Page 45 of The Devil's Advocate

I took his wallet out of my pocket, flipped it open and removed his driver’s license. I’d dipped the wallet when he bumped into me. It’s a force of habit. Easiest way to perform a pocket dip and avoid that contact being noticed is to have physical contact on some other part of the body. It’s a distraction, physical and psychological.

‘Brian Denvir, of 224 Calabasas Road. Says here you’re fifty, but you don’t look a day over seventy,’ I said.

The realization took a while. These guys didn’t look too sharp, and I was sad to say that was probably true. Slowly, he recognized the wallet in my hand.

‘Son of a bitch, that’s my wallet,’ he said, hooking his finger around the trigger of the rifle.

‘Pleased to meet you, Brian,’ I said, counting the bills in the back of the wallet.

‘You’ve got forty-three dollars and a Pets R Us loyalty card. That’s a party. Why don’t you go buy a hamster to play with? You could call it David Duke, put a little white dress on it then cram it up your ass.’

His face creased into a snarl.

‘Give me my property,’ he said, and then he did the last thing I wanted him to do. He took a step back, and he began to extend his left arm, bringing the rifle away from his body, sweeping it up to point right at me.

Before he could get there, Bloch moved in. She put her hand on top of the weapon, there was a metallic clicking sound and when she stood back she had a bullet in one hand and the magazine from the rifle in the other. It all happened in a second, and in one smooth movement. She would’ve made one hell of a pickpocket. Bloch tossed them both at his feet, then swept her jacket away from her hip to reveal Maggie.

Maggie was Bloch’s nickname for her beloved Smyth and Wesson, Magnum 500. One of the few handguns in the world that fired a fifty-caliber round. With five rounds in the chamber, it weighed almost six pounds. Smyth and Wesson had to add an optional muzzle break when selling the weapon as the recoil could snap the wrist of anyone dumb enough to try a one-handed grip.

Brian must’ve known his guns, because as soon as he saw Maggie he took several more steps backward. His body armor no longer mattered. That thing on Bloch’s hip shot a 350-grain round at over two thousand feet per second. It could go through a cinderblock wall like a wet napkin.

‘You can all leave now,’ said Bloch. ‘Or you can reach for your ammo and stay here permanently as a smear on the sidewalk. Think fast, Brian.’

‘Your client killed my girlfriend, and he’s going to pay, one way or another,’ said Gary.

‘Are you Gary Stroud?’ I asked.

He clenched his jaw, the muscles were working at the sides of his head, his blue eyes focused on me. He blinked once, then nodded.

‘Then I’m very sorry for your loss, but you’ve been misinformed. Andy Dubois didn’t kill your girlfriend, and we’ll prove it.’

The crowd behind them were growing louder.

Brian’s eyes were wide with fear. He knew he’d be the first to catch a bullet.

Bloch winked.

‘Okay, boys, that’s enough. Put the iron away,’ said Brian, backing away, his hands raised.

I put his driver’s license back in his wallet and tossed it across the street.

Harry and Kate walked behind me, into the courthouse. Bloch picked up the round from Brian’s rifle and the magazine and dumped them in a trash can, then turned her back on the mob and went inside.

At a distance of fifty feet now, with Bloch inside, Brian’s balls made an unexpected reappearance. He smiled, and blew a kiss at me.

Maybe getting bail for Andy Dubois would put him in more danger than staying in the Buckstown lock-up. It was a chance I had to take. A bunch of armed, angry idiots I could deal with, but I couldn’t help Andy when he was at the mercy of the sheriff and the DA who were trying to put him on death row.

I turned and went into the courthouse. Bloch checked her gun at the security desk and I took off my belt and emptied my pockets for the metal detector.

Harry stood on the other side of the security checkpoint. He shook his head at me, ruefully, and said, ‘Come with me to Alabama, Harry. It MIGHT be dangerous.’

I went through security, collected my belongings and sidled up to Harry.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘If we’re pissing these people off, then we’ve got to be doing something right.’

‘We’ve been in dangerous spots before, but nothing like this. I worry for Kate,’ he said.

Kate was gathering the files and motions from the search table. She was a little pale. Bloch came over, took half the files and placed her hand on Kate’s shoulder. The two of them exchanged a word. Whatever that word was, it broke the tension.