"I told you, it wasn't enough. Even knowing now about the possible threat to Hayley, it's still not enough."
"Then go to our daughter and take care of her. Leave the rest to me."
"I'm going."
But she didn't hang up. It was like she was giving me the chance to say something more.
"I love you, Mags," I said. "Both of you. Be careful."
I closed the phone before she could respond. Almost immediately I opened it again and called Fernando Valenzuela's cell phone number. After five rings he answered.
"Val, it's me, Mick."
"Shit. If I'd known it was you I wouldn't have answered."
"Look, I need your help."
"My help? You're asking for my help after what you asked me the other night? After you accused me?"
"Look, Val, this is an emergency. What I said the other night was out of line and I apologize. I'll pay for your TV, I'll do whatever you want, but I need your help right now."
I waited. After a pause he responded.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Roulet still has the bracelet on his ankle, right?"
"That's right. I know what happened in court but I haven't heard from the guy. One of my courthouse people said the cops picked him up again so I don't know what's going on."
"They picked him up but he's about to be kicked loose. He'll probably be calling you so he can get the bracelet taken off."
"I'm already home, man. He can find me in the morning."
"That's what I want. Make him wait."
"That ain't no favor, man."
"This is. I want you to open your laptop and watch him. When he leaves the PD, I want to know where he's going. Can you do that for me?"
"You mean right now?"
"Yeah, right now. You got a problem with that?"
"Sort of."
I got ready for another argument. But I was surprised.
"I told you about the battery alarm on the bracelet, right?" Valenzuela said.
"Yeah, I remember."
"Well, I got the twenty percent alarm about an hour ago."
"So how much longer can you track him until the battery's dead?"
"Probably about six to eight hours' active tracking before it goes on low pulse. Then he'll come up every fifteen minutes for another five hours."
I thought about all of this. I just needed to make it through the night and to know that Maggie and Hayley were safe.
"The thing is, when he is on low pulse he beeps," Valenzuela said. "You'll hear him coming. Or he'll get tired of the noise and juice the battery."
Or maybe he'll pull the Houdini act again, I thought.
"Okay," I said. "You told me that there were other alarms that you could build into the tracking program."
"That's right."
"Can you set it so you get an alarm if he comes near a specific target?"
"Yeah, like if it's on a child molester you can set an alarm if he gets close to a school. Stuff like that. It's got to be a fixed target."
"Okay."
I gave him the address of the apartment on Dickens in Sherman Oaks where Maggie and my daughter lived.
"If he comes within ten blocks of that place you call me. Doesn't matter what time, call me. That's the favor."
"What is this place?"
"It's where my daughter lives."
There was a long silence before Valenzuela responded.
"With Maggie? You think this guy's going to go there?"
"I don't know. I'm hoping that as long as he's got the tracker on his ankle he won't be stupid."
"Okay, Mick. You got it."
"Thanks, Val. And call my home number. My cell is dead."
I gave him the number and then was silent for a moment, wondering what else I could say to make up for my betrayal two nights earlier. Finally, I let it go. I had to focus on the current threat.
I moved from the kitchen and down the hallway to my office. I rolled through the Rolodex on my desk until I found a number and then grabbed the desk phone.
I dialed and waited. I looked out the window to the left of my desk and noticed for the first time that it was raining. It looked like it was going to come down hard and I wondered if the weather would affect the satellite tracking of Roulet. I dropped the thought when my call was answered by Teddy Vogel, the leader of the Road Saints.
"Speak to me."
"Ted, Mickey Haller."
"Counselor, how are you?"
"Not so good tonight."
"Then I am glad you called. What can I do for you?"
I looked out the window at the rain before answering. I knew that if I continued I would be indebted to people I never wanted to be on the hook with.
But there was no choice.
"You happen to have anybody down my way tonight?" I asked.
There was a hesitation before Vogel answered. I knew he had to be curious about his lawyer calling him for help. I was obviously asking about the kind of help that came with muscles and guns.
"Got a few guys watching things at the club. What's up?"
The club was the strip bar on Sepulveda, not too far from Sherman Oaks. I was counting on that.
"There's a threat to my family, Ted. I need some warm bodies to put up a front, maybe grab a guy if needed."
"Armed and dangerous?"
I hesitated but not too long.
"Yeah, armed and dangerous."
"Sounds like our kind of move. Where do you want them?"
