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“I’m telling you, I looked through the entire file on him again last night. He’s a criminal, and a good one. That will work to our advantage.”
“How are we going to play this exactly?”
“You’re a lawyer. I’m a criminal.”
“Well, now you’re just stating facts.”
“I’m going to approach him and say there are people on the street planning to snitch on him. Some real big stuff, crossing the border and making it federal.”
“But what if he hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“Even if he’s completely clean, I’ve seen how and where he’s been living. Just the idea that people on the street are willing to turn on him will be enough. He’ll want to cover his bases. I’ll tell him that I’m mixed up with some of the same people, but I’ve got you. If he and I mount a solid defense, maybe vouch for each other on anything they’re trying to say about us, we can ride this out. You hit him with some legal mumbo jumbo. I know you can talk circles around him and probably get him to tell us anything we want.”
“Like that he killed someone?” she scoffed, looking doubtful of his plan.
“No, just spill some skeletons in his closet. Give us an idea of what we’re dealing with. You tell him he’ll have attorney-client privilege.”
“Do you want me to get disbarred?” She propped a hand on her hip. “I can’t invoke privilege without him actually having it.”
“Let him pay you a dollar like they do in the movies.”
“I don’t want him to be my client. It’s a conflict of interest. What if he divulges something incriminating?”
“Fine, we’ll skirt around actual privilege. We’ll imply it. I’m telling you, this guy’s file reads like—”
“Like what?”
“Like it could be mine. He’s gotten out of a lot of tight spots. He might be dumb enough to think he won’t get out of this next one on his own.”
“It feels like thin ice.”
“It will be, but the alternative will take too long and might not get us anything we need. Let’s find out how dirty his hands are right from the jump.”
“I’m not going to talk much,” Cleo said, thinking of all the ways she might be opening herself up to some trouble if she did.
“That’s fine,” Nick said as he winked at her. “A pleasant change of pace.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Being nice?”
“Yes.”
“Well, your hair looks weird today, and your eyes are puffy. Is that better?”
Her hands instinctively went to her hair and tried to tame it. “A little bit, actually.”
She didn’t ask him many questions on the way over. Normally she’d be peppering him with input and asking for details of his plan. But instead, she sat mostly in silence. It was too great a risk to start talking to him for fear she might say something she couldn’t take back.
“All right, this is where he works,” Nick said, pointing to a large warehouse with a mostly empty parking lot.
“We’re going to talk to him at his job?”
“He works the third shift. It’s perfect. He’ll be exhausted, and he won’t want anyone he works with to hear what we have to say.”
Opening the file, he looked at the photograph and showed it again to Cleo. “Ronnie really does look a bit like him.”
“Around the eyes,” Cleo agreed. “Are we on a stakeout?”
