Troubleshooter by Gregg Hurwitz

etching. Bear, who'd made short and noisy work of an eye-opener Super Big Gulp on the way over, ducked into a bathroom.
    The foyer window looked down four stories onto South Rodeo Drive. Tim and Guerrera stood shoulder to shoulder and watched Jags and Hummers flash back the morning light.
    Guerrera brought his knuckle to his jawbone, a nervous tap. "Listen, I'm sorry I lost my cool at the clubhouse yesterday."
    "You let Pete get to you a little, that's all."
    "Never seen you get rattled like that."
    Tim laughed. "You don't read the papers."
    "You know what I mean. You're level, even when you're not."
    "They say racist shit to get a rise out of you. Don't give it to them. Detach."
    Bear stepped out from the bathroom, readjusting the star on his belt, and by tacit understanding, Tim and Guerrera let the exchange end. The three headed to reception and flashed creds. After a fifteen-minute wait, during which they were forced to endure the receptionist's too-loud phone recollections of a recent shopping expedition, they were escorted past a secretary and a dressed-for-success paralegal to the Inner Office.
    Dana Lake stood with her back to them, silhouetted against a sun-bleached pane of glass. A cordless headset slightly crimped her hair. "If you won't offer us anything better than that, I'll wait until five minutes before trial to plead him out. I'll make you spend six months building a case you won't even try. Yeah? Then don't waste our time with bullshit offers."
    She pulled off the headset, shook out her hair, and pivoted to face them. "Don't fuck with my client. You want to talk to him, you bring a warrant or you phone me."
    "Uncle Pete and I reached our own arrangement," Tim said.
    She tossed the headset onto her meticulously ordered desk. "Credentials."
    They handed them to her, and she wrote down their names and badge numbers on a yellow legal pad. A framed lithograph of the Laughing Sinner logo commanded the wall behind her desk. "To DL--a friend to bikers, my kind of tough broad." Danny the Wand's flourish of a signature was Sharpied beneath the dedication.
    Dana stared at Tim's creds for an extra beat. "I hope you don't think you can get away with your celebrated stunts with my clients, Deputy Rackley. I'll have your ass in a sling."
    "Ms. Lake, my ass lives in a sling."
    "So. You've sicced the heat on the entire Laughing Sinners organization. Incisive investigative strategy. Was the Marshals Service the brain trust behind color-coding Arab travelers after 9/11?"
    "You rep all the Sinners?"
    "I do."
    "How's that arranged?"
    "Not that it's any of your business, but I'm on retainer to the club."
    Bear said, "Lucrative, I'd imagine."
    Her gaze dropped to his feet. "I don't buy my shoes at Payless."
    "You know where that money comes from?"
    "And your paychecks come from an Enron-funded junta government that supports tyrannical monarchies and wages illegal war in violation of international law and against UN votes. Looks like you've got the moral upper hand on a sleazy gal like me. Let's get to business. I bill six-fifty an hour. This diverting badinage with the constabulary has already cost me"--a glance to her Baume & Mercier--"a hundred and twenty-five dollars."
    "I'm sure Uncle Pete'll pick up the tab," Bear said.
    "Good idea. I'll inform Billing."
    Tim produced the municipal permission allowing the Sinners to ride without helmets in that morning's funeral procession. She lowered her head into a pair of frameless half-glasses and perused it. She finished, and her glasses took flight, landing softly on the legal pad on her desk. "What's your angle?"
    "Goodness of my heart. I was told to smooth things over so our fine city's middle-class churchgoers can sleep soundly in their beds."
    She refolded the permission. "I'll drag you through the press if we take you at your word and you use it to roust my clients." She seemed to speak without breathing, a rapid-fire assault perfected by years of courtroom performance. "It's