He was immediately ready to act. He knew the value of having me under his thumb instead of on retainer. I gave him the address of the apartment on Dickens. I also gave him a description of Roulet and what he had been wearing in court that day.
"If he shows up at that apartment, I want him stopped," I said. "And I need your people to go now."
"Done," Vogel said.
"Thank you, Ted."
"No, thank you. We're glad to help you out, seeing as how you've helped us out so much."
Yeah, right, I thought. I hung the phone up, knowing I had just crossed one of those lines you hope to never see let alone have to step across. I looked out the window again. Outside, the rain was now coming down hard off the roof. I had no gutter in the back and it was coming down in a translucent sheet that blurred the lights out there. Nothing but rain this year, I thought. Nothing but rain.
I left the office and went back to the front of the house. On the table in the dining alcove was the gun Earl Briggs had given me. I contemplated the weapon and all the moves I had made. The bottom line was I had been flying blind and in the process had endangered more than just myself.
Panic started to set in. I grabbed the phone off the kitchen wall and called Maggie's cell. She answered right away. I could tell she was in her car.
"Where are you?"
"I'm just getting home now. I'll get some things together and we'll get out."
"Good."
"What do I tell Hayley, that her father put her life in danger?"
"It's not like that, Maggie. It's him. It's Roulet. I couldn't control him. One night I came home and he was sitting in my house. He's a real estate guy. He knows how to find places. He saw her picture on my desk. What was I -"
"Can we talk about this later? I have to go in now and get my daughter."
Notour daughter.My daughter.
"Sure. Call me when you're in a new place."
She disconnected without further word and I slowly hung the phone back on the wall. My hand was still on the phone. I leaned forward until my forehead touched the wall. I was out of moves. I could only wait on Roulet to make the next one.
The phone's ring startled me and I jumped back. The phone fell to the floor and I pulled it up by the cord. It was Valenzuela.
"You get my message? I just called."
"No, I've been on the phone. What?"
"Glad I called back, then. He's moving."
"Where?"
I shouted it too loud into the phone. I was losing
it.
"He's heading south on Van Nuys. He called me and said he wanted to lose the bracelet. I told him I was already home and that he could call me tomorrow. I told him he had better juice the battery so he wouldn't start beeping in the middle of the night."
"Good thinking. Where's he now?"
"Still on Van Nuys."
I tried to build an image of Roulet driving. If he was going south on Van Nuys that meant he was heading directly toward Sherman Oaks and the neighborhood where Maggie and Hayley lived. But he could also be headed right through Sherman Oaks on his way south over the hill and to his home. I had to wait to be sure.
"How up to the moment is the GPS on that thing?" I asked.
"It's real time, man. This is where he's at. He just crossed under the one-oh-one. He might be just going home, Mick."
"I know, I know. Just wait till he crosses Ventura. The next street is Dickens. If he turns there, then he's not going home."
I stood up and didn't know what to do. I started pacing, the phone pressed tightly to my ear. I knew that even if Teddy Vogel had immediately put his men in motion they were still minutes away. They were no good to me now.
"What about the rain? Does it affect the GPS?"
"It's not supposed to."
"That's comforting."
"He stopped."
"Where?"
"Must be a light. I think that's Moorpark Avenue
there."
That was a block before Ventura and two before Dickens. I heard a beeping sound come over the phone.
"What's that?"
"The ten-block alarm you asked me to set."
The beeping sound stopped.
"I turned it off."
"I'll call you right back."
I didn't wait for a response. I hung up and called Maggie's cell. She answered right away.
"Where are you?"
"You told me not to tell you."
"You're out of the apartment?"
"No, not yet. Hayley's picking the crayons and coloring books she wants to take."
"Goddamn it, get out of there! Now!"
"We're going as fast as -"
"Just get out! I'll call you back. Make sure you answer."
I hung up and called Valenzuela back.
"Where is he?"
"He's now at Ventura. Must've caught another light, because he's not moving."
"You're sure he's on the road and not just parked there?"
"No, I'm not sure. He could-never mind, he's moving. Shit, he turned on Ventura."
"Which way?"
I started pacing, the phone pressed so hard against my ear that it hurt.
"Right-uh, west. He's going west."
He was now driving parallel to Dickens, one block away, in the direction of my daughter's apartment.
