Chapters (64)
- PART ONE
- One
- Two
- Three
- PART TWO
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- PART THREE
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- PART FOUR
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- PART FIVE
- Forty-seven
- Forty-eight
- Forty-nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-one
- Fifty-two
- Fifty-three
- PART SIX
- Fifty-four
- Fifty-five
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- ALSO BY MICHAEL CONNELLY
“Yeah, what are you doing with a white boy anyway? You work gang crimes.”
Romero’s face turned serious and he shook his head.
“Not anymore, man. They thought I was getting too close to the customers. You know, once a vato always a vato. So they took me off gangs. After nineteen years, I’m off gangs.”
“Sorry to hear that, buddy.”
Romero had grown up in Boyle Heights in a neighborhood ruled by a gang called Quatro Flats. He had the tattoos to prove it, if you could ever see his arms. It didn’t matter how hot a day it was, he always wore long sleeves when he was working. And when he represented a banger accused of a crime, he did more than defend him in court. He worked to spring the man from the clutches of gang life. To pull him away from gang cases was an act of stupidity that could only happen in a bureaucracy like the justice system.
“What do you want with me, Mick? You didn’t really come here to take Scales from me, right?”
“No, you get to keep Scales, Angel. I wanted to ask you about another client you had for a while earlier this year. Eli Wyms.”
I was about to give the details of the case as a prompt but Romero immediately recognized the case and nodded.
“Yeah, Vincent took that one off me. You got it now with him being dead?”
“Yeah, I got all of Vincent’s cases. I just found out about Wyms today.”
“Well, good luck with them, bro. What do you need to know about Wyms? Vincent took it off me three months ago, at least.”
I nodded.
“Yeah, I know. I got a handle on the case. What I’m curious about is Vincent taking it. According to Joanne Giorgetti, he went after it. Is that right?”
Romero checked the memory banks for a few moments before answering. He raised a hand and rubbed his chin as he did so. I could see faint scars across his knuckles from where he’d had tattoos removed.
“Yeah, he went down to the jail and talked Wyms into it. Got a signed discharge letter and brought it in. After that, the case was his. I gave him my file and I was done, man.”
I moved in closer to him.
“Did he say why he wanted the case? I mean, he didn’t know Wyms, did he?”
“I don’t think so. He just wanted the case. He gave me the big wink, you know?”
“No, what do you mean? What’s the ‘big wink’?”