “Divorced?”
    “No, never married. I work for my family’s business. Windsor Residential Estates. It’s named after my mother’s second husband.
     It’s real estate. We sell real estate.”
    I was writing notes. Without looking up at him, I quietly asked, “How much money did you make last year?”
    When Roulet didn’t answer I looked up at him.
    “Why do you need to know that?” he asked.
    “Because I am going to get you out of here before the sun goes down today. To do that, I need to know everything about your
     standing in the community. That includes your financial standing.”
    “I don’t know exactly what I made. A lot of it was shares in the company.”
    “You didn’t file taxes?”
    Roulet looked over his shoulder at the others in the cell and then whispered his answer.
    “Yes, I did. On that my income was a quarter million.”
    “But what you’re saying