“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.
13
It seemed likely to me that Fernando Valenzuela would deliver his subpoenas in the order in which he had asked me about the names. The Edward R. Roybal Federal Building was just a few blocks from the Criminal Courts Building. He would probably go there first to try to serve the paperwork on James Marco and then head up to the Valley to serve Kendall Roberts. It would not be an easy thing for Val to get to Marco. Federal agents do their best to avoid accepting subpoenas. I knew this from experience. Usually service ended up having to be arranged through a supervisor who would reluctantly accept a subpoena on behalf of the agent in question. The target agent almost never received the subpoena personally.
I believed that the timing of all of this gave me an edge on Val. If Roberts happened to be home, I would be able to get to her long before he did. Of course, I had no idea what getting there first would accomplish, but my hope was that I would be able to talk to Roberts in an unguarded moment, before she knew she was being drawn into some sort of federal case involving an imprisoned cartel kingpin.
I still needed to know more about Roberts than her name. It sounded like Roberts and Gloria Dayton were in similar circles in the 1990s and at least into the beginning of the new century. Cisco’s information was a starting point but it wasn’t enough. The best way to go into a conversation with a player in a case is to go in with more knowledge than the player has.
I Googled Sylvester Fulgoni Jr. on my cell and then called the number listed. A woman with a deep, smoky voice that seemed more appropriate for taking calls for reservations at Boa than at a law office put me on hold. We were on the 101 Freeway now and in heavy traffic. I figured we were still a half hour from Sherman Oaks, so I wasn’t bothered by the wait or the Mexican cantina music playing in my ear.
I was leaning against the window and about to shut my eyes when the voice of a young man announced itself in my ear.
“This is Sylvester Fulgoni Jr. What can I do for you, Mr. Haller?”
I sat up straight and pulled a legal pad from my briefcase up onto my thigh.
“Well, I guess you could start by telling me why you hit me with a subpoena today at the courthouse. I’m thinking you must be a young lawyer, Mr. Fulgoni, because that whole thing was unnecessary. All you needed to do was call me. It’s called professional courtesy. Lawyers don’t drop paper on other lawyers—especially not in front of their peers in the courthouse.”
There was a pause and then an apology.
“I am truly sorry about that and embarrassed, Mr. Haller. You’re right, I’m a young lawyer just trying to make my way, and if I handled it wrong, then I certainly apologize.”
“Apology accepted and you can call me Michael. Why don’t you tell me what this is about? Hector Arrande Moya? I haven’t heard that name in seven or eight years.”