The Legal Assassin

By Robert G Rogers

Carson Adams got his big break as an attorney when he defended an assassin for hire, Charlie Wu. Carson knew the man he was to defend was guilty, so rather than try to get him off, Carson decided to go for a hung jury. After winning that case his career got an upward push, a big one. Soon he was taking on a ton of other "unwinnable" high profile defense cases and working even more hours. He never lost a case, and quickly became a legend for his ability to charm the jurors and succeed in getting hung jury verdicts.

He was bringing in money, but needed a break and to spend time with his wife who was slipping away. Unfortunately, the criminal clients he worked for could be very "persuasive." He was already facing burn-out when Charlie Wu got arrested again. Carson knew he shouldn't take the case, he was too exhausted already, but he felt an odd sense of responsibility.

Unable to sway the jury he lost his first case ever. He blamed himself, and when his wife left him and took the house too, he lost his will to live. He found a street corner where he sat in the same suit he'd worn during his last trial with a sign that read, "No pot to piss in, no window to throw it out. Need help."

One day, a long black limousine pulled up and a man invited him into the car with a job proposition. It was Charlie Wu's old boss, Angelo, looking for a new assassin to replace Charlie. Carson accepted and traded in his homelessness for the life of an assassin.

Everything seemed to be falling back into place in his life when he met a young woman at one of Angelo's parties and fell in love. Carson told Angelo he wanted to settle down and get out of the assassination business. Angelo agreed and wished him well, but Carson soon learned that because he knew too much he was his replacement's first target, and found himself having to prevent his own assassination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098309763

Book preview

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Also by Robert G. Rogers

Bishop Bone Murder Mystery Series

A Tale of Two Sisters

Murder in the Pinebelt

A Killing in Oil

The Pinebelt Chicken War

Jennifer’s Dream

La Jolla Shores Murders

Murder at the La Jolla Apogee

No Morning Dew

Brother James and the Second Coming

The Taco Wagons Murders

He’s a Natural

Non-Series Murder Mysteries

The Christian Detective

That La Jolla Lawyer

Contemporary Dramas

French Quarter Affair

Life and Times of Nobody Worth a Damn

Suspense/Thrillers

Runt Wade

The End is Near

Historical Women’s Fiction

Jodie Mae

Youth/Teen Action and Adventure

Lost Indian Gold

Taylor’s Wish

Swamp Ghost Mystery

Armageddon Ritual

Children’s Picture Story book

Fancy Fairy

Acknowledgments

I acknowledge all those lawyers who have had to scrap and work hard to succeed. That would include most men and women who weren’t lucky enough to have been born into a wealthy family or somehow magically born with something equivalent to money, important contacts who have money and problems that require legal help to solve. The story is fiction but I know many attorneys who have lived close to similar stories. I hope they enjoy it.

Prologue

Now and then someone is born to a middle-class man and woman who is content to participate in the flow of industrial commerce without being motivated to achieve some higher place in the commercial hierarchy.

The more sophisticated people might characterize those people as underachievers. Others might marvel that they were somehow able to resist the urge to compete for goals that always seemed just out of their reach. The people who say that might also endorse laziness as a virtue.

But regardless of what people say, most people did do the one thing nature intended for them to do, they created another person. And the person born to one such middle-class couple, the character featured in this book, was named Carson Adams. Unlike his parents, Carson was a new age person. He wasn’t content to be an underachiever. He wanted to be all that he could be.

The sophisticated people would say, "Well, isn’t it his right to reach as high as he chose to reach. Carson should be able to achieve all that he could touch, driven by his motivation and conquered by the strength of his intellect.

Carson’s birthplace, no one’s really, should be a barrier to what his place in the new age society might become. In his day and age of equal opportunity, Carson was the only barrier to what he wanted to become and he should never stop to consider that barrier as an impediment to his goals. And that is what this story is about; what Carson believed and had believed since the time he was able to look at the life-long financial struggles of his parents and after that decided that he would not endure the same humiliation during his life.

His parents’ names were Carl and Mary Adams.

Carl told their friends who had several children, "We could have only one child because Mary suffered preeclampsia with organ failure during her labor. It took a nasty c-section to bring Carson into the world.

He didn’t say that Carson was very underweight at birth and almost died as a result but most took it for granted that the child would have been born with problems.

A number of times during the pregnancy they had been sorely tempted to abort the baby but did not and were pleased with their decision. However, they were not inclined to have another child.

