Daughter's Keeper (20 page)

Olivia raised her palm as if to stop his words, and shook her head. “I'm not going to plead guilty. I'm
not
guilty.”

“Olivia, none of this is certain or even likely at this point. I'm planning on winning this case. I have a fucking awesome win record, and I'll be damned if I'll let this case screw it up. We're going to put up an innocent bystander defense, a young girl in love defense, an entrapment defense. Shit, we're going to make the jury want to take you home and adopt you, not just acquit you. But…” he paused.

“But what?”

“But I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that there was one other way out of this.”

Hope hit her like a wave of pure light. It was only when she felt the glow that she realized she'd seen nothing but the dim gray of its lack since she'd walked into Izaya's office—or even before then. She had not so much as glimpsed a glimmer of hope since she'd found herself on her knees, retching into the reeking prison toilet. “What? What's the way out?”

“Well, the only way a judge is allowed to sentence under the mandatory minimum if there's no safety valve is if the government files a 5K1.1 motion.”

“What's that?”

“Substantial assistance. If the prosecutor says that you've provided substantial assistance, you are eligible for a lower sentence.”

“How would I do that?”

Izaya paused and spoke a bit more softly. “By informing on someone else.”

The light faded. “I'm not going to be an informant. I'm not like that. Besides, I don't know anybody. I didn't
do
anything and I don't know who did.”

“Olivia, these kinds of cases often end up being horse races to the courthouse door. The first defendant out of the chute wins. If one of the others informs on you first, you'll be screwed.”

“They can't inform on me, I didn't
do
anything. And I don't want to testify against anyone. I'm not a snitch.”

“It doesn't often get that far. Usually it's a matter of providing information that leads someone to plead guilty.”

Olivia sat silently, her mind racing. She couldn't inform on Jorge, and he would never inform on her. But he wasn't the only person she knew.

“There is one person I would give information on.”

Izaya leaned forward in his chair. “Who?” he said, eagerly.

“The person who set the whole thing up. The person who got Jorge involved in the first place. I have no problem informing on him.”

Izaya's face fell. “Are you talking about the guy who called you on the phone? The guy whose messages you passed to Jorge?”

Olivia nodded. “Gabriel Contreras. I would love to tell the government all about that sleazy asshole.”

The look of pity in Izaya's eyes was surprising but unmistakable. “That man,” he said, “is the confidential informant in this case.”

Olivia sat back in her seat, stunned. “What are you talking about? It was all his idea! He was the person who set it all up. What do you mean he's an informant? What is he doing, informing on himself?”

Izaya leaned across the table and reached for her hand. “I'm sorry, Olivia. Gabriel Contreras works for the DEA. He always has.”

Olivia shook her head. Suddenly she jerked her hand from his, rose to her feet, and began pacing back and forth along the length of the small office.

“I don't get any of this. How can
he
set it all up and then
we
get arrested?”

“That's what CIs do. They set up the deal, they pretend to be part of it, and then the DEA swoops in and busts everybody else.”

“But isn't that entrapment?” Olivia was yelling by now. She stood behind her chair and gripped the back so tightly her knuckles ached.

“Yeah, maybe it's entrapment. Let's hope there's enough evidence for us to show entrapment, but that's a hard defense to prove. Not that I haven't won entrapment cases before,” Izaya said. “It's just a hard defense to mount.”

Olivia collapsed in her chair. “This is a nightmare.”

Izaya nodded. “I know, Olivia. I know. Let's just take it slow. This is going to be a long process, and I'm not going to give up. I don't want you to, either. We're both going to be in this for the long haul, right?”

“Do I have a choice?” Olivia said, her voice tight and grim. The specter of the next months and years loomed over her in a reality so grim, so frightening, that it made her chest cave in with fear. At that moment, she had no confidence at all that she could survive an ordeal the likes of which she found it all too easy to imagine.

