The First Law (51 page)

For Holiday, the surprise element suddenly and completely lost its charm. He glared with startled incomprehension at Glitsky for a beat, shot a look at Hardy, then with no hesitation half turned again, as though he were going back to the door. But when he came back around, he was holding a gun in his right hand. It was pointed down at the floor, but nobody in the room missed it or its import.

“I don’t think anybody’s gettin’ arrested just right now,” he said, the quiet tone and soft Tennessee accent taking nothing away from his resolve. “Now, Lieutenant, you just sit down, would you? I won’t ask for your gun because I’m gonna assume you’ll act like a gentleman. But please keep your hands out where I can see them. Then we can have a civil discussion, all four of us.”

Glitsky found his chair and took it.

Hardy remained standing, folded his arms over his chest. “Jesus, John, what are you doing? How’d you get here?”

Holiday made no effort to put up the gun. “My lady dropped me by the alley in the back. I came in through the garage and up the elevator. Don’t worry, nobody followed me. I’m sure.”

“That’s not what I was worried about. Haven’t you ever heard that when you’ve already dug yourself into a hole, you ought to stop digging?”

Glitsky concurred. “This is a big mistake.”

Holiday was all agreement. “I can see that now, Lieutenant; you’re probably right. But I didn’t know anybody else was going to be here.”

“Why don’t you put away the gun, though?” Roake asked. Then, to Hardy, “This is your client, I presume?”

Hardy made the introductions, and Holiday bowed in a courtly fashion, although without ever taking his eyes from Glitsky.

“So why did you come here?” Hardy asked again.

“Tell you the truth, Diz, part of it was cabin fever. Mostly, though, I was thinking you and I might come up with a way to turn me in and guarantee my safety. That thing with your kids . . .” The words petered out. “Anyway, I figure if Panos thinks they got me, that ends. Am I right?”

Hardy shrugged. “Maybe not all wrong. But the kid thing. You know Abe’s got the same problem?”

Holiday looked across the room at Glitsky. “Have I got to keep this gun out, Lieutenant, or could we come to an understanding for the time being?”

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re still under arrest. When I leave here, you’re coming with me.”

“I don’t think so.”

Glitsky almost laughed. “You going to shoot to stop me? So you can do whatever you want with the gun. It’s not helping your case, as I’m sure your lawyer will agree.” He shot a glance over to Hardy, an invitation to back him up.

But Hardy had gone bolt upright in his chair, his eyes glazed and faraway.

Roake, across from him, spoke up. “Diz? Are you all right?”

He came back with them. “What? Yeah, sure. John, put the damn gun away, would you? The rule is you don’t wave one around if you’re not prepared to use it.”

“What if I am?”

“Then you’re a bigger idiot than even I think you are, which is hard to imagine. Nobody here thinks you killed anybody, okay? You’re not about to start now.” He didn’t wait to give Holiday a chance to respond, but turned directly to the other two. “Abe and Gina, check me on something, would you? We’re assuming that Gerson pushed Thieu off the roof, right?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Holiday moving, sticking the gun back under his belt. “The question is why? Why right then?”

Glitsky had clearly given this a great deal of thought. “Because Thieu put Sephia and Rez at Holiday’s when they denied they’d ever been there.”

“And, John”—Hardy turned—“have they ever, to your knowledge, been to your place?”

“Are you kidding?”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’ That’s what I thought. So.” He came back to the others. “Doesn’t this mean that Gerson must have thought Thieu was the only person with this information? Otherwise, why kill him if somebody else is going to show up tomorrow and confront him with the same problem?”

“Except by now Gerson has probably destroyed the tape,” Glitsky said.

“Maybe not,” Roake said. “Especially if he figures nobody else knew about it.”

Hardy nodded at Glitsky. “Assume, Abe, that Gerson doesn’t know that
you
know.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t. I specifically asked Paul to keep you and me out of it, and if anybody in the world was capable of that, it was him.”

“Well, there you go.” He held up his hands as though he’d proven something.

“Where, though?” Glitsky asked. “Call me slow, but I don’t see where you’re going.”

“Okay, Slow. What exactly did Paul tell you?”

Glitsky wasn’t sure where this was going, but Hardy seemed to have an idea, and at this point, anything was worth pursuing. “Just that he’d lifted Sephia’s and Rez’s prints from Holiday’s house. He had this tape. He was going down to play it for Gerson.” He lifted and dropped his shoulders. “That’s about it.”

