The First Law (50 page)

In a moment, her feet tucked under her, she was curled up against him, under his arm—all flannel and bathrobe, long hair and a slightly stale breath that he loved. At first, this seemed to be all she needed, and he absently stroked her hair as he had done since she’d been a baby. He felt her weight settle almost imperceptibly and she exhaled a shallow sigh, quietly but audibly. “You okay?” he asked. “A little better?”

“A little.”

“But still scared?” He felt her head move up and down.

“Well.” He couldn’t resist the impulse to comfort her. “Maybe it’s really not as bad as we thought originally. . . .”

“But those pictures, Daddy . . .”

“I know. I know what they were trying to do there, and that’s what makes us afraid. And it worked, didn’t it? But I went and saw Uncle Abe tonight and I really think there’s a good chance now that the police will be able to . . . to do something.”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe arrest these people. Some new stuff’s come up. They’re going to have to act on it. And when they do, we’ll get back to normal.”

“But what if they don’t?”

Hardy sighed. “They probably will, Beck. You don’t have to worry about that.”

“And that’s why you can’t sleep, either? Because you’re not worried anymore?”

Hardy tightened his arm around her. Sometimes she was too perceptive, he thought, for her own good. “I’m still a little worried,” he conceded.

The Beck squirmed out and sat up, facing him. “It’s just that I don’t understand these people. Even if they wanted to hurt you, why would they want to hurt your family?”

“Because they know that nothing, really, would hurt me more.”

“Okay, but then what do they think? That you’ll just go away? I mean, the logical thing is that you’ll just get crazier and come after their families. Doesn’t that make sense?”

Hardy, again, didn’t feel that he could be completely forthright. “I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t do that. That wouldn’t be right.”

“Why not? If they came after us? I bet you would. I know you would.”

“Well, luckily they haven’t done anything physical to you or Vince yet, so we don’t get to find out. I don’t really want to find out. I’m plenty mad at them for what they’ve already done.” This time he couldn’t stop himself from lying. “But I really think this is pretty much over, Beck. Tomorrow night at this time we’re back in our own beds. You’ll see.”

“But what if we’re not?”

“Then the night after.”

She frowned. “Now you’re just trying to make me feel better.”

“Not just now,” he said. “All the time.”

“But I need to know what’s really happening.”

“What’s really happening . . .” He drew a deep breath, came out with a deeper truth. “I don’t know for sure what’s really happening, Beck. I don’t want you to have to go through this.”

“But I’m already in it, Daddy. We’re here.”

“I know.” He gathered her back against him. “I know.” The city lights blinked in the windblown dust outside. Hardy tightened his arm around his girl. “I don’t think I’ve been much of a help tonight, have I?”

“I’m still a little scared, if that’s what you mean.”

Hardy sighed. “That’s what I mean.”

“You can’t protect me against my feelings, Daddy.”

“I know,” Hardy said. “And that just breaks my heart.” He wondered anew whether he could protect her from anything at all, and a fresh wave of anger swept over him. All the words in the world to the contrary, he suddenly knew he would kill without mercy if anyone harmed his girl. And maybe it wouldn’t hurt her to have some intimation of that, in spite of what he’d just told her to the contrary. “You know how I said I wouldn’t do anything if something happened to you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if I could stop it before it could get to you, if it got to that . . .” He didn’t finish. “I’m speaking hypothetically, now, Beck. But there’s absolutely no way I’d let anybody hurt you.”

Her tentative question nearly brought him to tears. “So what are we going to do?”

“I’m not completely sure yet, hon. But your mother and I, we’re going to take care of you, no matter what. Maybe,” he said, “if I can get myself to abandon John Holiday . . .”

“But you can’t do that. He’s your friend.”

“Right.” Out of the mouths of babes, Hardy thought. “I know. But maybe I can make them think I stopped.” He stopped himself again. He was about to say, “Then set some kind of trap for them.” “But look,” he did say, “let’s believe for a minute there’s a really pretty decent chance that in a day or two they’ll have these people in jail.”

“And then they won’t be after us?”

“No.” He chucked her gently under her chin. “But they’re probably already not after you now, not really.”

She looked up at him hopefully. “Promise?”