***

Arthur liked having his feet rubbed. He had flat, oblong feet with long, skinny toes. He complained that the specially fabricated insoles that he wore in his athletic shoes made his feet hurt, and in the evening he liked nothing better than to stretch out on the couch, watch an A's game, and have Elaine rub away the knots and aches in his soles and arches. Elaine couldn't stand having her own feet touched, let alone rubbed. It had taken her a few years to ­overcome her twinge of revulsion at stroking and kneading Arthur's so familiarly. Now, however, she found strange comfort in her evening attendance to Arthur's feet.

Their quiet moment was interrupted by the sound of a key in the front-door lock. Olivia let herself in and sat down in the chintz armchair that Elaine had found years ago in a dumpster on College Avenue. Elaine had spent almost as much money having it restored and restuffed as it would have cost to buy a new one, and her daughter had always claimed that the upholstery still smelled faintly of garbage. Yet Olivia always chose to sit in that chair, despite its phantom odor, or maybe because of it.

“Hi, honey,” Elaine said. She pushed Arthur's feet off her lap. Rubbing them was too intimate an activity to be engaged in in front of Olivia. Arthur grunted with displeasure and plopped them back across her thighs. She let them lie, but didn't touch them. Olivia looked wan. Her eyes were puffy, and her face was pale and still marred with the blush of acne she'd acquired in jail.

“Did you see your lawyer today?” Elaine asked.

Olivia nodded.

“And?”

“And I'm going to jail for ten years.”

Elaine gasped.

“Olivia, that's just ridiculous,” Arthur said. “Exactly what did he say?”

Olivia described to them the intricacies of federal drug sentencing. “It's all based on quantity. The amount of drugs that Jorge sold them equals a ten-year sentence. Izaya gave me copies of the sections of the laws that deal with methamphetamine.” She passed a wad of folded paper to Elaine. Elaine began to leaf through the pages, and Arthur leaned forward.

“Let me see that,” he said.

She put the papers in Arthur's outstretched hand.

“Methamphetamine. For God's sake, how the hell did you get yourself involved with methamphetamine?” Arthur said, shaking his head in disgust.

Olivia didn't answer him. Elaine put her hand on Arthur's foot and gave it a squeeze of warning. He ignored her.

“I told you, we need to hire a
real
lawyer, Elaine. You get what you pay for, and nobody's paying anything for this Isaac, or whatever his name is.”

“His name is Izaya, and you
are
paying for him,” Olivia said. “I'm paying for him, and Mom's paying for him, and the rest of the tax-paying public is paying for him.”

“Fine, Olivia. But do you know anything about his credentials? Where did he go to law school?”

“Uh, let me see. Oh yeah, someplace called, is it—Harvard? Is that any good?”

“Huh,” said Arthur.

Elaine wondered if Olivia was telling the truth. They both knew that the mere mention of the Ivy League would impress Arthur enough to keep him quiet. He'd gotten his own undergraduate degree at Wesleyan University, which he consistently and embarrassingly referred to as one of the “Little Ivies.”

“Anyway, he's a really good lawyer. I like him.” Something in Olivia's tone made Elaine look at her more closely, and Olivia blushed under her gaze.

“Were you there all this time, honey? It's so late.”

“No. I tried to pick up my car after my appointment with Izaya. The fuckers wouldn't give it back to me. They say it's
forfeited
because it was used during a drug deal.”

“But that's
your
car! It's not Jorge's; what right do they have to seize your car?” Arthur sputtered.

Olivia shrugged.

“After that I tried to visit Jorge at the North County Jail in Oakland.”

“Oh, honey,” Elaine exclaimed. “Is that really a good idea? I mean, given everything that's happened?” She knew that Olivia was bound to get angry at the question, but she couldn't help herself. It astonished her that her daughter was still trying to have contact with the man who had so effectively and completely ruined her life.

Olivia surprised her mother by not shouting. She just slumped deeper in the chair. “I don't know. Maybe not. It doesn't matter, anyway. I couldn't get in.”

Elaine sighed with relief. “That's probably for the best.”

“Why wouldn't they let you in?” Arthur said.

Elaine nearly pinched him for even asking the question.

