I looked around the room and noticed his diplomas framed on the wall. The print was too small for me to read from a distance but I didn’t think I was dealing with an Ivy Leaguer here. I decided to put some of what I was thinking and had charted in the car out there to see how it went over.
“My client is charged with the murder of Gloria Dayton, who figures importantly in your habeas petition. The thing is, I don’t think he did it.”
“Well, good for you. It’s not our concern.”
I was beginning to suspect that his use of “our” did not refer to him and Hector Moya. It was a reference to Team Fulgoni—Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside. Only Mr. Outside didn’t know habeas corpus from corpus delicti and I was talking to the wrong man.
I decided to go ahead and hit him with the big question. The question that had emerged when I stepped back and looked at the big picture.
“Answer one question and I’ll go. Last year, did you try to subpoena Gloria Dayton before she was murdered?”
Fulgoni emphatically shook his head.
“I’m not talking to you about our case.”
“Did you have Valenzuela do it?”
“I told you, I’m not talk—”
“I don’t understand. We can help each other.”
“Then you talk to my father and try to convince him, because I’m not at liberty to discuss anything with you. You have to go now.”
I made no move to get up. I just stared at him. He made a gesture with his hands as if pushing me away.
“Please go.”
“Did somebody get to you, Sly?”
“Get to me? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why’d you dummy up the subpoena you had Valenzuela serve on Kendall Roberts?”
He brought a hand up and pinched the bridge of his nose as if trying to ward off a headache.
“I’m not saying another fucking word.”
“All right, then I’ll talk to your father. Call him right now, put him on speaker.”
“I can’t just call him. He’s in prison.”
“Why not? He talked to me last night on a phone.”
This raised Sly’s eyebrows.
“Yeah, when I was with Trina.”
His eyebrows arched again and then flatlined.
“There you go. He can only call out after midnight.”
“Come on, man. He’s got a cell phone up there. Half my clients do. Big fucking secret.”
“Yeah, but at Victorville they’ve got a jammer. And my dad’s got a guy who turns it off for him—but only after midnight. And if you’ve got guys with phones, then you know you never call in. They only call out. When it’s safe.”
I nodded. He was right. I knew from experience with other incarcerated clients that cell phones were common contraband in almost all jails and prisons. Rather than rely on finding them through constant body cavity and prison cell searches, many correctional institutions employed cellular blockers that eliminated the use of the phones. Sly Sr. obviously had a friendly guard—most likely a guard paid to be friendly—with his hand on the switch during the midnight shift. This was a confirmation that the call from Sly Sr. the night before was coincidence and did not come about because he was having me followed. It meant someone else was.
“How often does he call you?” I asked.
“I’m not telling you that,” Sly Jr. said. “We’re finished here.”
My guess was that Sly Sr. called every night with a to-do list for the following day. Junior did not appear to be much of a self-starter. I was dying to get a look at that diploma so I could see what law school gave him a skin but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. I knew lawyers from top schools who couldn’t find their way out of a courtroom. And I knew night-school lawyers who I’d call in a heartbeat if it was ever my wrists in the cuffs. It was all about the lawyer, not the law school.
I stood up and pushed the chair back into place.
“Okay, Sylvester, this is what you do. When Daddy calls tonight, tell him I’m coming up to see him tomorrow. I’m going to register at the gate as his lawyer. Moya’s, too. You and I are co-counsel. You assure Daddy that I am seeking cooperation of our two camps, not an adversarial relationship. Tell him he better take the interview and hear me out. Tell him to tell Hector the same thing. Tell him not to turn down these interviews or things are going to get uncomfortable for him up there in the desert.”
“What the fuck you talking about? Co-counsel? Bullshit.”
I stepped back toward the desk and leaned down, two hands on the mahogany. Sly Jr. leaned back as far as he could in his chair.
“Let me tell you something, Junior. If I drive two hours up there and this doesn’t go down exactly as I just said it’s to go down, then two things are going to happen. One is that the jammer is going to start staying on all night, leaving you high and dry down here without a clue about what to do and what to file and what to say. And second, the California bar is going to take an intimate interest in this little arrangement you’ve got with Daddy. It’ll be called practicing law without a license for Daddy. For you it will be practicing law without knowing the first fucking thing about the law.”
I straightened up and made to leave but then turned right back to him.
“And when I talk to the bar, I’ll throw in that phony subpoena, too. They probably won’t like that much either.”
“You’re an asshole, you know that, Haller?”
I nodded and headed back to the door.
“When I need to be.”
I walked out, leaving the door wide open behind me.
22
The Lincoln was waiting where I had left it. I jumped into the backseat and was greeted by the sight of a man sitting across from me and directly behind Earl. I glanced at my driver’s eyes in the mirror and saw an almost apologetic look in them.
I drew my attention back to the stranger. He wore aviator sunglasses, worn blue jeans, and a black golf shirt. He had a dark complexion matched with dark hair and a mustache. My immediate thought was that he looked like a cartel hit man.
The man smiled when he recognized the look in my eyes.
“Relax, Haller,” he said. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“Then who the hell are you?” I asked.
“You know who I am.”
“Marco?”
He smiled again.
“Why don’t you tell your driver to take a walk?”
I hesitated a moment and then looked at Earl in the rearview.
“Go ahead, Earl. But stay close. Where I can see you.”
What I really wanted was for Earl to be able to see me. I wanted a witness because I didn’t know what Marco was about to pull.
“You sure?” Earl asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Go ahead.”
Earl got out of the car and closed the door. He walked a few feet forward and leaned against the front fender of the car with his arms folded. I looked across the seat at Marco.
“Okay, what do you want?” I said. “Are you following me?”
He seemed to ruminate on the questions before deciding to answer.
“No, I’m not following you,” he finally said. “I came to check out a lawyer who’s been trying to paper me and here I see you. You and him, working together.”
It was a good answer because it was plausible. It avoided confirmation that Marco had been the one who had jacked my car, and he seemed pleased with it, even though he had not convinced me. I put Marco in his midforties. He carried an aura about him, a sense of confidence and knowledge, like a guy who knows he’s two moves ahead of everybody else.