“No shit.”
“No shit. And they’ll be tossing Dale’s place pretty soon. My associate is going to be here to make sure they don’t play ‘Thrash This Pad.’ You going to hang around?”
“For a bit.”
“I’ll tell him to look out for you.” And I’d tell Alex to point it out to Trevor if he saw the cops step out of line. With a little luck, my new buddy Trevor might help me fire the first salvo in the war for juror sympathy.
Off to my left, I saw one of the detectives put a hand on the back of Dale’s head, preparing to duck him down into the squad car. “I’ve gotta go.”
I followed the caravan that took Dale to the station to make sure there were no “accidents” during the booking process. Dale had buddies on the force, but this was sheriff’s territory. Dale was LAPD. There was no love lost between the two cop shops, so Dale couldn’t expect to get any sympathy here. And I’d be about as welcome as a parrot at a spelling bee.
I sat in the waiting room, scrolling through my e-mail to distract myself while cops walked by, shooting me daggers.
By the time Dale got through booking and into his orange jumpsuit, I’d read, dumped, or answered every e-mail, Twitter message, and Facebook note; watched all the latest bits on Funny or Die (using headphones); and checked out the clothes on the HauteLook, MyHabit, and Urban Outfitters websites.
I watched the guards lead Dale into the attorney room, one on each side. Orange isn’t an easy color for anyone to work, but it was a real fashion “don’t” for Dale, and the monster lighting didn’t help. Neither did the shock of being on the wrong side of the handcuffs. The skin on his face looked like a deflated basketball, and his chest had the caved-in look of someone who was collapsing from inside. But he didn’t seem to have been knocked around. Not yet, anyway.
The deputies walked him in, and he sat down heavily. He stared, slack-jawed, as they chained him to the floor and the table. “How’d the booking go? Any unnecessary roughness?”
Dale was staring around the airless little room as though he’d landed on Mars. It took him a few seconds to focus. “Uh, no… no.”
I leaned down to catch his eye and waited for him to look at me. “Listen to me. I want you to get this. If you’ve got any ideas about being some kind of martyr who covers for his buddies in the Thin Blue Line, send them to Warner Brothers. That crap only works in Hollywood. If anyone gives you a hard time-and I mean
