He wore a chambray work shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, loosened paisley tie five years too narrow, rumpled khakis, saddle shoes. The laces on one shoe were untied.
Stretching again, he sat, picked up his phone, and began dialing. Most of the other lawyers were on the phone now. The room sounded like a giant switchboard.
I walked over to him. His eyebrows rose as I sat down, but he didn’t show any signs of annoyance. Probably used to walk-ins.
He said, “Listen, gotta go,” into the phone. “What’s that? Fine -1 accept that, just as long as we have a clear understanding, okay?
What? . .. No, I’ve got someone here. Okay. Bye. Cheers.”
He hung up and said, “Hi, how can I help you?” in a pleasant voice.
His tie was clipped with an unusual bit of jewelry: red guitar pick glued to a silver bar.
I told him who I was and that I was trying to locate any friends of Dorsey Hewitt.
“Dorsey. One of my triumphs,” he said, all the pleasantness gone. He sat back, crossed his legs. “So what paper do you work for?”
“I’m a psychologist. Just like I said.”
He smiled. “Really?”
I smiled back. “Scout’s honor.”
“And a police consultant, too.”
“That’s right.”
“You don’t mind if I see some ID, do you?”
I showed him my psych license, my med school faculty card, and my old LAPD consultant’s tag.
“The police,” he said, as if he still couldn’t believe it. “Is that a problem for you?”
“In what way?”
“Working with the police mentality? All that intolerance-the authoritarianism.”
“Not really,” I said. “Police officers vary, like anyone else.”
“That hasn’t been my experience,” he said. There was a jar of licorice sticks near his typewriter. He took one and held out the container.
“No, thanks.”
“High blood pressure?”
‘No.
“Licorice raises it,” he said, chewing. “Mine tends to be low. I’m not saying they’re intrinsically bad-the police. I’m sure most of them start out as okay human beings. But the job corrupts-too much power, too little accountability.”
“I guess the same could be said for doctors and lawyers.”
He smiled again. “That’s no comfort.” The smile stayed on his face, but it began to look out of place. “So. Why does a police consultant need to know anything about Dorsey’s friends?”
I gave him the same explanation I’d offered jean Jeffers.
Midway through, his phone rang. He picked it up, said, “What? Okay, sure.
… Hi, Bill, what is it? What? What? You’ve got to be kidding!
No walkie, no talkie-I mean it. This is a bullsquat misdemeanor we’re talking abou-I don’t care what else he’s-okay, you do that. Good idea.
Go ahead. Talk to him and get back to me. Bye.”
He put the phone down. “Where were we? Oh, yeah, harassment. What kind?”
“I don’t know all the details.”
He pulled his head back and squinted. His neck was thick, but soft.
His short arms folded over his abdomen and didn’t move. “Cops ask you to consult but don’t let you in on the details? Typical. I wouldn’t take the gig.”
Not seeing any way out of it, I said, “Someone’s been sending people harassing tapes with what may be Hewitt’s voice on them -screaming bad love’the same thing he screamed after he murdered Becky Basille.”
Coburg thought for a minute. “So? Someone taped him off the TV. No shortage of strange souls out there. Keeps both of us busy.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But the police think it’s worth looking into.”
“Who’s getting these tapes?”
“That I don’t know.”
“Must be someone important for the cops to go to all this trouble.”
I shrugged. “You could ask them.” I recited Milo’s name and number.
He didn’t bother to write it down.
Taking another licorice stick from the jar, he said, “Tapes. So what’s the big deal?”
“The police are wondering if Hewitt might have had a close friend-someone influenced by what he did. Someone with the same dangerous tendencies.”
“Influenced?” He looked puzzled. “What, some kind of harassment club?
Street people going after the good citizenry?”
“Hewitt wasn’t exactly harmless.”
He began twisting the licorice stick. “Actually, he was. He was surprisingly harmless when he took his medicine. On one of his good days, you might have met him and found him a nice guy.