The Last Jewish Gangster: The Early Years

By David Larson

“A captivating and different kind of story” about the life of Bugsy Siegel’s godson, from the author “who captured his voice” (Nick Pileggi, author/screenwriter of Goodfellas and Casino).

In 1944 Brooklyn, newborn Michael J. Hardy is rejected by his mother so she can run with gangster Bugsy Siegel, Hardy’s godfather. Shirley Rook rose to the top of the criminal ranks. As the Queen of New York City crime, she laundered Mob money, ran the city’s largest bookmaking operation, and handed payouts to dirty cops, politicians, and judges.

To win his mother’s love and respect, Hardy became a fearless gangster. Throughout his career as a mercenary, he robbed banks and drug dealers alike, ran a kidnapping ring, and even became a hired gun. At his lowest, he ended up doing time for his mother’s counterfeiting operation in Mexico’s most dangerous prison.

Hardy’s criminal code of conduct combines elements of tough Ukrainian Jew and warm Southern Baptist, whether dealing with family and friends or fellow inmates during a combined twenty-six years spent in prisons and jails. He maintained this characteristic gregarious strength throughout his astonishing life in which Hardy was shot eleven times, committed fourteen hits for the Mob, twice wore wires for Rudy Giuliani to nab dirty cops, wrote a letter to JFK to get out of military prison, choked the Hillside Strangler, shared prison time with notorious criminals, and even spent ten years in Hollywood, cast in non-speaking roles in B-movies.

“A fascinating character study of an unapologetic criminal. David S. Larson masterfully weaves this tale in Michael Hardy’s own words, resulting in a powerful, inside story of a gangster’s life.” —Cathy Scott, Los Angeles Times-bestselling author

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781957288215

Book preview

Meeting Michael J. Hardy

A gray closely trimmed Van Dyke beard jutted out from a massive jaw belonging to the gangster in front of me. He took off his aviator sunglasses, exposing dull gray eyes that had seen too much. His bald head shined in the restaurant’s dangling orange-coned lights.

How ya doin’? were the first words Michael J. Hardy said to me in his thick Brooklyn accent, a cautious smile on his face.

We shook hands, his grip firm, while he sized up everything about me.

I nodded. Fine.

I didn’t notice his wheelchair until he moved its joystick spinning it aside and backing up with the skill of a teen playing a video game. He motioned with his hand toward a chair at a handicap-accessible table by the front door of Li’l B’s Restaurant on El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego.

Siddown, he commanded as polite as he knew how.

I took the seat, plopping my zippered black writing binder on the aqua Formica table. He sat across from me, positioned to watch anyone who entered or exited. A faded Hawaiian-print short-sleeve shirt tried to cover his massive girth—I guessed 300 pounds. Black sweatpants clung to thin legs that ended in tan orthopedic shoes that would never wear out. A huge brass Star of David hung from a thick silver chain around his bulging neck. I thought he might be eighty years old—I was off by ten years.

I picked up the menu and glanced it over, full of names for fifties diner food. Anything you’d recommend?

Yeah. Everything. Theresa’ll be back in a minute.

Who’s Theresa?

My wife.

Someone married you?

I took a business card from my shirt pocket and slid it across the table to Hardy. Four months earlier I beat out 137 people to adapt a romance novel by best-selling author Brenda Jackson into a screenplay. That gave me enough confidence in my writing to get business cards.

He picked it up and snapped the thick paper, a slow grin crossing his face as he read it aloud. David S. Larson. Author. I became real to him at that moment.

Check this out. Hardy leaned in; his intensity jacked up to a nine out of ten. I worked with this fuckin’ guy in Hollywood. He promised he’d write my book and get me a movie deal. His tone suggested I might do the same.

What happened?

Did you kill him?

He jabbed a thick index finger toward me, like he was poking that guy in the chest. Nothin’. Fuckin’ Bobby Debrino. He snorted. I think he was just scammin’ Nick the whole time.

Who are these people?

His eyes checked to see if I was offended by his language or his anger. The simple nod I gave told Hardy I could handle it.