Mary had another barrier to having more than one child. She said, I was in my late thirties and on the old side of child bearing age anyway when Carson was conceived. We had to wait to get pregnant until we enough money and felt secure enough to bring a child into the world. We wanted to own a home first. They explained that their doctor had strongly advised them not to have anymore and they gladly accepted his advice. One torturous experience in a lifetime, for both, was enough.

Mary’s health, after Carson’s birth, stayed on the frail side. Any germ coming close to where they lived managed to find her and lay her low, but she never used anything as an excuse for not doing her job as a mother and wife. No matter how she felt inside, she always managed a smile when dealing with friends and especially with her husband and son. Carson marveled at her resilience and her determination and was proud. At an early age, he vowed to cherish and make financially secure the woman he’d marry.

Mary didn’t shy away from telling their friends that they only had high school educations, graduating from local San Diego schools. Most of them were in the same boat.

We dated in our senior year in high school. And we got married as soon as Carl got a job after we’d graduated, she said during their dinner parties when the subject came up.

Carl agreed saying, We didn’t regret our decision. We weren’t looking around for someone that might be a better catch. We loved each other. Still do.

*****

Carl’s educational pursuits over the years were the occasional seminars or workshops his bosses asked him to attend to get the latest relevant innovations on some aspect of his job, namely what they were manufacturing and selling.

Mary limited her post high school studies to the recipe book Carl had given her as a birthday present. She used it to cook meals for her husband and son. She dutifully cooked breakfast and dinner for them each and every day. And, they always enjoyed them as much as she enjoyed cooking them. They managed lunches on their own.

After graduating from high school, Carl had gone to work for a factory making cloth-carrying bags for sports enthusiasts. He eventually rose to what the company called a mid-level manager which qualified him to supervise workers on an assembly line. They made a minimum wage and many were in the country illegally. But soon, other countries with even lower paid workers got into the business of making the sport’s bags that Carl’s employer made. And, when those bags were imported into the US, they severely cut into the profits of Carl’s employer and caused many lay-offs.

He and Mary accepted the setback as normal and adjusted their standard of living to survive. She shopped harder and made as many things, food and clothing, that she could.

When a friend who always drove a new car asked, What don’t you guys ever buy a new car? I have a friend who can get you a good one for not a hell of a lot of money. Carl told him, We’ve bought used cars because they were affordable, just like we buy VA/FHA track houses with little or nothing down. That keeps our mortgages low. They did, kind of, buy up with their third house but after that they quit buying up and settled down to enjoy life without the aggravation of always looking for something better and having to move. Their last home was in the Hillcrest area of San Diego. It had a good- sized lot and a big yard that backed onto an alley.

The other reason they quit buying up was Carl’s income. His company was having to make sacrifices to meet the competitive threats of the lower priced imports. Those sacrifices were endured primarily by their employees.

So, Carl’s salary stayed pretty much fixed over the last ten years of his working life. Even though the company did what it could to stay competitive and remain in business. To that end, the directors brought in a consulting engineering firm to automate their manufacturing process. The new system eliminated the assembly line workers, the biggest cost item in their sport’s bags.

Carl told people who asked, After that new system was installed, my job was to manage two of the automated assembly lines. He told them how a machine would feed raw materials for their sports bags into an assembly line and he’d punch buttons and pull levers and watch for any problems that would stop the bags from coming out the other end of the assembly line.

When that happened, Carl said, I’d have to stop the line right away and fix the problem as quick as I could. To keep their prices competitive, Carl didn’t mind saying, he had to keep that assembly line moving. He did and did it well and stayed employed as a result.

Helped by an increasing population of men and women in the country with leisure time and enough money enough to buy bags, the factory stayed in business long enough for Carl to retire.

Like many retirees, he accepted his new lot in life, that of being idle, and dedicated himself to enjoying it with his wife. They made a few driving trips to parks and attractions, man-made and natural, around the country.

Hell, he said, I became a handyman and gardener when we weren’t making trips. And Mary kept cooking and keeping house as before. She never wavered or complained about anything, even though it often seemed to Carl and Carson that she was always reaching for the knob of death’s door.

*****

Carson was born with a decent level of intelligence which, when blended with the circumstances of his life, gave birth to a high ambition and motivation to excel.

A teacher once said, None of us would have thought it possible knowing his mother and father. I don’t think either of them showed signs of an ambition to do anything but survive. If they did, I never saw it.. Their few friends, though, marveled that they always appeared happy and stress free.

But Carson had watched them over the years and had witnessed what he considered were their financial struggles to just make it through one more week. One of Carson’s teachers remarked to another teacher, "That boy has one of the fastest working minds of any student I’ve ever taught.

