Glitsky 01 - Certain Justice, A (51 page)

Her thoughts were interrupted by one of her technicians – Sam the Van Man – scanning through the windows of the place, recognizing her, getting to the door, through the maze of creative floor arrangement to her table. She was already up, coming toward him. 'We've got him,' he said, nearly breathless from his run. 'It's definitely Shea. Place called Pizzaiola – eighteen hundred block of Haight Street.'

Forgetting the cold and everything else, she was on her way out, dragging Sam in her wake. 'Let's roll.'

Kevin covered Melanie's hand again – easy, easy – as the black-and-white police car pulled up on the street in front.

'We'd better get the check.' Matter-of-fact.

But before they could catch the waitress's attention the two uniformed policemen walked into the pizza place, chatting, apparently taking a break, filling up – it seemed to Kevin – a lot of the space inside, using up a lot of breathing air.

'Will that be all?' Their efficient waitress.

"Thanks. It was great. Just the check, please.'

A quick turn and she was gone.

The cops stood together by the ordering bar, talking with one of the dough throwers. The waitress stopped up front next to the cops, said a few words, laughed.

Kevin and Melanie huddled together in their corner, keeping their faces as covered as they could. 'Just keep cool,' he said, and she nodded, squeezing his hand.

Not soon – say about the half-life of carbon later – the waitress came back with their check, dropped it face down, left. Kevin picked it up – $34.64 for a pizza and some beer – and reached for his wallet.

The cops finished with their order and turned to look for a table.

'No. Not here, not here,' Kevin intoned.

'Shhh.'

'You'd hate it here, there's a horrible draft. Also, I think something must have died in the hallway...'

'Shhh! Kevin...!'

Moving back through the restaurant, the policemen pulled chairs up less than three feet from where Kevin and Melanie sat at the next table over.

'I'm going to throw up,' Melanie whispered.

Kevin opened his wallet. He looked again. There was no money in it. Keeping his voice low, he gripped Melanie's hand. 'Where's the money? Did you take the money?'

She looked at him as though he were insane. 'You had the money, don't tease like this ...'

Kevin folded open the wallet, showing her. 'I think we left it on the table back at Ann's.'

'We didn't...'

'I put it under a flowerpot on the kitchen table. I don't remember taking it. I must have left it.'

Melanie covered her face with her hands. She wanted to run. She couldn't run. The police were
right herel
Looking at Kevin. 'Oh God!' It just came out.

Hearing her, one of the policemen – an older guy with a kind face – leaned over to them. 'You kids okay? Everything all right?'

Melanie stared at him. Frozen. Finally: 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'My cat, it just died, today.' She tried to smile.

Kevin gave them half of his profile – more than half would be inviting disaster. 'Murray,' he added, 'his name was Murray. Had him for six years.'

'Gee, that's tough,' the cop said. 'Myself, I'm not a cat man, but my wife is.'

Simms was the only woman in the team. The four men who'd been hanging out in the van were more prepared for the cold than she was – leather jackets, heavy pants. They had already patched a call to the back-up unit at the hotel – including the other marksmen – all of them would rendezvous at the famous corner of Haight and Ashbury and move in from there.

In her car, flying now out to Geary, but without a siren – damned if she was going to let any of the local authorities in on this. The San Francisco police would just screw it up. This was an FBI bust – Simms sat in the front seat on the passenger side, her three guys primed but controlled on the way out. They didn't say much, they didn't have to recheck their weapons, any of that – the weapons would work if they were needed. Her men were pros.

'What I want you to do is just walk to the bathroom.'

'Kevin, we've got to pay. We can't just leave...'

Kevin was using all of his strength to keep his voice down. 'I'm not giving them my credit card. I don't think you should either. I think you have to go to the bathroom,
don't you?'

Melanie struggled with it, got up and disappeared into the hallway behind them. Kevin waited as long as he could stand it, then turned around to the policemen – more than halfway around. In the low light he had to take the chance.

'Excuse me,' he said. They stopped talking, both of them turning to him. 'I'm just going back to see if my girlfriend's okay.' He pointed to the unpaid bill. 'She's got the money with her. In case the waitress comes, sees we're both gone' – he flashed a grin – 'would you please tell her we didn't cut out on the check. We'll be right back.'

The nice cop nodded, said sure, and Kevin was gone.

Melanie, white as death, shivered by the back door, which was clearly labelled 'Emergency Exit Only. Alarm will Sound.'

Kevin stopped in front of her, studied the sign. 'You ready? Let's go.'

'What do you mean, let's go?'

He took her hand, bringing her along with him, pushed into the bar that held the door. No sound. The door opened into an alley.

Margot Simms pulled up behind the police car that was parked by the curb in front of Pizzaiola. 'What's
that
doing here?' she asked of no one, getting out of her car.

She had already positioned a man each at the opposite ends of the alley that ran the length of the block behind the restaurant. She and the last one – Sam the Van Man – were going in through the front door.

Simms had decided that there would be no point in making a fuss. No sense inviting resistance or worse. Kevin Shea would have no idea who she was – just another customer – until she flashed her badge and, if need be, pulled her weapon.

Standing just inside the door, surveying the room, she did not see anybody resembling Kevin Shea. There were only about twenty tables – and it took that many seconds. One of the tables, back by where a couple of city cops were sitting, had not been cleared off yet but its seats were empty. She turned and issued an order to Sam to check the bathroom.

Back with the policemen, she identified herself, took out Kevin Shea's picture, asked them if they had seen anyone who looked like ...

A frozen glance between the men. One of them cattle-prodded, almost knocked the table over jumping up, reaching for his gun, going into the hallway. Simms followed in hot pursuit.