Nick Pileggi asked Bobby to work with me. I’ve known Nick over thirty years. He sensed I didn’t know Nick’s name. "Nick wrote the books for Goodfellas and Casino and worked on the movies with Scorsese." He took a sip of coffee to let me dwell on that for a moment.

Scorsese? Goodfellas?

I bobbed my head. Wow.

Bobby Debrino had the same name as a good friend of mine from Brooklyn that I pulled jobs with when I was eighteen. I thought that was some kinda sign, you know, if you believe in that kinda stuff.

Hardy looked over my shoulder and his eyes brightened. I turned to find a woman, maybe sixty, opening the door. Long dark hair, thin, no makeup, pretty, smoker’s dull teeth when she smiled. She walked past me, took Hardy’s hand, and bent to kiss him on the cheek. I stood and she stuck out her hand.

I’m Theresa. Michael’s wife.

We shook. David Larson. Nice to meet you. I handed her a card.

She glanced at it like it was just another one of her husband’s frantic stabs at hope. A weariness clung to her, I imagined from years of doing Hardy’s bidding.

I started in. Well, let me tell you a little about me. Apparently, someone you know attended an opening paragraph slam I won a month ago and thought I might be a good writer for your story.

Hardy nodded. Yeah, that’s what he said.

I brought along the paragraph. Would you like to hear it? At the time, I had no other published stories to show him, and I hoped this might impress. Plus, I needed the money. I’d find out later there was no money, just the opposite. They needed a hand up.

Theresa and Michael glanced at each other, then back to me. I took out the single sheet of paper, reminding myself to read slowly and with purpose.

It’s from the first chapter from a biography I’m writing for a friend who spent fifteen years in California prisons as an accomplice to a Hells Angel murder.

I been in six different prisons in the state. Maybe I know him.

James Hutching. Everyone calls him Hutch.

Hardy shook his head. Nah.

"Anyway, my opening paragraph had to be under a hundred sixty-three words. This one’s a hundred forty-seven words and it’s called Hutch." I cleared my throat.

I’m fifteen and it’s a warm July Saturday night in 1973. I climb the trellis on the side of my father’s ranch home in Lakeside, a dusty suburb east of San Diego. The bougainvillea which once threaded its way through the worn green slats has long been dead from years of neglect, but its thorns still attack my hands. I stand on the roof overlooking the backyard where a four-piece band plays loud and lousy rock and roll. Three kegs and a table strewn with hard liquor and drugs does its best to keep a horde of Hells Angels and their women occupied. I crouch by the roof’s edge and twist a 40-ounce Louisville Slugger in my hands. Sweat drips into my eyes. My heart thumps in my ears. I wait for my father to step into view below me so I can bash his brains out.

I whispered the last few words for effect, but also not to upset any restaurant patrons nearby. I waited.

Theresa reached over and patted Hardy’s left forearm, a blurred blue eagle tattoo covering most of it. He sat up in his wheelchair and leaned in. I got his attention and respect, for the moment.

My godfather was Benny Siegel, everyone else called him Bugsy. I been in jails and prisons for twenty-six years of my life, been shot eleven times, twice by the Gotti brothers in twenty-four hours, and wore wires for Giuliani to get some dirty cops, and… It was if the tsunami of words got stuck inside him and needed to be dislodged. He turned to Theresa.

Tell David about Mexican prison, she urged.

Yeah. I did a year in La Mesa del Diablo. You know what that means? he asked.

I shrugged. Something about the devil?

The devil’s table.

The waitress appeared and took our orders, Hardy getting their version of a grand slam.

While we waited for our food, he went on about how he killed three men in the Mexican prison where he worked for a gay drug lord, how he met Nick Pileggi, worked in Hollywood for ten years, and rattled off a string of celebrities he dealt with. He told me how he escaped from jail, had six law enforcement agencies after him, a nationwide manhunt, help a prisoner escape from prison so the warden would get fired, ran one of the Mob’s fingers in their Five Fingers international car theft ring in the early seventies, had Sammy the Bull Gravano work in his crew for three years robbing everything from gas stations to stick up of bank deposits, robbed over two dozen banks, robbed hundreds of drug dealers, and more. The names and crimes he threw out came at me like a runaway train.