Hardy looked across the room. “Gina, you see it?”

She nodded.

Back at Glitsky. “Abe, now you can go to a judge and do an affidavit, which ought to be probable cause to search Gerson’s office, maybe even his home, for the tape. Odds are they’ll even have a copy of Thieu’s original fingerprint request and the results with the tape, showing Gerson knew its significance.”

Roake had come forward to the edge of the couch. “So you’re saying Abe should get a warrant for Gerson’s house and office without telling anyone else in the PD?”

“That’s the general idea, yeah. We’ve finally got some probable cause and here’s our chance to use it.”

Glitsky didn’t buy it. “Impossible,” he said. “Even if Gerson hasn’t already gotten rid of the tape and every one of those reports—which I know, if I were him, I would have—if we do find them we have no real proof of anything. And my career would be completely over.”

“It seems to me like our only chance. You’ve got to get something on Gerson and squeeze him.”

Glitsky was all concentration. “Don’t get me wrong. I love the idea, but it doesn’t go anywhere.” He looked up at Hardy. “And at best it still leaves Panos, who’ll then know we—that’s you and me, Diz—we haven’t backed off.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure I want to dare him to see how far he’ll go.”

Holiday, who’d been listening all this while, suddenly butted in. Quietly. “How about this, instead? You call this Gerson and tell him you’ve got me.”

“What do you mean, got you?” Glitsky asked.

“In custody. You want to turn me over to him, but Diz here, my whizzo lawyer, doesn’t trust the normal procedure. He won’t give me up to anybody but you, Lieutenant. Gerson would believe that.”

“And how does that help us, John? Or help you?” Hardy asked.

“I’m not exactly sure about the nuts and bolts. But if Gerson knows that you, Lieutenant, are going to be some place at some time with me . . .”

“You’d get ambushed,” Hardy said. “No way is that happening.”

But Glitsky liked it. “If we could in fact get them all together on some pretext . . .”

Roake went with it. “The fact that they’re all there together is probable cause right there, Abe. And you arrest the lot of ’em.”

Glitsky, Holiday and Hardy just looked at her.

After a moment, she turned pale, then crimson, then added in a flat tone. “There would have to be backup. I’m talking police, of course.”

Glitsky went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “So I call Gerson and tell him where and when, and that it’s just me and you, Diz, and your client turning himself in to me. And that after I have John in custody, I will personally take him downtown for booking. I also tell him it’s imperative that no one else, including him, is there to blow the deal. Especially not him. But he’s going to think the three of us are out wherever it is, all alone.”

“Okay,” Hardy said. “Then what?”

“Then we field-test our theory, which all along has been that this ends when Holiday is dead.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it,” Holiday said.

Glitsky ignored him. “The point is, if Gerson does show up, I know there could only be one reason.”

Roake was shaking her head. “It’s no good, Abe. You’d be absolutely exposed. No way would Gerson come alone.”

Glitsky nodded. “That’s probably right. And that would remove any doubt about his guilt and conspiracy, wouldn’t it? Not that I have any. But that would be rock-solid proof.”

“No question, proof is good,” Hardy agreed. “Except when it leaves you outnumbered four or five to one.”

“Any trace of the rest of them,” Glitsky said, “and I call for backup.”

Sure you will, Hardy thought to himself.

Glitsky went on. “Then I go to Batiste and let him know what happened. And then they have to listen.”

Hardy got up and walked over the window. He turned back around. “No way, Abe. This can’t happen. You’re talking suicide.”

“Well, if they succeed in killing me, which I strongly doubt, there’s three witnesses in this room can swear to what happened.”

“Be that as it may, Abe, I won’t allow it.”

Glitsky’s mouth turned up a fraction of an inch. “I know it runs counter to your worldview, Diz, but you’ve got nothing to say about it. This is my job.”

“So get your backup there and in place first.”

“On what pretext? I’m the payroll lieutenant. Remember? Besides, then it would just leak and scare everybody off.” Now Glitsky stood up, full of resolve. “This is a good plan, people. It might be the only one before they can hit us again, and that I can’t let them do.” He was over behind Hardy’s desk, reaching for the phone, punching the numbers.

