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gangs, they respect the well-dressed white man who marches onto their turf, because they assume he’s law enforcement. For all this guy knew, I was an FBI agent.
    “Oye,” said Ernesto, placing a hand on his friend’s arm. “Permítame . ”
    “Buen consejo,” I said. Listen to Ernesto and back off.
    “You can’t make me say something I don’t want to say,” Ernesto said to me.
    I slowly took my eyes off Ernesto’s friend and looked at Ernesto squarely. “I can put you on the stand and ask you questions all day. I have a pretty good idea of where to start. I’ll get there sooner or later. If you lie, I’ll know. And if you refuse to answer, you’ll go to prison for contempt.”
    “No,” he said. “No, you can’t—”
    “I can and I am. My card’s inside that envelope,” I told him. “Including my cell. You talk to me now or I’ll see you in court.”
    It was my best pitch. I drove back to my office. I wasn’t feeling great about what I’d done, but I was out of options. I was betting that compelling his testimony would ease whatever conflict was plaguing him. I’d be making the decision for him. You can’t ignore a federal subpoena. So with his back against the wall, he’d come clean. Maybe.
    My cell phone buzzed as I was exiting the highway into the commercial district. Traffic had been murder at four o’clock on a Friday night. It reminded me of our trip to see Talia’s folks tonight. But the phone call wasn’t from Talia. The call was from Ernesto Ramirez.
    “Hello,” I said with as little feeling as I could muster.
    “You said before—you made me an offer before. I tell you what I know and you keep me out of it.”
    “Right, I said that. The longer you take to tell me, the harder it will be for me to use the information, the more I’ll need your live testimony.”
    “What does that—”
    “It means tell me right now, Ernesto. Right. Now.”
    There was a pause. Electricity shot through me. I thought it was actually coming.
    “Not over the phone,” he said.
    “Okay,” I said, trying to conceal my reaction. I’d broken through. Easy and calm was now the right approach. “Where and when?”
    “Later today,” he said. “I’ll have to figure out how. No phones, though. Face-to-face.”
    “Then make it very soon. I’ll meet you anywhere. Don’t keep me waiting, Ernesto,” I told him. “Do not keep me waiting.”

9
     
    I HUNG UP WITH ERNESTO AND TRIED TO KEEP MY expectations low. He seemed ready to play ball, but a promise wasn’t anything more than a promise. Still, the more he’d held out, the more valuable his information appeared to be, the more my hopes rose in the air like they were filled with helium.
    Talia called my cell as I was walking back into my office building. “Hi, babe,” I said. “I’m trying to wrap everything up. I’m at the finish line.”
    “Great. Okay,” she said, somewhat distractedly. I could hear Emily making a yelping sound near the phone. “Remember it’s supposed to rain tonight. It would be good to get on the road as early as possible.”
    “Right. I just have to wait to hear from that guy I told you about, Ramirez. I’m on his schedule, not the other way around.” Talia and I had been over this briefly this morning, but like most disjointed conversations while caring for a newborn, there had been no real resolution.
    “And this matters, even if you’re at the finish line?”
    “It depends on what it is he gives me,” I said. “We haven’t formally decided to rest our case, and even if we do, if I uncover something huge, the judge would let us reopen.”
    Talia tended to Emily a moment. I was used to such interruptions. I waited her out.
    “Does that mean you’re planning on working this weekend, too? I mean, if this is ‘something huge,’ does that mean you aren’t coming?”
    I didn’t have a good answer to that. “I don’t know. He said he’d call me soon. I don’t know ’til I know.”
    “That’s not