Sam came out of the bathroom. 'Nothing,' he said.

They were gathered in the narrow hallway. The older San Francisco cop hesitated by the back door, then pushed.

Nothing.

He let it swing all the way closed. Pushed at it again. 'Alarm must be out of whack,' he said.

'I literally thought I was going to die,' Melanie said. They were turning off Haight onto Stanyan, fifty yards from the lobby entrance to Ann's building. 'What are we going to do about the bill?'

Kevin gave her the eye. 'You're worried about the bill?'

'Well, you just don't walk out without paying.'

'Sometimes you do. It's called situational ethics, I think.'

'We're going to go back and pay them sometime, though, aren't we?'

Kevin squared her around to him and kissed her. 'Yes,' he said. 'That's a very important point and I concur that we should do it at the first opportunity. Which might not be tonight.'

She snuggled up against him, the relief flooding through her.

'Okay. But let's try not to forget, okay?'

'I won't forget. I've got a mind for this kind of stuff.' He kissed her again. 'You are such a dork,' he said tenderly. 'I don't know why suddenly I'm so in love with you.'

She came up as though she were going to kiss him back, but instead took his bottom lip in her teeth, held him there, whispering with equal gentleness, 'Birds of a feather.'

Before dinner Dismas Hardy had loaded up about five hours worth of opera on the CD player and now a male tenor – beyond Pavarotti, Glitsky wasn't too hot on the names – was barely audible, singing to break your heart. His heart.

After leaving Loretta, Glitsky had originally planned on zipping by here, getting the lowdown on Hardy's interview with Farrell, then calling Farrell and moving out on Kevin Shea.

As soon as he had come in he had called Farrell's number but there had been – maddeningly – no answer. Why didn't the man have an answering machine? All lawyers had answering machines – Glitsky thought they had dispensers for them in the bathrooms at law schools.

Then he had come into the kitchen and given Hardy's wife Frannie a kiss hello and Frannie had taken one look at him and said he was staying for dinner and that was the end of that. It was obvious that he wasn't taking good care of himself. Just look at him – what did he weigh anymore? What was the matter with him? He should at least think of his children.

Frannie was Moses McGuire's little sister, a petite woman with long flaming red hair, skin the color of cream, green eyes. More than a decade younger than Glitsky and Hardy and everybody else he saw outside of work, she was idealistic, headstrong, quite beautiful.

When Flo had died, and though the Hardys had two young children of their own, Frannie had taken all of Glitsky's boys for a month while he had pretended he was starting to get his life back together. It was a crucial time – and it had enabled him to find, interview and hire Rita; it had given the boys some sense of continuity when they needed it most. And it had given him an excuse to come someplace and not be alone after work.

So tonight they had fed him – Dismas and Frannie were turning into some sophisticated eaters, but Abe thought there were probably worse fates. They called it risotto, whereas Abe would have said rice and fish, but by any name it tasted good. He even had most of a glass of wine. White.

A half shot of Stoly during the day, a glass of wine at night. He was turning into a drunk. And speaking of drunk . ..

He'd called Farrell again. Or tried. It was frustrating to realize that his own sense of urgency involving Kevin Shea didn't appear to be shared by the suspect's own attorney. Or maybe it was – it could be they were having a meeting, a strategy session. He thought of his meeting with Farrell at Lou the Greek's, Hardy's description of his own tête-à-tête with Farrell in the Shamrock, and had come to the conclusion that whatever Farrell was doing, it was over drinks.

Well, he'd have to be patient.

Over dinner they had covered the riots, Abe's kids and his dad, Monterey, Ashland, the production of
The Tempest
, camping in general, which led to the Glitsky household's rules committee, on to early childhood development (the Hardys' kids were five and three, respectively), somehow over to Supervisor Wrightson, the city's wrong-headed policies on affirmative action, then on to events at the Hall, Art Drysdale, Chris Locke, the future of the United States political system. The usual stuff.

The subject of Loretta Wager had come up as well. As had Elaine. In catching up with the week's events, Hardy had not been thrilled by the role the two women had played – the rush to the indictment of Kevin Shea, the cynical way they had manipulated the media.

But Glitsky – not really wanting to dissemble in front of his friends – had segued to a different topic, saying all of that was just politics. Nothing to talk about. And how about these green beans – how did Frannie keep them so crisp? With all of the other topics they did not get around to the specifics of Hardy's talk with Wes Farrell, the fact that the search warrant had been served by a DA's investigator. It just never came up.

Now Glitsky sat on the low couch in the warm and spacious – compared to his – front room of the Hardys' house. He couldn't help noticing with some measure of regret and envy that there wasn't a large and unsightly changing screen – as there was in his own cramped duplex – separating the living area from the sleeping area. Of course, there was no need. The Hardys didn't have a nanny. Frannie stayed at home with the two kids. Dismas went to work. Old-fashioned, but there it was. The way it had been with him and Flo, and the way it wasn't anymore.

An oak fire crackled in the fireplace and he could hear his friends in the back of the house, the familiar and comfortable chit-chat as they got dessert together.

Frannie appeared now from the kitchen – her hair was back in a ponytail and she wore a white 'Cal' sweatshirt and Nike running shorts and sandals, no socks. Carrying a tray with two pots and cups and cookies, she set it down on the coffee table in front of Abe, sat kitty-corner to him in Hardy's lounger. 'What do you say? Let's be bold and
not
watch television tonight.'

Glitsky smiled, began squeezing some lemon over his tea. Frannie did think of everything. 'You mean just talk?'

She nodded. 'Unusual but I say go for it.' She reached over, grazed a hand lightly on his knee. 'We haven't talked about
you
at all. How are you doing?'