I looked out the window feeling overwhelmed and flashing on all the dreams people have to leave behind when they come to live in Dogtown. Harvey apparently had believed he could make fast money without getting dirty. Cathy Vega had believed she could be a star if only she could show her talent to the right person. Me, I’d believed that I could overthrow the yoke of my father by moving across the country. And Lupe? What was her dream? To get off the streets? Who was Lupe, really?

“The guy was putting the squeeze on me. Either I could keep going with him or, if I tried to get out, they’d kill me, too.”

I picked up one of Harvey’s bronze Indian figurines from the bookshelf and started to fiddle with it. The gun I was carrying gnawed uncomfortably into my flesh.

“I thought about going to the cops myself,” Harvey said. “But what for? The guy I was working for would screw me. I’d go down the tubes. Lose everything I’d worked for. Whitney, don’t you see? We’re like trashmen. We’re just taking care of somebody else’s dirty business.”

“What happened?” I asked impatiently. I didn’t like what he’d said about trashmen and it made me even angrier at Monica Fullbright.

“My name was leaked to the DA. They didn’t have enough to bring criminal charges, but I was suspended from the Bar for a year. That’s when I found Mahatma.” He looked reverently and happily at the bronze figurine, which I quickly put back on the shelf.

“See you later, Harvey.” This time I did go to the door and open it. Harvey’s mistakes were his. I hadn’t done anything wrong. At least nothing anyone could prove.

“You didn’t hear a word, did you?” he called after me. “You told me the woman who hired you lied to you and that she used you. Don’t you see? She wants you to take a fall for her, just like the guy I’ve been trying to tell you about wanted me to.”

I won’t take a fall, I promised myself as I shut the door behind me. No matter what. I was ahead of the game and knew all the players. I won’t end up like Harvey. I won’t end up like my father. I’d rather be dead. Rather be dead like Cathy Vega. At least she had done something she believed in.