The food arrived and gave us all a chance to breathe. Hardy smothered his plate with Tabasco and dug in, his fork constantly moving. He smeared large pats of butter on buttermilk biscuits he downed in two bites, and gulped his orange juice. Theresa took a few pecks of food off his plate and asked for coffee refills.

Are you for real?

Theresa asked about my family, and I gave her my two-minute snapshot—born in Minnesota, grew up in California, the Pasadena area, moved to New England for twelve years, and ended with, Do you and Theresa have kids?

Not Theresa, but I got three—no, four, Hardy answered.

I nearly asked him why the correction, but let it go. Well, what do you think? Want to try working together and see how it goes?

Sure. What’s your schedule like? Hardy asked, tugging on his goatee.

Wednesdays, early afternoons are best for me. Start with two hours and see how far we get? That work for you?

Hardy looked down to his lap and slapped his legs in resignation. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.

So started our weekly interviews over the next two and a half years. Often our get-togethers were pointless, Hardy wrapped around the axle of some personal problem in his life—eviction from his Section 8 apartment, tax refund not showing, his old BMW getting towed, never enough food, never enough money, getting banned from a restaurant. Yet, I waded through all of that patiently, waiting for him to get to his truth, allowing me to find his voice.

It took five months to earn Hardy’s trust, enough for him to stop telling me what he did, and tell me why he did it. It was all about his mother, Shirley. She rejected him so she could run with the biggest names in organized crime. That left Hardy thinking, You love them and not me. You think they’re tough. Watch me, then you’ll love me.

In December 2013, I met the man who heard me read that opening paragraph, and introduced me to Hardy.

It was Hardy’s therapist, Dr. El.

I could have started Michael J. Hardy’s story anywhere—so many seminal moments in his life. I chose late 1990 when he was forty-six, a year that began with everything coming together for him. He was on a Geraldo segment on hit men where he wore a hat, fake beard, and dark sunglasses as a disguise, but that didn’t last long. After he got angry at two of the so-called contract killers on stage with him, he challenged them, tore off his disguise, and looked directly into the camera proclaiming, This is what a real hit man looks like.

The movie Father Hood was going to be released in 1991. Hardy received $150,000 from Buena Vista Pictures, based loosely on a single event in Hardy’s life. With the money, he bought two San Diego taxicab medallions. He was to be a part of the promotional junket for the film along with stars Patrick Swayze and Halle Berry. He was not happy about the casting. She’s pretty and all, but that’s not the way it was.

On July 4, 1990, his mother, Shirley, died from diabetes complications. A month before her death, Hardy finally had the opportunity to sit down with her for a come-to-Jesus meeting, to get answers for all the whys about their relationship. Three months after her death, in October 1990, his imprisoned son, Robert, fingered Hardy for a murder he committed in 1985, where Robert helped bury the body.

After Buena Vista Pictures, a division of Disney, heard about Hardy’s arrest, they effectively shelved the movie, doing a soft release years later.

I met with Michael Hardy every week for two and a half years in his low-rent studio apartment, really a converted garage. He died on January 2, 2016, from complications from diabetes that took half of both feet, heart and lung problems, a stroke, a broken heart because his mother never loved him, and eleven bullets, a Gotti piece of lead still weeping lead from his belly.

This is his story.

1

Arrested

NUMBERS. Sometimes that’s all I see. There are seventeen links in the ankle chains LA County sheriffs use to transport prisoners. I should know. It’s twenty-six miles from Wayside Super Max to the Van Nuys court. I’ve traveled that road a dozen times. And I’ve learned that the three worst things that can come at you in life, except a crazy wife with a loaded gun, are: (1) United States Army v. Michael J. Hardy; (2) United States of America v. Michael J. Hardy; and, (3) State of California v. Michael J. Hardy for murder in the first degree.

