‘‘Mrs. Diamond, if I’ve overstepped, I’m sorry. Kenny told me about the car accident, and your sister. I—’’
‘‘He was sixteen years old. He was afraid. Comparing what Kenny did to this other accident, it’s crazy.’’
What Kenny did.
The negative developed.
‘‘Kenny was in the car with your sister?’’ I said, and saw her mouth crimp. She thought that I already knew. ‘‘Kenny was driving the car?’’
‘‘He had a concussion. He was in shock. He went looking for help.’’
He left Yvette to die.
‘‘Back off,’’ she said. ‘‘Back off of me, and off of Kenny. If I hear his name in connection with this again, I’ll ruin you.’’
The Chihuahua lunged, scrabbling out of the shoulder bag and diving at my arm. I ducked back. It fell to the sidewalk.
‘‘Caesar!’’ Mari gasped and bent to grab it. ‘‘Look what you’ve done. You bitch. You bitch!’’
I walked away. I didn’t think she was talking to the dog.
I went to Sanchez Marks, but Jesse wasn’t there. Lavonne said, ‘‘I sent him home. The Fibbies are throwing their weight around, and it isn’t good for the firm to have federal agents arguing with Jesse here in the foyer.’’
I rubbed my eyes.
‘‘He’s overwrought. Go talk to him,’’ she said.
When I got to his house the stereo was pounding. Hendrix, a portentous sign. Taking a long breath, I knocked on the door and waited until he called, ‘‘Come in.’’ He was stretched out on the couch staring at the television, remote in one hand, beer in the other, one in the afternoon. Watching NASCAR.
He said, ‘‘I’ve been sent to the corner.’’
‘‘Lavonne mentioned it.’’ I walked into the living room. ‘‘Was it Van Heusen?’’
He pointed to a letter on the coffee table. I picked it up, saw FBI letterhead and a lot of jargon.
Under Title 18 of the U.S. Code, section 981, any property, real or personal, traceable to proceeds obtained from money-laundering activities is subject to forfeiture to the United States.
‘‘Van Heusen’s leaning on me,’’ he said.
He raised the remote, upped the volume. The whine of stock-car engines clashed with ‘‘Purple Haze.’’
‘‘Want to talk about it?’’ I said.
‘‘No. Talking got me the afternoon off.’’ He drank from the beer bottle. ‘‘And now I don’t need any more suggestions. The meter’s pegged. I’m at maximum shit-bearing capacity.’’
He wasn’t telling me to leave, but he wasn’t asking me to stay, either. The chill couldn’t have been colder. I knew we were both nuked to the point of emotional meltdown, but I couldn’t walk out the door and leave this.
‘‘Jesse, I don’t want us to fall apart like this. I respect you more than anybody I know. I don’t care what happened with Harley.’’
‘‘I didn’t keep it going on with her after the crash. That’s not what happened.’’
My inner brat did a somersault, chirping,
Hooray
, but I looked at him, seeing the gravity in his eyes, and my stomach dropped.
‘‘What did happen?’’ I said.
He stared at the ceiling as though weighing something heavy. Finally he said, ‘‘I would never do this, break a confidence, if Harley hadn’t just taken you to Las Vegas.’’
A confidence? He had a deep and heavy confidence to keep for Harley? But, of course, he was a person people confided in and trusted.
He said, ‘‘I broke it off with her because she’s an addict. A compulsive gambler.’’
The room seemed to refocus.
‘‘You don’t look surprised,’’ he said.
‘‘I don’t think I am.’’
Her dad the high roller, the trips to Vegas and the track at Del Mar . . .
‘‘How did you find out?’’ I said.
‘‘When I was in law school she’d call, say she was in L.A., could she stop by. It was never business; it was always days out at Hollywood Park. After a while it became obvious that things were getting out of control.’’
‘‘That’s how i-heist got their hooks into her. They found out,’’ I said.
‘‘Listen, I broke it off because of this, but I promised not to expose her problem if she got help. She started going to Gamblers Anonymous,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s why she came to rehab, to tell me she was getting straightened out.’’
‘‘But she never stopped gambling,’’ I said. ‘‘And i-heist used it against her, to get her to launder money for them.’’ The chill had turned into a fear creeping up my neck. ‘‘So why are they asking you to launder money for them if they’ve got her?’’
‘‘Harley’s cracking up, that’s why. She’s going to pieces.’’
And she was the link to Brand. Somehow it all tied in: the money, her work for Mako and i-heist. . . .
