The Gods of Guilt

by Michael Connelly

  “I don’t know how long the device has been on there,” I said. “But I went to your house twice yesterday. First with Earl and then last night by myself.”

  Now it started to register. I saw the first inkling of fear move into her eyes.

  “What does this mean? Somebody’s going to come to my house?”

  “No, I don’t think it means that. There’s no reason to panic. But I thought you should know.”

  “Who put it there?”

  “We’re not a hundred percent sure but we think it was the DEA agent. Marco.”

  At this inopportune moment the sushi chef lifted a large leaf-shaped plate over the counter and put it down in front of us. Five sliced rolls were displayed beautifully with pickled ginger and the hot wasabi paste that my daughter called green death. I nodded my thanks to the chef, and Kendall just stared at the food while considering what I just told her.

  “I debated whether to even tell you,” I said. “But I thought you should know. Tonight I took precautions. I walked down the hill from my house and caught a cab. They won’t know I’m with you. My car’s sitting out in front of my house.”

  “How do you know you’re not being followed, too?”

  “I’ve had people working on that all day. It looks like it’s just the electronic tracker.”

  If that brought any measure of comfort to her she didn’t show it.

  “Can’t you just take it off and get rid of it?” she asked.

  “That’s an option,” I said, nodding. “But there are other options. We might be able to use it against them. You know, feed them information that will be confusing or wrong. We’re still thinking about it, so for now it’s still on there. Why don’t you eat some of this?”

  “I’m not sure I’m hungry anymore.”

  “Come on, you worked hard all day. You said you were starving.”

  Reluctantly she poured a dollop of soy sauce into one of the small dishes and mixed in a dab of wasabi paste. She then dipped a slice of one of the tuna rolls and ate it. She liked it and immediately sampled another. I was useless with chopsticks so I used my fingers to take a slice of California roll. I skipped the wasabi.

  Two bites later and I was back to business.

  “Kendall, I know I asked you this yesterday but I need to do it again. This DEA agent, James Marco, are you sure you never had dealings with him? He’s a dark-haired guy about forty now. Has a mustache, mean eyes. He—”

  “If he’s DEA, you don’t have to describe him. I never had any dealings with the DEA.”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, and you can’t think of any reason you might be on his radar in regard to Gloria Dayton, right?”

  “No, no reason.”

  “You told me yesterday that one of the services you provided was to bring cocaine. Gloria and Trina got theirs from Moya. Where did you get yours?”

  Kendall slowly finished the piece of California roll she was eating and then put her chopsticks down on the little stand next to her plate.

  “I really don’t like talking about this,” she said. “I think you brought me here so I would feel cornered and have to answer.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “That’s not true and I don’t want you to feel cornered. I’m sorry if I’m pushing this too far. I just want to be sure you’re in the clear, that’s all.”

  She wiped her mouth with her napkin. I had a feeling the dinner was over.

  “I need to go to the restroom,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I stood up and pushed my stool back so she would have room for egress.

  “Are you coming back?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’ll be back,” she said curtly.

  I sat back down and watched her as she made her way to the hallway in the back. I knew she could leave through a rear door and I wouldn’t know it for ten minutes. But I had faith.

  I pulled out my phone to see if my daughter had answered my text but she hadn’t. I thought about texting her again, maybe sending her a photo of the California roll from Katsuya but decided not to push it.

  Kendall returned in less than five minutes and slid silently back onto her stool. Before I could speak, she made a statement that she had apparently worked out in the restroom.

  “I got the product that I brought to clients from Hector Moya but it was indirectly from him. I bought it from Gloria and Trina at their cost. I never once met their dealer or crossed paths with a DEA agent while I was in that life. It’s something I’ve left behind and I don’t want to have to talk about it with you or anybody else again.”

  “That’s perfectly fine, Kendall. I under—”

  “When you asked me to dinner I was very happy. I thought . . . I thought it was for a different reason and I was excited. So that’s why I reacted the way I did when you asked about the drugs.”

  “I’m sorry I messed things up. But believe me, I was excited, too, when you said you would meet me. So why don’t we forget about all the work stuff and eat some sushi?”

  I gestured toward the platter. Most of our order was still there. She smiled tentatively and nodded. I smiled back.

  “Then we need more sake,” I said.

  25

  On the way back home I decided to let the cab take me all the way to my door. I was tired from the work and news of the day and the hike up the trail at Fryman Canyon. I figured even if someone was watching my house and car, he would only be able to puzzle over where I’d been for the last four hours. I paid the fare, got out, and climbed the stairs to the front door.

  At the top I paused to look out across the iridescent landscape. It was a clear night and I could see all the way to the lighted towers in Century City. It reminded me that somewhere near those towers in the lowlands was where Sly Fulgoni Jr. made his pitiful stand in the land of law.

  I turned and looked over my other shoulder toward downtown. Farther away, the lights seemed less vibrant, having to fight their way through the smog. I could, however, see the glow of lights from Chavez Ravine—a home game for the Dodgers, who had started the season abysmally.