I experienced (1) and (2) before I turned thirty, so it was only a matter of time, lifestyle, and simple math before I faced (3) somewhere down my long dark road. Accordingly, on Friday, November 2, 1990, at 6:37 p.m., my final number arrived.

I pull into the parking garage of my dead mother’s condo in La Jolla, California, and spot a man in the shadows. Another man sits behind the wheel of an idling dark unmarked sedan. I stop, put my orange ’75 Dodge Tradesman van in reverse, and back out slowly.

Three minutes later, I’m boxed in at the east dead end of Nobel Drive. Glaring spotlights and pulsing blue and red lights flood my windshield. A bullhorn screeches, Michael Hardy, hands where we can see them and step out of the van.

My first impulse is to run. I reach under my seat for my .45 Colt, but it’s not there. I forgot, I’m still on parole and can’t carry. I glance at my six-month-old granddaughter. She’s asleep. Innocent. She in the arms of Cindy, my daughter. Her jaw is set. Cindy’ll follow my lead, whatever it is—she has dozens of times. But when I look to Debra Anne, my twelve-year-old daughter, all I see are frightened eyes. There are worse things that can happen to a daughter than to watch her father get arrested, again.

I open the door and step out, thrusting my arms in the air. As instructed, I place my hands behind my head, interlocking my fingers. I sense the loaded shotguns and pistols on me.

The bullhorn blares, Hardy, step backward, away from the van toward the lights.

I stare into the windshield of the van and mouth my shame to my girls.

Sorry.

I count. Thirty-one steps, each one farther from my family. Someone grabs my wrists, cuffs me, and slams me onto the hood of a patrol car. I crane my neck to see officers rush the van with their guns drawn. They yell at my family to step out one at a time. I take a deep gulp and look away.

Thirty minutes later, two San Diego County sheriffs dump me in the Vista County Jail. While I’m being fingerprinted, I ask, Why am I being arrested?

They mumble something about wanting to question me about some bad checks.

Yeah, like you’re gonna send a dozen cops for that.

I know how that goes down. It’s a lot of horseshit. I know they know it, and I know they know I know it. It becomes more than horseshit when two homicide detectives from Van Nuys enter the jail three hours later and take possession of their prisoner, me.

They’re standard issue Valley detectives. Nothing special, although one of them reminds me of Jack Webb from Dragnet, with his cut-the-bullshit gruff voice. Shut the fuck up, Hardy, and get in.

They toss me in the backseat of their unmarked car, and we drive north on the I-5.

Their badges. The call from my son a month ago.

I figure out most of it during the three-hour ride. There’s something I did five years before that’s been waiting to be unearthed, literally.

As it turns out, my son, Robert Hardy, who’s twenty-nine at the time and doing a seven-year stretch in Corcoran State Prison in California for burglary, caught the eye of a pretty girl in the visiting room. He’s got two years left before he makes parole, but his hormones take over and he decides he doesn’t want to do any more time. So, he decides to cut a deal to get his sentence reduced by giving up a murderer. Me. His father.

He drew the cops a map that showed where my dead wife’s body was located in the backyard of a home I rented off Sherman Way in North Hollywood. Robert should know. He helped me bury her.

He’s a lousy negotiator. He caves in when they threaten him with additional charges of aiding and abetting a murder. So, no reduced sentence for him. But they issue a warrant for my arrest. I didn’t know it, but I’d been a wanted fugitive, again.

After we arrive at the Van Nuys Jail at two in the morning, they dump me in an interrogation room. Everything’s small and dirty. Stale sweat from the last occupant hangs in the air. A scratched black table with four unpadded chairs, two-bulb buzzing fluorescent light overhead. A mirror, no doubt a one-way to an adjoining room. I can’t spot the microphones, but they’re in here. I dig where they’re coming from but don’t give a shit. I’ve been through this drill dozens of times before.

They’ll leave me in here to ponder my situation and hope I melt. They’ll walk out and jump back in a few seconds later to scare me. They’ll disappear for five minutes, then burst in to get me all hinky. After thirty minutes of watching me through their mirror and trying their tactics, and no doubt looking at my rap sheet, the two detectives realize I’m not their usual suspect.

