“Yeah, one other. After the DEA, I gotta go see a lady named Kendall Roberts—that’s with a K and two l’s—and she lives on Vista Del Monte in Sherman Oaks. You know where that is by any chance?”
“Not offhand, no.”
“Well, I guess I’ll have to fire up the old GPS then. I’ll see you, Mick.”
“Yeah, Val. I’ll call you with my next batch of paper.”
I watched him go off down the hall and then walked over to one of the benches that lined the hallway. Finding a small open space to sit down, I opened my bag so I could write down the names Valenzuela had just given me. I then pulled my cell and called Cisco. I gave him the names James Marco and Kendall Roberts and told him to find out whatever he could on them. I mentioned that Marco was supposedly law enforcement and possibly with the Drug Enforcement Agency. Cisco groaned. All people in law enforcement take measures to protect themselves by eliminating as many digital trails and as much public information as possible. But DEA agents take it to a whole new level.
“I might as well be running down a CIA agent,” Cisco complained.
“Just see what you come up with,” I said. “Start with the Interagency Cartel Enforcement Team—ICE-T. You never know, we might get lucky.”
I left the courthouse after that and spotted the Lincoln parked on Spring. I jumped in the back and was about to tell Earl to head to Starbucks when I realized it wasn’t Earl behind the wheel, because I was in the wrong Lincoln.
“Oh, sorry, wrong car,” I said.
I jumped out and called Earl on the cell. He said he was parked on Broadway because a parking cop had chased him off the curb on Spring. I waited five minutes for his arrival and used the time to call Lorna to check on things. She told me nothing worth mentioning was happening and I told her about the subpoena from Fulgoni and that it was scheduled for the following Tuesday morning at his office in Century City. She said she’d put it on the calendar and seemed to share my annoyance with Fulgoni’s using Val to drop paper on me. Traditionally, it is not necessary for one lawyer to subpoena another. Usually a phone call and professional courtesy accomplishes the same thing.
“What a jerk!” Lorna said. “But how is Val doing?”
“I guess all right. I told him I’d throw him some of our paper.”
“And did you mean it? You have Cisco.”
“Maybe. We’ll see. Cisco hates process serving, thinks it’s beneath him.”
“But he does it and it doesn’t cost you anything extra.”
“That’s true.”
I ended the call as Earl pulled up in the right Lincoln. We drove over to the Starbucks on Central so I could use the Wi-Fi.
Once I was set up online, I went to the PACER site and plugged in the case number I took off the subpoena. The filing by Sylvester Fulgoni Jr. was indeed a true habeas motion seeking to vacate the conviction of Hector Arrande Moya. It cited gross government misconduct in the actions of DEA Agent James Marco. The filing alleged that prior to Moya’s arrest by the LAPD, Marco used a confidential informant to enter the premises of Moya’s hotel room and plant a firearm under the mattress. Marco then used the informant to orchestrate the arrest of Moya by the LAPD and the finding of the weapon by the arresting officers. The firearm allowed prosecutors to add an enhancement charge against Moya, making him eligible upon conviction for a life sentence in federal prison. He was indeed sentenced to life following his conviction.
The government had not yet responded, at least as far as I could determine online. But it was early. The filing by Fulgoni was dated April 1.
“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.