Says the private law firm investigating the city of Las Vegas’ sweetheart deal with golf course developer Bill Walters: You’re dragging your feet in getting us documents!

Says the city, in reply: Are not! Why we just handed you more than 18,000 pages of documents on … um, Monday. Yeah, it was Monday, because on Wednesday, we demanded you show up and tell us what you’ve been doing for the last three months, since you were assigned the case.

What, two days isn’t enough time to read 18,000 pages? It’s called Evelyn Wood, baby!

Yes, we made that dialogue up, but only to spare you gentle readers from having to slog through the stupid real-life remarks made by some members of the City Council on Wednesday, when, to nobody’s surprise, members of the law firm investigating the council didn’t show up to tell the subjects of their investigation how the investigation was going.

(Can you picture it? O.J. shows up at Marcia Clark’s office in downtown L.A., storms in on a meeting with her and Mark Fuhrman and demands to know if they found that bloody glove he’s been missing? Yeah, that happens.)

Too harsh? Well, OK, the only thing the City Council’s been accused of killing is the public trust, but still.

Don’t believe us? Check out this gem, from City Councilman Larry Brown: “I do know this firm has been borderline abusive as far as a lack of respect for the official communications process.”

Oh, sorry, we should translate, since Brown rarely speaks in English words and phrases. What he’s saying his — prepare to be shocked — investigators are showing up to interview people without telling them or City Manager Doug Selby beforehand!. We told you it was shocking.

Why, it sounds like those lawyers are actually using commonly accepted investigative techniques as they pursue this investigation of the Walters deal. Damn, what’s next? Subpoenas? Comparison of one witness’ testimony to another’s? When will these people stop?!

What, we wonder, would be the time interval between Selby getting a call about lawyers wanting to sit down with City Employee A and him calling his dark master, Mayor Oscar Goodman? Could that be measured without using the U.S. Navy’s atomic clock, we wonder? And what are the odds that nobody who was interviewed would be gently talked to by the city, either before or after the investigative interview, so officials could find out what investigators were curious about?

Hmmm.

Anyway, even though the city says it won’t release letters from the law firm investigating the Walters mess, my friend and colleague Jon Ralston has acquired them, and posted them on his blog for your reading pleasure. Seriously, Ralston’s blog is like the Christian Science Reading Room for All Material They Don’t Want You To See.

Oh, and this just in! The R-J’s new e-mail newsletter, dubbed eR-J, has flashed word that investigators have discovered the city spent even more money than previously disclosed to benefit Walters. That could be key to the investigation, since Metro Police and District Attorney David Roger have concluded that any crimes that may have been committed are too old to prosecute.

But, if new information has been unearthed, the situation could change. According to the eR-J flash, which you can sign up for if you’re an R-J subscriber, the previous investigation was “very limited” and that investigators have found some transactions that police investigators didn’t examine. (The letter apparently goes out of its way not to criticize the Metro investigation, however.)

UPDATE: The city of Las Vegas didn’t say it wouldn’t release the letters between it and the law firm investigating the Walters deal; in fact, the city did release those letters, today, in response to media requests made Wednesday. It’s also releasing the 18,000 pages of documents sought by the firm, for the low, low price of $25 ($5 per CD for the whole five CD set).