Michael Connelly - The Gods of Guilt

“You’re forgiven.”

I nodded. There was nothing else to say at that point, but I still didn’t move from my position on the front doorstep. The silence became awkward and she finally broke it.

“Is there…”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m just standing here like a goof or something.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, I, uh…you know, the real reason I came back is I wanted to talk about that question you asked. I mean, from earlier today.”

“What question?”

She leaned against the door frame.

“You asked me about the past, you know? About how I lived with the past. My past.”

She nodded. She remembered now.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was being sarcastic and that was out of line. I had no business—”

“No, it’s fine. Sarcasm or not, the question was valid. But then that guy knocked on the door with the phony subpoena and I, you know, never answered the question.”

“So you came back to answer it.”

I smiled uneasily.

“Well, sort of. I thought…that the past for both of us was something…”

I started laughing with embarrassment and shook my head.

“Actually, I don’t know what I’m saying here.”

“Would you like to come in, Mr. Haller?”

“I would love to but you have to stop calling me that. Call me Michael or Mickey or Mick. You know, Gloria used to call me Mickey Mantle.”

She held the door wide and I stepped into the entry area.

“I’ve also been called Mickey Mouth on occasion. You know, because lawyers are sometimes called mouthpieces.”

“Yes, I get it. I was about to have a glass of red wine. Would you like one?”

I almost asked if she had something stronger but thought better of it.

“That would be perfect.”

She closed the door and we went into the kitchen to get glasses and pour the wine. She handed me a glass and then took up her own. She leaned against the counter and looked at me.

“Cheers,” I said.

“Cheers,” she said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Your coming here, this isn’t some sort of thing you have, is it?”

“What do you mean? What thing?”

“You know with women…like me.”

“I don’t—”

“I’m retired. I don’t do it anymore, and if you went through this whole damsel in distress thing with the subpoena because you thought—”

“No, not at all. Look, I’m sorry. This is embarrassing and I should probably just go.”

I put my glass on the counter.

“You’re right,” I said. “I should’ve just called.”

I was halfway to the hallway when she stopped me.

“Wait, Mickey.”

I looked back at her.

“I didn’t say you should’ve just called. I said you could’ve just called. There’s a difference.”

She took my glass off the counter and brought it to me.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I needed to get that out of the way. You’d be surprised how my former life still affects my current one.”

I nodded.

“I get it.”

“Let’s go sit down.”

We went into the living room and took the same seats we sat in earlier in the day—across from each other, a coffee table between us. The conversation was stilted at first. We exchanged banal pleasantries and I complimented the wine like the expert oenophile I was not.

I finally asked her how she ended up with a yoga studio and she matter-of-factly explained that a former client from her escort days had loaned her the initial investment. It reminded me of my attempt to help Gloria Dayton but obviously with different results.

“I think for some of the girls, they really don’t want to get out,” Kendall said. “They get what they need from it—on a lot of levels. So they may talk about wanting out but they never do it. I got lucky. I wanted out, and there was someone there to help me. How’d you end up being a lawyer?”

She had expertly if not abruptly thrown the lead back to me and I responded with the basic explanation about following a family tradition. When I told her my father had been Mickey Cohen’s attorney, her eyes showed no recognition.

“Way before your time,” I said. “He was a gangster out here in the forties and fifties. Pretty famous—there’s been movies about him. He was part of what they called the Jewish Mafia. With Bugsy Siegel.”

Another name that did not register with her.

“Your father must have had you late in life if he was running around with those guys in the forties.”

I nodded.

“I was the kid from the second marriage. I think I was a surprise.”

“Young wife?”

I nodded again and wished the conversation were going in a different direction. I had sorted all of this out for myself before. I had checked the county records. My father divorced his first wife and married his second less than two months later. I came five months after that. It didn’t take a law degree to connect the dots. I was told as a child that my mother had come from Mexico, where she was a famous actress, but I never saw a movie poster, a newspaper clipping, or a publicity still anywhere in the house.

“I have a half brother who’s an LAPD cop,” I said. “He’s older. He works homicide.”

I didn’t know why I said it. I guess to change directions.

“Same father?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you guys get along?”

“Yeah, to a point. We never knew about each other until a few years ago. So consequently I guess we’re not that close.”

“Isn’t it funny that you didn’t know about each other and you became a defense lawyer and he became a cop?”

“Yeah, I guess. Funny.”

I was desperate to get off the path we were on but couldn’t think of a topic that would do it. Kendall rescued me with a question that broke new ground but was equally painful to answer.

“You mentioned your ex. So you’re not married?”

“No. I was. Twice, actually, but the second one I don’t really count. It was quick and painless. We both knew it was a mistake and we’re still friends. In fact, she works for me.”

“But the first one?”

“We have the daughter.”

She nodded, seemingly understanding the lifelong complications and connections a broken marriage with a child produces.

“And your daughter’s mother, are you on good terms?”

I sadly shook my head.

“No, not anymore. Actually, I’m not on good terms with either of them at the moment.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

I took another drink of wine and studied her.

“What about you?” I asked.

“People like me don’t have long relationships. I got married when I was twenty. It lasted a year. No kids, thank god.”

“Do you know where he is? Your ex? I mean, do you keep track of each other? My ex and me, we’re in the same business. The law, so I see her in the courthouse every now and then. If she sees me coming in the hall, she usually goes the other way.”

She nodded but I didn’t detect any sympathy.

“Last time I heard from my ex he wrote me a letter from a prison in Pennsylvania,” she said. “He wanted me to sell my car so I could send him money each month. I didn’t reply and that was about ten years ago. He’s still there for all I know.”

“Wow, and here I was all ‘woe is me’ because my ex-wife turns away from me in the courthouse. I think you win.”

I hoisted my glass to toast her and she nodded in acceptance of the win.

“So, why are you really here?” she asked. “Are you hoping that I can tell you more about Glory?”

I looked down at my glass, which was now almost empty. This was either going to be the end of things or the start.

“You’d tell me, right, if there was something I needed to know about her?”