  I opened the door and went in. I was tempted to put on the radio and listen to the ageless Vin Scully call the game but I was too tired. I went to the kitchen to get a bottle of water, pausing for a moment to look at the postcard from Hawaii on the fridge. I then went directly to my bedroom to crash.

  Two hours later I was on a black horse galloping out of control across a dark landscape lit only by cracks of lightning when my phone woke me.

  I was in bed, still fully clothed. I stared at the ceiling, trying to remember the dream when the phone rang again. I reached into my pocket for it and answered without looking at the display. For some reason I expected it to be my daughter, and a tone of desperation infected my hello.

  “Haller?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “Sly Fulgoni. Are you all right?”

  The deeper timbre in the voice told me I was talking to Sly Sr., calling in from Victorville again.

  “I’m fine. How’d you get this number?”

  “Valenzuela gave it to me. He doesn’t like you too much, Haller. Something about unfulfilled promises.”

  I sat up on the side of the bed and looked at the clock. It was two ten.

  “Yeah, well, fuck him,” I said. “Why are you calling me, Sly? I’m coming up to see you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, not so fast, smart guy. I don’t like you threatening me. Or my son, for that matter. So we need to get a few things straight before you make the long drive up here.”

  “Hold on.”

  I put the phone down on the bed and turned on the bed lamp. I opened the bottle of water I had retrieved before going to sleep and drank almost half of it down. It helped clear my head.

  I then picked up the phone again.

  “You there, Sly?”

  “Where else am I gonna go?”

  “Right. So what things do we need to straighten out?”

  “First of all, t
his co-counsel bullshit you laid on young Sly. Not going to fly, Haller. Moya’s ours and we’re not sharing.”

  “Have you really thought this out?”

  “What’s to think out? We’ve got it covered.”

  “Sly, you’re in prison. It’s going to reach a point where the paper on this is finished and somebody’s got to go to court. And do you really think young Sly is going to walk into federal court, go up against government lawyers and the DEA, and not have his head handed to him?”

  There was no immediate answer, so I pressed it further.

  “I’m a father, too, Sly. And we all love our kids, but young Sly is working off of the scripts you provide him right now. There is no script when you get into a courtroom. It’s do or die.”

  Still no response.

  “I didn’t have an appointment when I dropped by the office today. I don’t know exactly what he was doing but it wasn’t lawyer work. He’s got nothing on the calendar, Sly. He’s got no experience and he can’t even answer questions about this case. Those depos you want scheduled for next week? My guess is he’ll get the questions—every question—from you.”

  “Not true. That’s not true.”

  His first objection to anything I had been saying.

  “All right, so he’ll write some of his own questions. It’s still your depo and you know it. Look, Sly, you’ve got a credible cause of action here. I think this could work but not unless you’ve got somebody going in there who knows his way around a habeas hearing.”

  “How much you want?”

  This time I paused. I knew that I had him and was about to close the deal.

  “You’re talking about money? I don’t want any money. I want cooperation on my guy. We share information and we share Moya. I may need him on my case.”

  He didn’t respond. He was thinking. I decided to jump in with my closing argument.

  “Speaking of Moya, you really want him sitting next to young Sly if this thing goes the wrong way in court? You want him looking at your son when he wants someone to blame after a judge sends him back to Victorville for the rest of his life? I heard some stories today about Moya back in his Sinaloa days. He’s not the kind of guy you want near your son when things turn south.”

  “Who told you those stories?”

  “Agent Marco did. He visited me, just like I’m sure he visited Young Sly.”

  Sly Sr. didn’t respond but this time I didn’t interrupt the silence. I’d said all I had to say. Now I waited.

  But it didn’t take long.

  “When will you get here?” Sly Sr. asked.

  “Well, it’s the middle of the night. I’m going to go back to sleep now and sleep late. Maybe eight o’clock and then I’ll head up there. I’ll process in when I get there, maybe get in to see you before lunch.”

  “Lunch around here is at ten-fucking-thirty. I used to have a one-o’clock table every day at Water Grill.”

  I nodded. The little things are missed most.

  “Okay, then I’ll see you after lunch. First you, then Moya. You remind him that this time I’m on his side. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “See you then.”

  I disconnected the call and switched over to the message app. My daughter had still not responded to the message I had sent her almost six hours before.

  I set the alarm on the phone for seven and put it on the nightstand. I stripped off my clothes and this time got under the covers. I lay on my back, thinking about things. My daughter, then Kendall. She had kissed me again when we’d separated outside the door of Katsuya. I felt as though things were changing in me. As though I was closing one door and opening another. It made me sad and hopeful at the same time.

  Before drifting off I remembered the black horse racing across the field of lightning. I had been holding on to its neck because there were no reins. I remembered holding fast and hanging on for dear life.

  26

  I came down the front stairs at exactly eight and found Earl Briggs waiting, leaning against his car parked out front and taking in the view of West Hollywood past the shoulders of Laurel Canyon.

  “Morning, Earl,” I said.

  He took the two Starbucks cups off the hood of his car and crossed the street to the Lincoln. I exchanged the keys for one of the cups and thanked him for thinking of stopping for coffee before we headed off.