"He just stopped again," Valenzuela announced. "It's not an intersection. It looks like he's in the middle of the block. I think he parked it."
I ran my free hand through my hair like a desperate man.
"Fuck it, I've gotta go. My cell's dead. Call Maggie and tell her he's heading her way. Tell her to just get in the car and get out of there!"
I shouted Maggie's number into the phone and dropped it as I headed out of the kitchen. I knew it would take me a minimum of twenty minutes to get to Dickens-and that was hitting the curves on Mulholland at sixty in the Lincoln-but I couldn't stand around shouting orders on the phone while my family was in danger. I grabbed the gun off the table and went to the door. I was shoving it into the side pocket of my jacket as I opened the door.
Mary Windsor was standing there, her hair wet from the rain.
"Mary, what -"
She raised her hand. I looked down to see the metal glint of the gun in it just as she fired.
FORTY-SIX
The sound was loud and the flash as bright as a camera's. The impact of the bullet tearing into me was like what I imagine a kick from a horse would feel like. In a split second I went from standing still to moving backwards. I hit the wood floor hard and was propelled into the wall next to the living room fireplace. I tried to reach both hands to the hole in my gut but my right hand was hung up in the pocket of my jacket. I held myself with the left and tried to sit up.
Mary Windsor stepped forward and into the house. I had to look up at her. Through the open door behind her I could see the rain coming down. She raised the weapon and pointed it at my forehead. In a flash moment my daughter's face came to me and I knew I wasn't going to let her go.
"You tried to take my son from me!" Windsor shouted. "Did you think I could allow you to do that and just walk away?"
And then I knew. Everything crystallized. I knew she had said similar words to Raul Levin before she had killed him. And I knew that there had been no rape in an empty house in Bel-Air. She was a mother doing what she had to do. Roulet's words came back to me then.You're right about one thing. I am a son of a bitch .
And I knew, too, that Raul Levin's last gesture had not been to make the sign of the devil, but to make the letterM orW, depending on how you looked at it.
Windsor took another step toward me.
"You go to hell," she said.
She steadied her hand to fire. I raised my right hand, still wrapped in my jacket. She must have thought it was a defensive gesture because she didn't hurry. She was savoring the moment. I could tell. Until I fired.
Mary Windsor's body jerked backwards with the impact and she landed on her back in the threshold of the door. Her gun clattered to the floor and I heard her make a high-pitched whining noise. Then I heard the sound of running feet on the steps up to the front deck.
"Police!" a woman shouted. "Put your weapons down!"
I looked through the door and didn't see anyone.
"Put your weapons down and come out with your hands in full view!"
This time it was a man who had yelled and I recognized the voice.
I pulled the gun out of my jacket pocket and put it on the floor. I slid it away from me.
"The weapon's down," I called out, as loud as the hole in my stomach allowed me to. "But I'm shot. I can't get up. We're both shot."
I first saw the barrel of a pistol come into view in the doorway. Then a hand and then a wet black raincoat containing Detective Lankford. He moved into the house and was quickly followed by his partner, Detective Sobel. Lankford kicked the gun away from Windsor as he came in. He kept his own weapon pointed at me.
"Anybody else in the house?" he asked loudly.
"No," I said. "Listen to me."
I tried to sit up but pain shot through my body and Lankford yelled.
"Don't move! Just stay there!"
"Listen to me. My fam -"
Sobel yelled a command into a handheld radio, ordering paramedics and ambulance transport for two people with gunshot wounds.
"One transport," Lankford corrected. "She's gone."
He pointed his gun at Windsor.
Sobel shoved the radio into her raincoat pocket and came to me. She knelt down and pulled my hand away from my wound. She pulled my shirt out of my pants so she could lift it and see the damage. She then pressed my hand back down on the bullet hole.
"Press down as hard as you can. It's a bleeder. You hear me, hold your hand down tight."
"Listen to me," I said again. "My family's in danger. You have to -"
"Hold on."
She reached inside her raincoat and pulled a cell phone off her belt. She flipped it open and hit a speed-dial button. Whoever she called answered right away.
"It's Sobel. You better bring him back in. His mother just tried to hit the lawyer. He got her first."
She listened for a moment and asked, "Then, where is he?"
She listened some more and then said good-bye. I stared at her as she closed her phone.
"They'll pick him up. Your daughter is safe."
"You're watching him?"
She nodded.