Olivia picked at a loose thread on the chair's armrest. “You're only allowed in if you're on the inmate's visitors list. And I'm not on his.”

“Well, at least the son of a bitch knows enough to be ashamed of himself,” Arthur said.

“Arthur, please,” Elaine said, although of course he had expressed only what she herself was feeling, what any normal person would feel.

“I don't know if he's ashamed or not, but I don't have a choice. I have to talk to him,” Olivia said.

Elaine wanted to slap her daughter. She wanted to get up off the couch, walk across the worn Oriental carpet, grab Olivia by the shoulders, and shake her until her head snapped back and forth. Instead, she crossed her legs and squeezed her hands tightly together. “Why?” she said. “Why do you need to talk to him? Do I really need to remind you that he's the reason you're in this horrible mess to begin with? This was all his idea, correct? Unless you lied to me before, you had nothing to do with any of this. It was
his
plan. You said you didn't even know what was happening until it was too late.”

“You think I
want
to talk to him?” Olivia shouted back. Her face was red and her breath came in ragged gasps. “I don't want to
talk
to him. I want to
kill
him! But I told you—I don't have a choice. I
have
to see him.”

Olivia's hysteria had the curious effect of quieting Elaine. She looked levelly at her daughter, and then, in a calm, flat voice, asked, “Why? Why do you have to see him?” Although, of course, she knew.

“Because I need to tell him that I'm pregnant.”

For a moment, Arthur just sat there, his eyebrows raised, face pale. He opened and closed his mouth silently a few times, and then rose slowly to his feet. He padded out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

Elaine considered, for a moment, pretending to be surprised, but somehow she could not seem to summon the strength.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I don't know. Get an abortion, I guess.”

“You
guess
?” Elaine said. She was horrified by Olivia's listless reply, by the girl's seeming consideration of the possibility of doing anything other than end the pregnancy. “You just said Izaya thinks you might have to go to
jail
. Maybe for ten years, Olivia. Good God! How can you even
consider
having a baby?” Elaine tried to modulate her voice, to sound composed and reasonable, but she found, to her dismay, that she was screeching.

Olivia began to weep. “I don't know, Mommy. I don't know what I'm going to do. Please help me.
Help
me.”

Olivia's cry was a familiar one to Elaine, although she had not heard it in more years than she could count. From the time she could speak, Olivia would wail those words—“Mommy, help me!”—in precisely the same tone of agonized despair that clotted her voice now. At first, Elaine would run to her, panic twisting her innards, terrified that in her moments of inattention the girl had been hurt. She invariably found Olivia stamping her foot in frustration over a lost Barbie shoe, or crying over a dried-up marker or a broken crayon, or furious with her inability to pull a doll's dress over her teddy bear's head. Elaine would kneel down, grab Olivia by her bony shoulders, and say, in as cool a voice as she could muster, given her anger at what proved once again to be an unnecessary alarm, “Don't yell for me like that when it's not an ­emergency. You don't need my help. You
don't.”
Eventually Olivia had gotten the message. By the time she'd started school, in fact, she had grown into a resourceful little girl, perfectly able to make her own chocolate milk, climb on a stool to pull a sweater down from its shelf in her closet, rewind and replay a video on the VCR. Elaine had always been proud of her daughter's independence and ingenuity—it was the characteristic of Olivia's for which she felt the most responsible.

But this cry rang with that same ancient, desperate need, as if those intervening years of maturity had never happened. And yet her reaction was not what it had been back then. Elaine got up and crossed the room. This time, instead of shaking Olivia by the shoulders, she kneeled down and opened her arms. Olivia sagged into them and lay her head heavily against Elaine. Elaine stroked her daughter's rough, uncombed hair. She felt the spreading damp of Olivia's tears on her shirt. She leaned her cheek against the top of her daughter's head and crooned softly to her. “It'll be all right, honey. I promise you. It will all be all right.” And then, when sobs continued to rack Olivia's delicate frame, and the force of her tears would not lessen, Elaine said, “I'll help you. I promise. I'll help you.”