He went on to say, Carson might not be the smartest boy I’ve ever had in one of my classes. I’m not saying he isn’t, but what I want to say is that he’s such a fast thinker and works so hard, he gets through problems and discovers solutions before the other students have gotten half way through them. Carson did make good grades in high school. And, as remarked by most of his teachers, his determination to succeed seemed built in. He never rested. Goofed off was the way they’d put it.

Of course, most knew that Carson’s determination was a reaction to the plight of his mother and father, their struggles, and his genetic blessing, a high intelligence.

He wasn’t big enough for sports although he grew to be almost six feet tall by the time he’d graduated and was blessed with a metabolism that burned up the calories so he rarely gained weight. But when he was growing up, the other boys in school were taller and bigger than he was and better suited for sports so he contented himself to the books they all were supposed to study and became good at it.

Carson wasn’t handsome and was not, what girls liked to call sexy in school. He was more a plain looking boy, taking after the way his mother looked. But, his dad did play a part in the way he looked. He had his dad’s rugged look.

At any rate, Carson wasn’t burdened or distracted by girls chasing him around for any reason. As a result, he had more time to study and therefore became a notable student.

After high school, he went to a local junior college while living at home. Because money was always tight, he worked part time and managed to keep up the yard as well. When he’d graduated, he was accepted into the closest university and elected to study business finance.

He continued to work part time but did receive a small scholarship from the college.

When asked by the scholarship committee, he said, Dad will help me as much as he can, but it won’t be much. I’ll live at home and eat at home. That’ll save me a lot. And, I can use my mother’s old car to get back and forth. His mother died a shortly after he’d graduated. She managed to attend his graduation and smiled through it all even though her pain was intense by that time.

Except for Carson’s graduation that she was determined not to miss, she was bed ridden until she passed away. Her doctor said it was cancer and was amazed that she had lived as long as she had.

Carson was glad she lived long enough to see him graduate. It was what they often talked about over the dinner table. Carson was the first one in their families to attend college, let alone graduate.

After graduation, Carson was offered a job with an apartment management company in San Diego as an assistant manager. There were three assistants. They shared one office and reported to a company manager who reported to a Board. The company was owned by investors who also owned most of the apartment units the company managed.

Each of the assistants was assigned one or more apartment complexes to manage. Carson was given a list of handymen, roofers, plumbers, electricians, painters and carpenters, any sub-trade that worked on housing units.

When a friend asked what he did, Carson said, If somebody calls with a problem that we’re responsible for, I call one of the sub-trades on my list to fix it. When it’s fixed, I sign off on it before anybody gets paid. The company manager, the assistants’ boss, mostly sat in his office and delegated jobs to one of the assistants and if they didn’t hop-to, he’d give them hell. In fact, Carson and the two other assistants felt that was practically all he ever did, give them hell.

Well, they did acknowledge that he did one thing religiously. He took hour-long lunches and often came back smelling of beer. And, he frequently left the building mid-afternoon for a perfumed rendezvous with someone, someplace. He was married, but wasn’t wed to the concept, Carson noted.

*****

Carson gave his dad most of what he made to pay for his mother’s last medical bills, the ones not covered by Medicare, and to repay him for what his dad had lent him to get through school. His dad had refinanced their home, where Carson lived, to pay most of her medical bills, but didn’t quite cover them all, After she’d passed on, Carson, more or less, inherited his mother’s old car that he’d been using. It was on its last legs and had been since they’d bought it, but it still got him back and forth. His dad just signed it over to him.

After eighteen months on the job, Carson told his dad, Dad, I’m never going to make shit on this job. I’m an assistant manager and will always be an assistant manager to the lazy bastard who sits in his private office and tells us what to do. And, he makes all the money. So, he applied to law school and began attending classes at night, working during the day and still living at home.

So, with his usual zeal, he went to law school and graduated with honors. He felt he had a knack for trial work and looked forward to handling his first case after passing the bar.

Hoping to avoid being relegated to being someone’s assistant preparing briefs and interrogatories, he first tried to find a lawyer’s office needing someone to jump in and take on trial work, however menial. It didn’t matter to Carson how menial. He had heard the phrase, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. It became his battle cry. He knew that to get to the end of the journey, he had to take that first step and he searched for ways to do just that.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t find an opening with any decent law firm. The respectable ones all seemed to want someone with connections that’d bring in new clients and Carson didn’t have a single connection. His mother and father hadn’t made many friends over their lifetimes. They figured each other were the only friends they needed.