He said, ‘‘It’s only a matter of time before they decide she’s too much of a liability. Kenny, and i-heist. And when they do—’’
‘‘They won’t see any reason to keep her alive.’’ She was in danger.
‘‘I’ve been trying to contact her, but she’s out of the office,’’ he said.
I drew a breath. ‘‘I’ll see if I can find her.’’
A new Hendrix track came on the stereo—‘‘All Along the Watchtower,’’ Jesse’s favorite. I felt discomfort congealing in the air between us.
‘‘Jesse, I know this is a terrible time, but I need to talk about us.’’
He looked away. ‘‘Harley lied to you about rehab, and you believed it. That just . . .’’
He meant, Why did I believe her instead of him? Did I have so little faith in him? I felt sick.
‘‘And why was it so important for you to be the only one after the crash?’’ He looked at me. ‘‘You are, by the way. There hasn’t been anybody but you since then.’’ He looked reproachful. ‘‘I just can’t get it out of my head that you . . . Does it make you feel big to stick with a crip? Are you glad that things have turned out this way?’’
‘‘My God, no. Jesse, don’t think that.’’ I felt a pounding between my eyes, tears starting to form.
He spread his hands. His eyes were a storm of anger and confusion.
He said, ‘‘You should probably go. If I say anything else right now, there may be no going back.’’
I found Harley three hours later. I convinced her secretary to tell me she had driven to a meeting in Santa Ynez. I headed north over the mountains, across the long span of Cold Spring Bridge, past woodlands and wineries and Arabian horse ranches and rolling golden hillsides, to the only place in the Santa Ynez Valley where Harley would, at this stage in her collapsing life, take a meeting: the Chumash Indian casino.
She was playing video poker, propped on a stool with a bucket of silver dollars on her lap, shoveling coins into the machine. When I walked around to face her, I could see the machine’s display reflecting cards in her eyes.
Pair of threes, a losing hand. She glanced at me.
‘‘Come outside,’’ I said.
‘‘The machine’s due.’’ She fed it silver dollars. ‘‘I’m not going to leave and let someone else get my payoff.’’ She scowled and slapped the machine. ‘‘Come on, you bastard.’’
But it didn’t pay off. She fed in more coins.
I grabbed the bucket from her lap. ‘‘Come on.’’
‘‘Hey.’’ She spun off the stool and followed me outside. ‘‘Damn you, give that to me.’’
It was hot, the sun unvarnished, a perfect vacation day. The casino parking lot was shiny with tour buses. Harley’s hair looked white under the blue sky.
I said, ‘‘When did you start laundering money for i-heist? ’’
‘‘I don’t know what you mean.’’
‘‘What happened, did they find out you were in debt to bookies? Did they offer to pay off your creditors before the cops or the repo men came around?’’
She stared at the bucket of silver dollars, dazzling in the summer light.
‘‘Well.’’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘‘It turns out Jesse Blackburn doesn’t know how to keep his promises.’’
‘‘Jesse ain’t the problem here, kid.’’
‘‘There is no problem here. I’m fine. I’m just taking the edge off.’’
‘‘Gamblers Anonymous? Do they recommend that you relax by playing the slots?’’
‘‘You have no idea.’’
‘‘Tell me, then. Explain it to me.’’
‘‘My life’s in the crapper. I just need a day to get myself together.’’
I shook the silver dollars. ‘‘Looks like you have a big bucket of togetherness here.’’
She snorted. ‘‘That’s not gambling; that’s like a box of candy, or a glass of wine at the end of the day. It’s entertainment. Relaxation.’’
‘‘Expensive box of candy.’’
‘‘You can’t understand. You’d buy a church raffle ticket and think that’s gambling. What I do is different, it’s professional, it’s analytical. Shit on a biscuit, woman, I had five thousand on War Emblem when he won the Kentucky Derby, a twenty-to-one long shot. I had Goran goddamned Ivanisevic to win Wimbledon at a hundred-twenty -five to one. I earned a quarter of a million dollars thanks to a tennis wager.’’
‘‘Oh, my God. Harley.’’
She mistook my shock for admiration. ‘‘Damn right.’’
If those were the amounts she was winning, how much was she losing?
‘‘How badly are you in debt?’’ I said.
The light was doing unkind things to her face. Her skin looked papery, the freckles blotchy.
‘‘Everything’s under control.’’
‘‘No, it’s not. Harley, how much are you into i-heist for?’’
‘‘I can cover it. One win and that’ll be it. My old man may have been a prick, but he taught me that. You’re only ever one win away.’’
