Sal drove me to my parents’ house in his Aston Martin. I felt guilty sitting on his pristine leather seats in my filthy clothes. I didn’t want to talk because I remembered Champagne’s comment and didn’t want him to smell my breath in the small interior. At first, he didn’t say anything either and I thought about resting my head back and taking a quick nap.
Before I could fall asleep, Sal threw an envelope in my lap. I peeked inside. Hundred dollar bills. A fat stack of them.
“Ten grand.”
He explained that now that he knew where I was, he could start fronting me money from my parents’ trust until my godfather’s estate was settled. But there was more.
“Want to know the good news or bad news first?”
“Good,” I said with a sigh, looking out over the hills for a glimpse of the Monterey Bay.
“The good news is you are going to be one of the richest young ladies in northern California. Along with your inheritance from your parent’s, you have everything Vito owned. He left everything to you. I’m still looking into it, but that appears to be a substantial amount of money. The bad news is this gives you more than enough motive in a jury’s eyes to have killed Vito.”
“Fuck.”
“By the way,” Sal said. “Did you know your saintly mother never said a swear word in her entire life?”
“Yes, Sal. She also never played pool or drank beer. She was freaking Princess Diana before Diana was a princess.”
Sal chuckled and made the sign of the cross.
“Maybe you inherited some of that, I don’t know. What I do know is that we got lucky today.” He kept his eyes on the curving road in front of him. I kept my eyes on the giant sand dunes to our right. “Judge Aronsen and I — well, let’s just say we know each other. You’re damn lucky he was assigned your case. I talked to him in chambers beforehand and he told me if you skipped bail, he could cut off my balls. Now, I like my balls. I would be very upset if they had to go. You’ll stay at your parents’ house until the trial. Capisco? So, I can keep my balls. Keep the doors locked. Don’t answer them for nobody. I got two guys coming over tonight and they’ll be your security detail. They’ll keep you out of trouble and make sure trouble don’t come visit you.”
“I get it, Sal. I’m not going anywhere.”
He gave me the side-eye.
I returned his look with a huge smile.