“Yes, I get it. I was about to have a glass of red wine. Would you like one?”
I almost asked if she had something stronger but thought better of it.
“That would be perfect.”
She closed the door and we went into the kitchen to get glasses and pour the wine. She handed me a glass and then took up her own. She leaned against the counter and looked at me.
“Cheers,” I said.
“Cheers,” she said. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Your coming here, this isn’t some sort of thing you have, is it?”
“What do you mean? What thing?”
“You know with women . . . like me.”
“I don’t—”
“I’m retired. I don’t do it anymore, and if you went through this whole damsel in distress thing with the subpoena because you thought—”
“No, not at all. Look, I’m sorry. This is embarrassing and I should probably just go.”
I put my glass on the counter.
“You’re right,” I said. “I should’ve just called.”
I was halfway to the hallway when she stopped me.
“Wait, Mickey.”
I looked back at her.
“I didn’t say you should’ve just called. I said you could’ve just called. There’s a difference.”
She took my glass off the counter and brought it to me.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I needed to get that out of the way. You’d be surprised how my former life still affects my current one.”
I nodded.
“I get it.”
“Let’s go sit down.”
We went into the living room and took the same seats we sat in earlier in the day—across from each other, a coffee table between us. The conversation was stilted at first. We exchanged banal pleasantries and I complimented the wine like the expert oenophile I was not.
I finally asked her how she ended up with a yoga studio and she matter-of-factly explained that a former client from her escort days had loaned her the initial investment. It reminded me of my attempt to help Gloria Dayton but obviously with different results.
“I think for some of the girls, they really don’t want to get out,” Kendall said. “They get what they need from it—on a lot of levels. So they may talk about wanting out but they never do it. I got lucky. I wanted out, and there was someone there to help me. How’d you end up being a lawyer?”
She had expertly if not abruptly thrown the lead back to me and I responded with the basic explanation about following a family tradition. When I told her my father had been Mickey Cohen’s attorney, her eyes showed no recognition.
“Way before your time,” I said. “He was a gangster out here in the forties and fifties. Pretty famous—there’s been movies about him. He was part of what they called the Jewish Mafia. With Bugsy Siegel.”
Another name that did not register with her.
“Your father must have had you late in life if he was running around with those guys in the forties.”
I nodded.
“I was the kid from the second marriage. I think I was a surprise.”
“Young wife?”
I nodded again and wished the conversation were going in a different direction. I had sorted all of this out for myself before. I had checked the county records. My father divorced his first wife and married his second less than two months later. I came five months after that. It didn’t take a law degree to connect the dots. I was told as a child that my mother had come from Mexico, where she was a famous actress, but I never saw a movie poster, a newspaper clipping, or a publicity still anywhere in the house.
“I have a half brother who’s an LAPD cop,” I said. “He’s older. He works homicide.”
I didn’t know why I said it. I guess to change directions.
“Same father?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you guys get along?”
“Yeah, to a point. We never knew about each other until a few years ago. So consequently I guess we’re not that close.”
“Isn’t it funny that you didn’t know about each other and you became a defense lawyer and he became a cop?”
“Yeah, I guess. Funny.”
I was desperate to get off the path we were on but couldn’t think of a topic that would do it. Kendall rescued me with a question that broke new ground but was equally painful to answer.
“You mentioned your ex. So you’re not married?”
“No. I was. Twice, actually, but the second one I don’t really count. It was quick and painless. We both knew it was a mistake and we’re still friends. In fact, she works for me.”
“But the first one?”
“We have the daughter.”