‘‘A million?’’ I said. ‘‘Two?’’
Her mouth opened, then closed again. She stared at the bucket as if the silver dollars were amphetamines.
‘‘Harley, are you skimming from i-heist?’’
She didn’t answer.
‘‘Did you use Segue?’’
‘‘How do you know about that?’’ She grabbed my arm. ‘‘How much do you know?’’
‘‘I know about Mako.’’
‘‘Jesus, you can’t tell anybody this. Mako . . . they’ll kill you. Oh, shit, they’ll kill me.’’
‘‘Who at Mako—Kenny?’’
‘‘Who else? He’s been in on it from the start. Got my firm to buy Mako’s security software. Then his pals hacked our system to find out everything about the firm’s finances, and my own. Figured out a way to screw me. He has a noose around my neck.’’
‘‘You have to go to the police.’’
She laughed. ‘‘And be prosecuted? Disbarred, go to prison? I’d rather die.’’ She put a fist over her lips, gave a bitter laugh. ‘‘Maybe I should.’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘They’re going to try to get me, you know. And you and Jesse. We’re toast. Maybe I should save them the trouble.’’
‘‘What are you talking about?’’
‘‘Getting it over with. Drive off the Cold Spring Bridge, maybe. End of story. No more worries, everything off my back. Including you.’’
She turned away, hugging herself. When I put a hand on her shoulder she shrugged it off. I glanced toward the casino. A bus was parked near the door, partially obscuring the sign on the building. I saw CASI. I had one of those little
well, duh
, moments.
I felt my face heating. How long had Harley been counting on my gullibility?
I said, ‘‘This is Cassie, isn’t it?’’
Cassie was her lover, all right: gambling. The one she adored, the one who was always there for her . . . The one Harley could never leave, because i-heist was using her. Forcing her to take cash to casinos and scrub it clean for them.
‘‘You need help,’’ I said.
‘‘Jesse tried that one on me. GA, it didn’t work. Bunch of blue-haired women who lost their Social Security checks playing bingo and sat around wringing their hands. They didn’t have anything to do with me.’’
‘‘This is out of control.’’
She laughed, loudly, loosely. It was like watching a downhill skier head too fast toward a turn.
‘‘Oh,’’ she said. The laugh kept going. ‘‘You are the cat’s meow.’’ She bent over and put her hands on her knees, as though I had told the funniest joke in history.
I set a hand on her shoulder again. She straightened, shoving it away. Her eyes looked as hard and bright as the silver dollars.
‘‘Maybe you should stop meddling in other people’s lives,’’ she said.
She grabbed the bucket from me. The coins flew, bouncing and ringing on the asphalt. The last I saw she was on her knees, picking them up, one by one.
I drove toward home, feeling blank. I couldn’t stop Harley from self-destructing. And, as much as she had misled me, the thought that I couldn’t help her—that she refused even the hand I offered—depleted me. I turned the corner onto my street. My cell phone rang.
‘‘Evan?’’ It was Taylor. ‘‘Can I stop by? I want to drop off the lingerie you ordered.’’
Had I actually ordered some? I couldn’t remember. But I couldn’t take Tater tonight, not even a small helping. ‘‘I won’t be home all evening.’’
‘‘Not home at all? Are you sure?’’
‘‘Positive.’’
‘‘Can’t I use the spare key? You keep it in that drainpipe, right?’’
Had she snooped into every corner of my house? ‘‘Taylor—’’
The battery on the phone cut out momentarily, breaking off the call. It didn’t matter. I’d rumble with her later.
Adam Sandoval’s Toyota pickup passed me going the other way. I honked. He U-turned and parked behind me. I was stepping out of the car when he came stalking toward me. He clutched papers in his hands. His face looked rough.
‘‘What’s wrong?’’ I said.
He held out the papers. His voice was a whisper.
‘‘They loaded when I went online tonight. And when I tried to delete them, they printed.’’
I took them and looked. The dizziness was immediate.
They were photos of Isaac’s autopsy. Adam slumped against my car.
‘‘Oh, God,’’ I said. ‘‘Oh, Adam. You should have never had to see this.’’
He had identified Isaac’s body after the crash, I knew. He saw the brutality done to his brother. But he also took comfort from seeing the embalmer’s reconstruction. He chose the clothes Isaac was buried in. And the night before the funeral he stayed awake next to Isaac’s casket, praying. He ensured that Isaac was put to rest with dignity. It had been a sacred thing.