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, this 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.”