They come back in and sit across from me, one leaning in, one leaning back. They know I’m not going to break. Not unless I’m feeling generous, or they get lucky.

Neither of those is gonna happen.

I check them out. I know their type. They’re Pete and Repeat to me, because I’m acquainted with their back-and-forth tag team approach.

Pete pulls out a small plastic card and reads their obligatory Miranda statement. He ends with, Do you understand your rights as I have explained them to you?

Yes.

It was so much easier for you before 1966 when you’d bounce me around for a couple of hours. Pound on me with a phone book. Break a few ribs. Maybe my nose. Now you’re all polite. Now you’re pussies.

Would you like a lawyer at this time? Repeat asks.

Why would I want a lawyer?

They sit straighter. They’re pleased. Well, here’s the situation, Mr. Hardy, Pete says, clearing his throat, we received an anonymous tip that you buried someone in the backyard of a home near Sherman Way.

I guess you got a letter from my son then.

They glance at each other quickly and try to hide their surprise. Why would you mention your son? Repeat asks.

Listen. You found my wife in the backyard, right? I buried her there.

They work to conceal their satisfaction.

You think I’m stupid? You think I’m confessing?

Okay. So, how’d she die? Pete asks.

What did Robert tell you?

Again, they glance at each other.

You call yourselves detectives?

Come on, guys, it was self-defense. Now, why don’t you send your forensics team out there to do something other than dig in the dirt? It’s been five years. Maybe look in the living room walls and ceiling.

They attempt to hide their embarrassment.

Look, when you finally figure out what happens next, come wake me up. I’m done now. I’m tired.

I lay my head on the table and fall asleep before they close the door. They leave for a few hours. When they return, they book me for first-degree murder.

Since it’s a Friday, it’ll be three days until my arraignment. I wait in a cell by myself. They usually put someone in with me, hoping I talk. Maybe confess. They know that’s not gonna happen.

I shuffle into court Monday morning for my arraignment and a nervous, just-out-of-law-school public defender guides me to a table. Maybe his name’s Carlson. I stand next to his cheap gray suit while he whispers something in my ear. I don’t listen.

A tall Black bailiff calls out my case number and name. The judge, a fifty-something bureaucrat with short dike red hair glances down at the folder, does a double-take, and looks at me.

How does the defendant plea to the charge of murder in the first degree with the special circumstance of depraved indifference?

There was nothing special about it.

Not guilty, your honor, my public defender responds. Now, in the question of bail—

The judge interrupts, What does the prosecution recommend?

The state requests bail be set at three hundred thousand dollars, your honor, answers the suit at the next table.

So ordered. The judge inspects her calendar. Discovery hearing is set for ten days. Friday, November 15, and your public defender will be a Mr. McGee. The judge raps her gavel.

The bailiff barks, Next case.

Like calling out a number at a midtown Jewish deli, the courtroom staff begins to shuffle with dispensing one prisoner and his corresponding set of documents and lawyers, and moving on to the next. I don’t budge. Everything stops.

I raise my cuffed hands. Your honor, if I may. I’d like an opportunity to speak with my family.

She lowers her glasses and looks at me with disgust. Why? Is there anyone left?

So, that’s how it’s gonna be.

She nods to a deputy sheriff, just another overweight Black man with a badge and a gun. He moves to usher me out. I’m six-one and 250 pounds of anger, so I don’t have to go anywhere if I don’t want to—but I comply. Behind me, the courtroom buzz returns to normal.

I’m shuttled over to Wayside Super Max where they hold all prisoners awaiting trial. First thing on my list is to check out McGee. Each time I ask a prisoner who has McGee, my question is the same, How’d it go in court?

Every answer is the same. Twenty-five to life.

I’ve gotta get another lawyer.