Hardy hesitated. They had a rule about a promise being a promise, sacred and unbreakable. “I really don’t think so,” he finally said.

He felt a small shudder pass through her. “That’s not a promise.”

“No, I know,” he said. “But close.”

29

H
ardy pushed open the street level door to the Freeman building. He crossed the foyer and got to the top of the staircase, then stood still a moment where it opened into the reception lobby. For the first time since the attack on David, he felt some sense of life here again. A half dozen people in the Solarium appeared to be taking depositions; three of the associates and a couple of paralegals stood by the coffee machine, deep in conversation; the steady whine of the copying machines filled in the background noise. Maybe he’d just happened upon a flurry, but the telephones kept Phyllis’s head down and hands busy.

“Mr. Hardy. Dismas.” Suddenly Norma appeared at his elbow. “We missed you yesterday. Is everything all right?”

He didn’t know the answer to that. Certainly everything didn’t feel all right. His family was still in hiding at McGuire’s. He was going on less than four hours’ sleep. Freeman was still unconscious. He hadn’t heard that Sephia and Panos had been arrested.

“I mean, you never came in,” she said. “Some of us were worried.”

“I had some work out of the office,” he said. “It hung me up all day.” Smiling politely, he pointed across the lobby to the other set of stairs that led to his office. “I don’t even want to look at the clutter on my desk, but I’d better get on up there.”

“Of course, but I . . . I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For your inspiration the other night.” She gestured vaguely around the lobby, the steady hum of industry.

“Well.” In truth, after Hardy had finished his little speech on Friday night, the Solarium hadn’t exactly exploded into wild applause. He’d told everybody good night and gotten out of there as quickly as he could, slightly embarrassed that he’d gotten caught up in the moment and exposed himself so openly as basically uncool. He felt sure that he’d given some of the younger people, especially, but also a few of the more cynical associates and paralegals, fuel for the fires of ridicule. He could easily imagine the snickering after he left. All in all, he wished he hadn’t done it at all, or failing that, that he’d thought of something light and gotten everybody laughing.

But now Norma had her hand on his arm. “You shouldn’t be modest. Look what that did for everybody here.”

Hardy couldn’t deny that the buzz was better, but . . . “I don’t really think that was me.”

“Well, be that as it may,” Norma said, “everybody else does. And I just wanted to thank you again, to tell you how much it meant to me. And to the firm. It was the perfect note. You can see the results for yourself. Look around.”

Hardy had already seen enough, and it did gratify him. With David in the hospital, though, and so many other problems hanging fire, he wasn’t quite ready to do cartwheels. Still, he gave the lobby a last glance. “Well,” he said, “I’m glad I could help. And now”—he pointed again—“the grind awaits.”

He crossed over to the reception area, looked a question at Phyllis, who held up a finger, asking him to wait. After an impressive trifecta of “Freeman and Associates, would you please hold,” got the switchboard under control, she looked up and actually smiled as though she were happy to see him. New ground. “Lieutenant Glitsky has already called three times this morning. He says it’s urgent.”

Glitsky had found out about Thieu when he opened the morning paper and read about his apparent suicide. It didn’t much convince him. Or rather, it finally did convince him of what he’d begun strongly to suspect. He decided on the spot that he wasn’t going into his office again today. A sworn policeman with a clear duty, he was going to do some real police work at last, on his own if need be.

Hardy had already talked to Holiday, continuing in his counsel that the client should stay out of sight, don’t worry, they’d found strong evidence that might clear him before too long. He should just remain patient. By the time Gina Roake called, Hardy was on the other line with his second judge of the morning, Oscar Thomasino. The first one, this week’s magistrate Timothy Hill, had shot him down about quashing Holiday’s arrest warrant almost before Hardy got the question out. “Surrender your client, Diz. Then we litigate. That’s the process and you know it.”

And Thomasino, who’d known and respected Hardy for many years, told him he didn’t see what he could do. He’d be happy to put in a good word to Jackman or Batiste on Hardy’s basic trustworthiness, even Glitsky’s, but didn’t think it would serve much purpose.

