Michael Connelly - The Gods of Guilt

“April Fool’s,” I said to myself.

“What’s that, Boss?” Earl asked.

“Nothing, Earl. Just talking to myself.”

“You want me to go in and get you somethin’?”

“No, I’m good. You need a coffee?”

“No, not me.”

The Lincoln was set up with a printer on an equipment shelf on the front passenger seat—I bet those guys in the other Lincolns never thought of that. I printed out a copy of the filing and then closed the computer. When Earl handed the printout back over the seat, I read the motion in its entirety one more time. Then I leaned against the door and tried to figure out what the play was and what my part was supposed to be.

I thought it was pretty obvious that the confidential informant repeatedly mentioned in the document was Gloria Dayton. The inference was clearly that her arrest and my negotiation of a disposition on her behalf were orchestrated by the DEA and Agent Marco. It sure made a good story but I—being one of the players in the story—had a hard time believing it. I tried to recall in as great a detail as possible the case that brought Gloria Dayton and Hector Arrande Moya together. I remembered meeting Gloria at the downtown women’s jail and her telling me the details of her arrest. Without any prompting from her I saw the possibility of trading information from Gloria in exchange for a pretrial diversion. It had been wholly my idea. Gloria was not the kind of client who understood or even knew the law. And as far as Marco went, I had never met or spoken to him in my life.

I had to consider, however, that Gloria had been coached to say just enough to get the wheels turning inside her attorney’s head. It seemed like a long shot but I had to admit to myself that if the last five months proved anything to me, it was that Gloria had dimensions I didn’t know about. Maybe this was the ultimate revelation about her: that she had used me as a pawn for the DEA.

Impatiently I called Cisco again and asked what progress he had made running down the names I had given him.

“You gave me the names less than a half hour ago,” Cisco protested. “I know you want this stuff quick but a half hour?”

“I need to know what is going on with this. Now.”

“Well, I’m going as fast as I can. I can tell you about the woman but I got nothing yet on the agent. That’s going to be a tough nut to crack.”

“Okay, then tell me about the woman.”

There were a few moments of silence while Cisco apparently collected his notes.

“Okay, Kendall Roberts,” he began. “She’s thirty-nine and lives on Vista Del Monte in Sherman Oaks. She’s got a record going back to the midnineties. A lot of prostitutions and conspiracy to commits. You know, the usual escort stuff. So she’s a hooker. Or I should say, she was. Her record’s been clean the past six years.”

That would have made her active when Gloria Dayton was working as an escort under the name Glory Days. I suspected that Roberts and Dayton knew each other back then, or had known of each other, and that was the reason for the subpoena from Fulgoni.

“Okay,” I said. “What else?”

“Nothing else,” Cisco said. “What I told you is what I’ve got. Why don’t you call me back in an hour.”

“No, I’ll just see you tomorrow. I want everybody in the boardroom at nine tomorrow morning. Can you tell the others?”

“Sure. This is including Bullocks?”

“Yes, Bullocks, too. I want everybody there and everybody brainstorming on this latest thing. It could be just what we need on La Cosse.”

“You mean the straw man defense—Moya killed Dayton?”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, well, we’ll all be there in the boardroom at nine.”

“And in the meantime you gotta find out who this Marco guy is. We really need it.”

“I’m doing my best already. I’m on it.”

“Just find this guy.”

“Easy for you to say. Meantime, what are you going to be doing?”

It was a good question—good enough to prompt a hesitation on my part before I knew the answer.

“I’m going up to the Valley to talk to Kendall Roberts.”

Cisco’s rejection of that plan was swift.

“Wait, Mickey, I should be there. You don’t know what you’re getting into up there with this woman. You don’t know who she’ll be with. You ask the wrong question and there will be trouble. Let me meet you there.”

“No, you stay on Marco. I have Earl and I’ll be fine. I won’t ask the wrong question.”

Cisco knew me well enough to know that one protest was enough, because I wouldn’t be changing my mind about going up to brace Roberts.

“Well,” he said, “then happy hunting. Call me if you need me.”

“Will do.”

I closed the phone.

“All right, Earl, let’s hit it. Sherman Oaks and step on it.”

Earl dropped the car into drive and pulled away from the curb.

I felt my adrenaline surge with the car’s velocity. New things were happening. Things that I didn’t understand yet. But that was okay. I promised myself that I would soon understand everything.

13

It seemed likely to me that Fernando Valenzuela would deliver his subpoenas in the order in which he had asked me about the names. The Edward R. Roybal Federal Building was just a few blocks from the Criminal Courts Building. He would probably go there first to try to serve the paperwork on James Marco and then head up to the Valley to serve Kendall Roberts. It would not be an easy thing for Val to get to Marco. Federal agents do their best to avoid accepting subpoenas. I knew this from experience. Usually service ended up having to be arranged through a supervisor who would reluctantly accept a subpoena on behalf of the agent in question. The target agent almost never received the subpoena personally.

I believed that the timing of all of this gave me an edge on Val. If Roberts happened to be home, I would be able to get to her long before he did. Of course, I had no idea what getting there first would accomplish, but my hope was that I would be able to talk to Roberts in an unguarded moment, before she knew she was being drawn into some sort of federal case involving an imprisoned cartel kingpin.

I still needed to know more about Roberts than her name. It sounded like Roberts and Gloria Dayton were in similar circles in the 1990s and at least into the beginning of the new century. Cisco’s information was a starting point but it wasn’t enough. The best way to go into a conversation with a player in a case is to go in with more knowledge than the player has.

I Googled Sylvester Fulgoni Jr. on my cell and then called the number listed. A woman with a deep, smoky voice that seemed more appropriate for taking calls for reservations at Boa than at a law office put me on hold. We were on the 101 Freeway now and in heavy traffic. I figured we were still a half hour from Sherman Oaks, so I wasn’t bothered by the wait or the Mexican cantina music playing in my ear.

I was leaning against the window and about to shut my eyes when the voice of a young man announced itself in my ear.

“This is Sylvester Fulgoni Jr. What can I do for you, Mr. Haller?”

I sat up straight and pulled a legal pad from my briefcase up onto my thigh.

“Well, I guess you could start by telling me why you hit me with a subpoena today at the courthouse. I’m thinking you must be a young lawyer, Mr. Fulgoni, because that whole thing was unnecessary. All you needed to do was call me. It’s called professional courtesy. Lawyers don’t drop paper on other lawyers—especially not in front of their peers in the courthouse.”

There was a pause and then an apology.

“I am truly sorry about that and embarrassed, Mr. Haller. You’re right, I’m a young lawyer just trying to make my way, and if I handled it wrong, then I certainly apologize.”