Five days in and I’ve already interviewed Johnny Cochran. By the way he phrases his questions, I know he’ll only help me if I’m Black, which I’m not. Next is Robert Shapiro. He’ll represent me if he gets a million dollars and has a friend whisk away a key witness to somewhere halfway around the world, say Tahiti. I’m running out of options.

I’ve already burned through nine days with McGee fumbling around as he juggles his other cases. My superior court hearing is tomorrow, and it’s not looking good. At lunch, I bump into Bulldog, a short bald kid with bird tattoos who’s in for robbery. He mentions a lawyer named Jimmy Blatt who has a few victories under his belt. He gives me Jimmy’s number.

He goes on to tell me how Jimmy got Donny Holland off on a case involving the cartel. Unfortunately, minutes after Donny got released, he was gunned down by two Pablo Escobar assassins in the parking lot outside the Van Nuys courthouse.

Hey, at least he free for a while.

I phone Jimmy and set up a time for an interview. Really, we’re going to check each other out. He tells me he’s read about me in the papers, that he’ll be present in the gallery at my hearing tomorrow, and he’s interested. That gets my attention.

At my preliminary hearing, McGee gives me what I expect—nothing. He doesn’t have a clue what to ask the medical examiner or my daughter. Marsh Goldstein is the prosecutor. He’s got some kind of deformed hand. When he questions the medical examiner, he all but confirms there’s no way to tell how the body died. Absolutely none.

But a fucking crippled prosecutor? I don’t need that kind of sympathy from a jury.

I glance around the gallery for Jimmy but have no idea what he looks like. A few minutes later, the judge offers me up for trial in superior court for murder.

Thanks a lot, McGee.

That afternoon, a guard comes to the dormitory where I’m housed with fifty-nine other prisoners and yells, Hardy. Michael Hardy. Visitor.

I’m escorted down three long ramps and a final corridor to the visitors’ area. It reeks of gray paint and disinfectant. That’s where I’m able to talk by phone across a one-inch-thick wall of dirty Plexiglas. I sit down and pick up a black phone with a steel-ribbed cord. Jimmy Blatt mirrors me and does the same. We both lean in and take a few seconds to check each other out.

First impressions? I’m not sure what he thinks of me. I wear an LA County-issued dark blue jumpsuit, long dirty blond hair, and a Fu Manchu mustache. Some people say I’ve got a taller and heavier Robert Redford vibe going, but I don’t see it. I catch him looking at the eagle tattoo on my left forearm, the arm attached to the hand that punched, choked, stabbed, and shot for three decades.

Jimmy’s dressed like a member of the Mob, the men my mother, Shirley, used to hang with back in the forties and fifties. That’s when she dated and ran with some of the biggest names in crime—Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel, Joey Adonis, and Meyer Lansky.

Jimmy wears a powder blue silk suit, a blue shirt with lavender pinstripes, white collar and white cuffs, a matching lavender tie. Gold cuff links and tie pin with lapis lazuli. Rolex. Gold wedding ring, and he’s got a cell phone.

Well, at least I’ll have the best-dressed lawyer.

Jimmy nods. Your lawyer, McGee, he should’ve requested for a motion to dismiss based on the medical examiner’s lack of any kind of substantiating evidence for a finding of death. At least he could have asked for a continuance.

I shrug. Public defenders. You get what you pay for.

Jimmy points to my neck. You don’t look Jewish.

I touch my Star of David and try not to react. What’s that supposed to mean?

Shalom, Michael.

You? Jewish?

Sure. Bar Mitzvahed, the whole nine yards, back in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. You know, the town where they have Groundhog Day.

I give him a weak smile. Mine come from Russia. Old school. Ashkenazi. I haven’t been to temple in years. The other side of my family is Southern Baptist. I discovered Jesus in 1974 during a stretch in Danbury.

Jimmy’s forehead wrinkles.

Hey, I could sit here all day and tell you what a change that’s been in my life, but I think we have more pressing issues. What you can do for me?

Why don’t I start by telling you how I operate, Michael.

I nod.

He parts his perfectly manicured fingers. We need three things to win your case.

What are they?

