The Gods of Guilt(71)

“Who told you those stories?”

“Agent Marco did. He visited me, just like I’m sure he visited Young Sly.”

Sly Sr. didn’t respond but this time I didn’t interrupt the silence. I’d said all I had to say. Now I waited.

But it didn’t take long.

“When will you get here?” Sly Sr. asked.

“Well, it’s the middle of the night. I’m going to go back to sleep now and sleep late. Maybe eight o’clock and then I’ll head up there. I’ll process in when I get there, maybe get in to see you before lunch.”

“Lunch around here is at ten-fucking-thirty. I used to have a one-o’clock table every day at Water Grill.”

I nodded. The little things are missed most.

“Okay, then I’ll see you after lunch. First you, then Moya. You remind him that this time I’m on his side. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“See you then.”

I disconnected the call and switched over to the message app. My daughter had still not responded to the message I had sent her almost six hours before.

I set the alarm on the phone for seven and put it on the nightstand. I stripped off my clothes and this time got under the covers. I lay on my back, thinking about things. My daughter, then Kendall. She had kissed me again when we’d separated outside the door of Katsuya. I felt as though things were changing in me. As though I was closing one door and opening another. It made me sad and hopeful at the same time.

Before drifting off I remembered the black horse racing across the field of lightning. I had been holding on to its neck because there were no reins. I remembered holding fast and hanging on for dear life.





26





I came down the front stairs at exactly eight and found Earl Briggs waiting, leaning against his car parked out front and taking in the view of West Hollywood past the shoulders of Laurel Canyon.

“Morning, Earl,” I said.

He took the two Starbucks cups off the hood of his car and crossed the street to the Lincoln. I exchanged the keys for one of the cups and thanked him for thinking of stopping for coffee before we headed off.

The Lincoln had gotten a clean sweep by Cisco the afternoon before. The GPS tracker was still in place but he and his men had found no bugs or cameras on the vehicle.

We headed south to pick up the 10 Freeway east, stopping only to top off the Lincoln’s big gas tank. Traffic was grim but I knew it would thin out once we got past downtown and turned north on the 15. From there it was a straight shot north through the Mojave.

Overnight Jennifer had sent me several e-mails with documents from her research attached. I passed the time by reading through these. The first thing to catch my eye was her analysis of Hector Moya’s habeas petition and what was riding on it. Moya had already been incarcerated for eight years since his arrest. The life term he received because of the gun enhancement under the federal career criminal statute was the only thing currently keeping him behind bars. He was sentenced to six years for the cocaine found in his possession. The life term was added on top of that.

This meant that Moya’s immediate freedom was riding on the outcome of his habeas petition. To me it was an added reason for him to cooperate with me on the La Cosse case and to put his future in more experienced hands than those of Sylvester Fulgoni Jr.

This knowledge also put Marco’s visit with me the day before in better perspective. The DEA agent had to have known as he sat across from me in the Lincoln that a violent man he had put away presumably for life could see freedom soon, depending upon the outcome of a couple of court cases he could not control.

I next reviewed the transcript from Hector Moya’s trial seven years before. I read two sections, one containing the testimony of an officer with the LAPD warrant enforcement team, and the other containing part of the testimony of DEA agent James Marco. The LAPD cop testified about Moya’s arrest and his finding the gun hidden under the mattress in the hotel room. The testimony from Marco contained replies to questioning about the analysis and trace work that was done on the recovered firearm. It was key testimony because it tied the gun to Moya through a purchase in Nogales, Arizona.

About the time we came through the mountains into the Mojave, I grew tired of the reading work and told Earl to wake me when we got there. I then racked out across the backseat and closed my eyes. I’d had a restless sleep after my middle-of-the-night conversation with Sly Fulgoni Sr. and needed to catch up. I knew from prior experience that going into a prison would be exhausting. It was an ordeal that fully taxed the senses. Prison sounds and smells, the drab gray steel set off by the garish orange uniforms of the incarcerated, the mixture of desperation and threat in the faces of the men I’d come to visit—it was not a place I ever wanted to spend an extra minute in. It always felt as if I were holding my breath the whole time I was inside.