“So you’re hoping Lankford does the vetting and comes up with Stratton Sterghos’s connection,” Jennifer said.
I nodded.
“If we get lucky.”
“And then he makes a mistake.”
I nodded again.
“If we get luckier.”
As if on cue, Cisco entered the boardroom. I realized that the big man hadn’t made a sound as he had crossed the loft. He went to the coffeepot and started pouring a cup.
“Cisco, that’s old,” Lorna warned. “From this morning. It’s not even hot.”
“It will have to do,” Cisco said.
He put the glass pot down on the cold burner and swallowed a gulp from the cup. We all made faces. He smiled.
“What?” he said. “I need the caffeine. We’re setting up on the house and I could be up all night.”
“So everything is set?” I asked.
He nodded.
“I just checked it out. We’re ready.”
“Then let’s hope Lankford does his job.”
“And then some.”
He started pouring more of the dead coffee into his cup.
“Let me just make a fresh pot,” Lorna said.
She got up and came around the table to her husband.
“No, it’s fine,” Cisco said. “I can’t stay long anyway. Have to get up there with the crew.”
Lorna stopped. There was a pained expression on her face.
“What?” Cisco asked.
“What is this you’re doing?” she asked. “How dangerous?”
Cisco shrugged and looked at me.
“We’ve taken precautions,” I said. “But… they are men with guns.”
“We’re always careful,” Cisco added.
I now realized where the heated discussion between Lorna and me in the car had come from. She was worried about her husband, worried that the fate that had befallen Earl Briggs would come to her house next.
33
Cisco called me at midnight. I was in bed with Kendall, having snuck out my back door and once again taken a cab over the hill to meet her. The protection of Moya’s men was twenty-four/seven, but I left them behind whenever I met Kendall because she objected to them and didn’t want them near her. As had become our routine during the trial, we’d eaten a late dinner at the sushi bar after she closed her studio and then returned to her place. I was deeply asleep and dreaming of car crashes when Cisco called. It took me a moment to adjust to where I was and what the call meant.
“We’ve got them on tape,” Cisco said.
“Who exactly?”
“Both of them. Lankford and Marco.”
“Together, same frame?”
“Same frame.”
“Good. Did they do anything?”
“Oh, yeah. They went inside.”
“You mean they broke in?”
“Yep.”
“Holy shit. And you’ve got it?”
“We’ve got it all and then some. Marco planted drugs in the house. Heroin.”
I was almost speechless. This couldn’t be any better.
“And you got that on tape, too?”
“Got it. We got it all. Do you want us to break it all down now? Pull out the cameras?”
I thought for a moment before answering.
“No,” I finally said. “I want it to stay. We paid Sterghos for two weeks. Let’s keep it all there. You never know.”
“You sure? Do we have the money for that?”
“Yes, I’m sure. No, we don’t have the money.”
“Well, you don’t want to stiff these guys.”
I almost made a joke about how we had been stiffing the Indians since Columbus got here, but decided it was not the time for an attempt at humor.
“I’ll figure something out.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll see you in the morning. Will there be something I can see?”
“Yeah, I’ll download it all to Lorna’s iPad. You can watch on your way in.”
“Okay, good.”
After we disconnected, I checked my text file to see if I’d gotten anything from my daughter. I had been sending trial updates each night, telling her how things were going and the major highlight of each day. They had mostly been negative reports until the defense phase began. Now the highlights would be my highlights. The dispatch I had sent her while riding over the hill in the taxi had been about the points I’d scored with Valenzuela and Fulgoni on the stand.
But as usual there was no return text or acknowledgment of any kind from her. I put the phone down on the bedside table and laid my head back down on the pillow. Kendall’s arm came around my chest from behind.
“Who was that?”
“Cisco. He got some good stuff tonight.”
“Good for him.”
“No, good for me.”
She squeezed me and I felt how strong she was after many years of yoga.
“Go to sleep now,” she said.
“I don’t think I can,” I said.
But I tried. I closed my eyes and tried to avoid returning to the dream I’d just come out of. I didn’t want that. I tried to think about my daughter riding a black horse with a lightning bolt running down its nose. In the vision she wore no helmet and her hair was flowing behind her as the horse she rode galloped across an unfenced field of tall grass. I realized just before drifting off that the girl in the vision was my daughter of a year earlier, at a time when we still spoke regularly and saw each other on weekends. My last thought before succumbing to exhaustion and sleep was to wonder if she would always be frozen at that age in my dreams. Or if I would get experiences with her upon which I could build new dreams.
Two hours later the phone buzzed again. Kendall groaned as I quickly grabbed it off the bedside table and answered without looking at the screen.
“What now?”
“What now? What the hell you think you’re doing treating my son like that in open court?”
It wasn’t Cisco. It was Sly Fulgoni Sr.
“Sly? Look, hold on.”
I got up and walked out of the room. I didn’t want to disturb Kendall any further than I already had. I sat at the counter in the kitchen and spoke in a low voice into the phone.
“Sly, I did what I had to do for my client, and now’s not the time to talk about it. Fact is, he got what was coming to him, and it’s too late and I’m too tired to talk about it.”
There was silence for a long moment.
“Did you put me on the list?” he finally asked.
That was what he was really calling about. Himself. Sly needed a vacation from federal prison, so he demanded that his name be put on the amended witness list. He had decided that he wanted to take the bus ride down from Victorville and spend a day or two in L.A. County Jail just for the change of pace and scenery. It didn’t matter that there was no need for testimony from him in the La Cosse trial. He wanted me to manufacture an argument for his inclusion on the list and transfer down. If I succeeded, I could then always tell the judge I changed my mind and strategy and no longer needed him. He’d be sent back to Victorville after his little vacation.
“Yes,” I said. “You’re on the list. But it has not been accepted yet. It comes up first thing today, and it doesn’t help you waking me up like this. I need my sleep, Sly, so I can be sharp and win the argument.”
“Okay, I got it. You get your beauty sleep, Haller. I’ll wait to hear from you and you better not fuck me over on this. My son doesn’t know any better. He got a good lesson today. Me, I don’t need any lessons. You get me down there.”