As a result, and to get trial experience right away, Carson began doing Legal Aid work.

He told his dad, When indigents, the poor people in this world, need an attorney, they don’t care if I just passed the bar and have never been to court. They’re desperate for a lawyer and my price is right. Low.

*****

Carson made a few dollars working at Legal Aid but still had to live at home. His dad, already showing his age, did what he could to help Carson but it wasn’t much. His dad cooked when he felt like it. When he didn’t, they either got something out, usually fast food, or Carson cooked something.

And, that was how they got along. Carl survived his last few years putting one foot in front of the other while Carson built a legal future one indigent case after another. He took every case that came in the legal aid door no matter how difficult or simple.

As he worked to gain experience, he learned the tricks of his trade. Since jury trials were the greatest challenge a lawyer faced in his practice, Carson dedicated himself to learning how to manage a jury, jurors to be accurate. He knew he had to bond with the jurors if he wanted to get their sympathy on a close case. Most of his legal aid cases were dead bang losers but he stayed optimistic and looked at all he took on as close cases he could win. That attitude kept him from wanting to throw in the towel on his cases at the earliest opportunity, usually after the DA’s first witness had been cross examined.

Carson was careful not to belittle law enforcement witnesses he had to cross examine. His law professors had told them that what goes around, comes around. Carson told his dad, We took that phrase to mean that policemen had long memories. If I make them look bad on the stand, they’ll want to get even. So, I treat ‘em with respect. Good idea, son, his dad agreed.

Carson knew most witnesses were inclined to shade the truth a bit and wanted the shading to be in his favor. And, his presentation to anyone he deemed important was as compelling as he could make it. He tried to give the impression of being both bright and honest and, he prided himself on being a good actor, someone who could change his persona to fit whatever case he had.

That acting ability enabled him to develop what he called his getting close to jurors approach during the voir dire or, the questioning of prospective jurors that lawyers did in the pre-trial stage of a trial. His goal was to have as many of the jurors that he could reach during the questioning stage, think of him as their friend, someone who would only tell the truth, someone they could trust. And, more importantly, he wanted them to think of him as someone they would want to vote for when they deliberated the case at the end of the trial.

He quickly recognized that elderly ladies were the most vulnerable to his friends approach. He figured many had lost their husbands and were lonely and wouldn’t turn away someone appearing to be a friend so he vowed to be one.

I’ll treat them like Mom. She was my friend, even in her last days. She didn’t want to be pitied, just treated like the person I’d always loved and respected.

Men, he knew were different. They didn’t want any BS, just respect. No supercilious or arrogant displays of importance as some attorneys proffered, he’d noticed when watching the facial reactions of the jurors when those lawyers questioned them. To avoid that reaction, Carson would treat them with respect and just give them the facts of the case before them. And, he stayed away from throwing big words that some lawyers did thinking they were impressing jurors with their intellect. All they were doing in reality was turning the jurors off.

Since most of his criminal cases, whether he wanted to come right out and say it or not, were losers, his plan was to shoot for a hung jury in his trials. From that, he figured to negotiate a lesser sentence with the DA, something with no prison or jail time.

If not, he’d go for a second hung jury and if he could get that, he knew the DA would be willing to talk about a reduced sentence. The DA always had a backlog of cases to try. And a guilty verdict, even those eventually watered down as the result of often unreal decisions by juries – those unable to reach a verdict and thusly ended up hung - was still a guilty verdict.

So, what if a perpetrator walked free and committed another crime? Crimes were going to happen. If one happened by a defendant who had been turned loose with a reduced sentence, because of a hung jury well, so be it. The DA knew the voting public didn’t pay close attention to details like that. Besides, anybody running against him would say anything to get elected, easily rebutted during a campaign.

Chapter 1

Carson’s break - at least he thought of it like that at the time – came from an attempted murder case. It was a case that came to him more accidentally than on purpose. And he’d discover it would have not only short-term importance, but long-term significance as well.

*****

The liquor store on the corner of a street at the fringes of downtown San Diego was moderately busy. Men mostly, walking hurriedly into the store and walking out more relaxed with a paper bag holding something their faces suggested they were looking forward to sampling.

The check-out stand near the door was manned by a comfortably dressed, middle-aged man with graying hair and a stomach that flopped out over a wide belt. His face held a slight smile for his customers. It was like he very well knew that what they were going to sample when they got it home was something he was also going to enjoy, even if only vicariously.

He was finishing with one customer as a