When he finally got back to Gina at her office, filling him in about her talk with Hector Blanca, specifically about the helicopter to Nevada, she was in a clear and quiet rage. The General Work inspector had told her that he’d really like to help, but that the consensus among his superiors, and he tended to agree, was that the supposed attack on Hardy and John Holiday never took place at all.

As to David Freeman, Blanca had just checked with the hospital this morning and he was very, very sorry—maybe Ms. Roake hadn’t heard?—but Freeman seemed to be going into renal failure. His kidneys hadn’t produced more than a teaspoon of urine overnight. Blanca liked Roake right away, and was possibly more straightforward than he would have been with someone else. Very probably, he told her, this would soon be a murder case, and hence outside of Blanca’s jurisdiction. But by all means, Gina should bring her suspicions to homicide.

Hardy took her phone call as an opportunity to bring her up to date and she heard him out. She’d really been unaware of the escalations—the threats to the families, the probable murder of Paul Thieu. It seemed to galvanize her somehow, and when she heard that Glitsky would be at Hardy’s office to discuss possibilities, she told him she was coming, too. Something had to be done and she wanted to be in on whatever it was. Hardy told her to come right on up.

So at a little before noon on a blustery and overcast Wednesday morning, Glitsky, Roake and Hardy had all gathered and now they sat in varying degrees of unease around the coffee table in Hardy’s office. Hardy had put on a pot and two of them were drinking coffee.

Glitsky, of course, had his tea. Facing Hardy’s office door, he was explaining that after he read about Thieu this morning, he had finally been driven to speak to Special Agent Bill Schuyler of the FBI, who had expressed interest in Abe’s theory, but who said it would take at least a couple of days to arrange any kind of task force, and that’s if he could get his field director’s approval. Was Glitsky really saying he believed the head of homicide was involved in cover-up and murder? This could be a lot of fun, Schuyler agreed, but it was going to take a degree of manpower and some time.

“Which is something we don’t have.”

“Isn’t that a little dramatic, Diz?” Roake asked. “We get the FBI involved in a week or so, there’s plenty of . . .”

But Hardy was shaking his head. “If they do anything, it will take years. Wiretaps, following people, background investigations. Maybe trying to infiltrate the gang. By then, all of our physical evidence has disappeared. That’s if they do anything at all. And meanwhile, we’re dead.”

“Besides which,” Glitsky added, “these people have just killed Paul Thieu. . . .”

“Allegedly.” Roake’s knee-jerk reaction.

“No, really.” Glitsky’s dark scowl ended that debate. “And there’s every reason to think they’re at this moment planning the same thing for Diz or me, or our families. Diz is right, Gina. It’s not overdramatic. Drama happens. There’s no time.”

“So what do you propose to do?” Roake asked.

Glitsky sat quietly, looked down at his feet, said in an uncharacteristic, almost inaudible voice. “I was hoping . . . I’m going to go down and make some arrests myself.”

Hardy stared, looking for a sign that Glitsky was being ironic. He saw none. Which made his friend’s message clear and unambiguous, at least to Hardy. And it shocked him.

First Moses, now Abe.

Glitsky raised his eyes to Hardy, then Roake, continued with the charade. “Maybe park ’em in San Mateo County overnight, get some judge to listen.” This, Hardy knew, would never happen. No judge would ever listen under those circumstances. As no judge had given Hardy the time of day this morning. This wasn’t what judges did and he, Glitsky and Roake all knew it. But it didn’t make any difference. Glitsky was simply padding the pretense.

But Hardy didn’t get to call him on it. At that moment, there was a quick knock, the door to Hardy’s office opened and John Holiday introduced his lanky figure to the proceedings. “Howdy, y’all,” he said, a genial grin in place. He wore a heavy sheepskin coat that reached midway down his thighs. He’d tucked his longish blond hair into an Australian shepherd’s hat, one side of the brim tacked against the crown. Smiling all around with the obvious surprise he’d pulled off, he turned to close the door behind him.

By the time he turned back around to face them again, Glitsky had stood up. And now Hardy did the same, saying, “John, what in the hell are you doing here?”

Glitsky, a baleful glance at Hardy, took a step forward. He had no choice. He was a cop and here was a man wanted for murder. “I’m afraid you’re under arrest,” he said.