I know the law and I’ll do anything, within the bounds of the law, to win. You can check my record. It’s good. Second is influence. I’ve worked in the superior court system in this town for over a decade, and I used to be the DA here. I know where to go and who to see to get things done. The third is luck, and I think we’ve got some of that working for us already.

What you talking about?

The body. They already showed us they don’t have anything on proximate cause. No proof of death. He studies my reaction when he adds, And your son, Robert, it’ll be hard for a jury to see him as a credible witness with him in prison now, even though he helped you bury your wife.

Yeah.

Look, it’s late and I just wanted to get together. If you think this might work, you know, you and me, why don’t we meet Monday morning, say ten o’clock, to discuss your case and my fees?

Tell me now, how much?

If it’s all right with you, we’ll go over all that Monday when I’ve got a better handle on the intricacies of your case and the time involved with motions, expert witnesses, case law, and a trial, if it comes to that.

Okay.

You better not think you’re Shapiro. I don’t have a million bucks.

A skinny guard with graying sideburns escorts me into a private visitor’s room Monday morning. Jimmy’s already there, dressed to the nines, this time in dark blue. He motions for me to take a seat. A blank yellow legal pad is in front of him with a Montblanc pen resting on top. Two water bottles are on the table. He drums his fingers. Scattered across the table are papers he collected over the weekend. Even upside down, I recognize some. Rap sheets from New York, Florida, North Carolina, New Jersey, California, Interpol, and notes from my time in Mexico.

When they’re organized like that, for the first time I notice how I’ve aged and how angry I look in my arrest photos. Jimmy has newspaper clippings, a recent one written by Michael Connelly from the LA Times.

He clears his throat. You’ve had an extremely prolific, uh, career, Michael. On two coasts, and beyond.

I grin. Yeah, I’ve been in a few scrapes.

Then the severity of my situation hits me when Jimmy opens a manila folder and pulls out a single sheet of paper. He reads slowly, The State of California versus Michael J. Hardy for murder in the first degree, with the special circumstance of depraved indifference.

The words sound different when he says them, like all the hope’s been sucked out of the room.

I hold my breath.

2

My Lawyer

Jimmy studies the paper for a few seconds, puts it away, then looks up. He cocks his head and smiles, Why are you so worried, Michael?

Whadda ya mean? Everyone I know who’s buried a body in a backyard is on death row.

You probably already know this, but this is how the American criminal justice system works in a murder case. A defendant needs two elements to have them served up to superior court for first-degree murder—corpus and proximate cause. In plain English, a body and how that body got to be dead. Murder is by far the hardest crime to prove.

"Yeah, I know. But this is my murder charge."

Relax, Michael. They screwed up big-time when they claimed head trauma as the cause of death. In their hurry to dig up the body, they completely crushed the skull. They can’t prove how she died. We’re going to have some fun when I get that medical examiner on the stand. And by the way, I told the cameramen inside the court, if I see one second of Michael Hardy’s face on the news, I’ll sue their asses.

So, $75,000 ends up being the price tag for putting my life in Jimmy Blatt’s hands. A bargain if he can save me from the gas chamber. We schedule to meet Wednesday to really get into it.

Tuesday night I have a hard time sleeping, pacing in my cell. Four short strides, back and forth, over and over. Everything’s been pointing to this kind of crime all my life.

The next morning Jimmy and I meet in the holding cell of Judge Judith Ashmann’s court. Jimmy notices how tense I am.

He places a hand on my shoulder, attempting to calm me. Listen, Michael. You can ease up. I’ve gone over all the evidence and reviewed the case law. I even spoke to the DA. I think you’ll be pleased. I’m positive I can save you from the gas chamber.

What the fuck!

Save me from the gas chamber, Jimmy? You got it all the fuck wrong. I don’t want you to save me from the fucking gas chamber. And what the fuck are you doing talking to the DA anyway? I thought we’re gonna strategize every move together.

"Michael, this is normal legal activity. I went to meet with him to find out what they’ve got and how strong they think their case is. Also, I want to start undermining their confidence. I planted some seeds