  The Lincoln had gotten a clean sweep by Cisco the afternoon before. The GPS tracker was still in place but he and his men had found no bugs or cameras on the vehicle.

  We headed south to pick up the 10 Freeway east, stopping only to top off the Lincoln’s big gas tank. Traffic was grim but I knew it would thin out once we got past downtown and turned north on the 15. From there it was a straight shot north through the Mojave.

  Overnight Jennifer had sent me several e-mails with documents from her research attached. I passed the time by reading through these. The first thing to catch my eye was her analysis of Hector Moya’s habeas petition and what was riding on it. Moya had already been incarcerated for eight years since his arrest. The life term he received because of the gun enhancement under the federal career criminal statute was the only thing currently keeping him behind bars. He was sentenced to six years for the cocaine found in his possession. The life term was added on top of that.

  This meant that Moya’s immediate freedom was riding on the outcome of his habeas petition. To me it was an added reason for him to cooperate with me on the La Cosse case and to put his future in more experienced hands than those of Sylvester Fulgoni Jr.

  This knowledge also put Marco’s visit with me the day before in better perspective. The DEA agent had to have known as he sat across from me in the Lincoln that a violent man he had put away presumably for life could see freedom soon, depending upon the outcome of a couple of court cases he could not control.

  I next reviewed the transcript from Hector Moya’s trial seven years before. I read two sections, one containing the testimony of an officer with the LAPD warrant enforcement team, and the other containing part of the testimony of DEA agent James Marco. The LAPD cop testified about Moya’s arrest and his finding the gun hidden under the mattress in the hotel room. The testimony from Marco contained replies to questioning about the analysis and trace work that was done on the recovered firearm. It was key testimony because it tied the gun to Moya through a purchase in Nogales, Arizona.

  About the time we came through the mountains into the Mojave, I grew tired of the reading work and told Earl to wake me when we got there. I then racked out across the backseat and closed my eyes. I’d had a restless sleep after my middle-of-the-night conversation with Sly Fulgoni Sr. and needed to catch up. I knew from prior experience that going into a prison would be exhausting. It was an ordeal that fully taxed the senses. Prison sounds and smells, the drab gray steel set off by the garish orange uniforms of the incarcerated, the mixture of desperation and threat in the faces of the men I’d come to visit—it was not a place I ever wanted to spend an extra minute in. It always felt as if I were holding my breath the whole time I was inside.

  Despite the cramped configuration of the backseat, I managed to doze off for almost a half hour. Earl woke me on our approach to the prison. I checked my phone and saw that we had made good time despite the early traffic. It was only ten o’clock and that was when attorney visiting hours began.

  “You don’t mind, boss, I’m gonna wait outside on this one,” Earl said.

  I smiled at him in the mirror.

  “I don’t mind, Earl. I wish I could, too.”

  I handed him my phone over the seat. There was no way I would be allowed to take it inside, which was ironic, since most prisoners had access to cell phones.

  “If Cisco, Lorna, or Bullocks calls, answer it and tell them I’m inside. Everything else let go to message.”

  “You got it.”

  He dropped me at the main visitors’ entrance.

  The process of getting in to see Fulgoni and Moya went sm
oothly. I had to show a driver’s license and my California bar card, then sign one document certifying that I was an attorney, and a second certifying that I was not smuggling drugs or other illegal contraband into the facility. After that I was walked through a magnetometer after removing my belt and shoes. I was placed in an attorney-client room and given an electronic alert to clip to my belt. If I was physically threatened by my client, I was instructed to yank the pager-size device off my belt, and an alarm would sound, drawing guards to the room. Of course, I would still need to be alive to pull it but that detail wasn’t mentioned. This had all come about because of one court ruling or another that had prohibited guards from watching over attorney-client meetings in the prison.

  I was left alone in the ten-by-ten room to wait. There were a table and two chairs and an electronic call box on the wall next to the door. The waiting was a given. I don’t think I had ever made a prison visit where I walked into the interview room and my client was there waiting for me.

  It was routine for attorneys to stack interviews with multiple clients at a prison—even when the cases were unrelated. It saved travel and clearance time to get it all done in one visit. But usually the prisoners were brought in on a timetable that suited the prison staff and was based on the schedules and availability of the prisoners. I had asked the visitor center captain to allow me to visit with Fulgoni first and then Moya. He frowned at the request but said he would see what he could do.

  Maybe that was why the wait seemed extraordinarily long. Thirty minutes went by before Fulgoni was finally brought into the interview room. At first I almost told the guards escorting him that he had the wrong guy, but then I realized it was indeed Sylvester Fulgoni Sr. Though I’d finally recognized him, he still wasn’t the man I recalled from the courthouses and courtrooms we both worked at one time. The man shuffling into the room in leg chains was pale and haggard, hunched over, and for the first time, I realized he must have worn a toupee all those years I knew of him in L.A. No such vanity was allowed in prison. The crown of his head was bald and sharply reflected the overhead fluorescent lights.