The three others watched in a kind of helpless, mute panic as Glitsky’s few words put things into irrevocable motion.

“Lieutenant Gerson, please. Lieutenant, Abe Glitsky here. Yeah, I heard. I know, it’s awful about Paul, but that’s not what I’m calling about. John Holiday. And I told them they should go to you, but as you may know his lawyer’s a friend of mine, and . . .”

In under five minutes, they had it all arranged. Holiday and Hardy, Glitsky said, would be showing up to surrender at four o’clock at Pier 70, a mostly abandoned and completely deserted dock of dilapidated boathouses and razed ancient warehouses. Glitsky didn’t know why they’d picked such a godforsaken place, but . . .

“Because then there’s no way Gerson can argue that he just happened to be in the neighborhood.”

“So how about if John and I really do show up with you?”

Glitsky looked straight-faced from one of them to the other, over to Roake. “I hope I haven’t given you the impression that’s an option, because it’s not.”

“Now wait a minute—” Holiday stood up.

Glitsky raised his voice against any interruption. “So I’m just running down the hall to the bathroom for a minute, maybe less. Diz, your client is your responsibility. I expect you as an officer of the court to keep my prisoner here under your watch until I get back. I need your word on it.”

Hardy solemnly raised his right hand. “You’ve got it.”

“All right, then.” And Glitsky was gone.

Roake, Glitsky and Hardy were standing downstairs in the lobby. Upstairs in Hardy’s office, Glitsky had put on a perfectly convincing display of anger and disappointment when he returned from the bathroom to find that Holiday had “escaped.” Both Roake and Hardy swore he’d pulled his weapon on them again. They’d been helpless to stop him.

Now Hardy noticed Phyllis as she stood up behind her switchboard. She caught his eye as she came around her partition and motioned with her head toward Norma’s office, where she stopped and stood expectantly in the doorway. Hardy reached out for Gina’s arm and turned her, guiding her that way as well. Glitsky followed.

They all were there, crowding behind Phyllis, in time to see Norma put down the receiver and hang her head, her shoulders collapsing around her. When she finally looked up, tears streaked her cheeks.

Wordless, she nodded at the assemblage in her doorway. It seemed the limit of all the acknowledgment she was capable of. Phyllis, next to Hardy, put her hand over her mouth and began to sob.

30

A
fter leaving Hardy’s office, Glitsky returned to his empty home. He was tempted to stop by Nat’s to see his father and his daughter, but in the end decided that this would serve no purpose. He kept trying to convince himself that today was in a fundamental way no different than any other. The situation was personal and extreme, true, but basically it wasn’t too far removed from the work done by most cops every day—sometimes you had to put yourself in the line of fire. It came with the territory.

He still wasn’t clear in his mind about how the logistics would play out, but this uncertainty again was, if not exactly comforting, at least familiar enough. He remembered earlier in his career, making busts in places where he had little or no knowledge of what he’d be facing after he hit the doorway, most often at or before the very first light of dawn. Would there be three small terrified children and their mother huddled in a corner? A wired junkie who might decide on the spur of the moment to take a nearby and convenient hostage? A pit bull with a bad attitude? A dark room with a desperate gunman in each corner? Or maybe just a sleepy and strung-out loser who’d just as soon wake up tomorrow in jail anyway, where it was cleaner, warmer and they had better food.

So he’d done this kind of thing before, many times. You knew the basic rules. You tried to keep your options open, stay flexible and be prepared. You wore your vest for sure, you had enough ammunition and at least a couple of loaded guns so you didn’t have to reload at an inopportune moment. His experience had taught him that ejecting a spent clip and slamming in a new one wasn’t as easy in the heat of the moment as it might appear on television. Even when he’d been younger, his hands tended to shake in moments of stress and danger. They still did. He could more easily imagine himself fumbling and dropping his reload to the ground at the worst possible moment than otherwise.

So he took out two guns from the safe in his bedroom. His everyday weapon was a Glock 9mm automatic, and it was a fine gun, easy to carry and to handle. But in this case, he reached for his matching Colt .357 revolvers with custom rubber grips. The damn things bucked like horses with the kind of heavy load he’d be using—.357 ammunition, special hand-loaded hot rounds, hollow-point bullets—but if things developed the way he thought they might, he wanted a bullet that could spin a man around twice and bring him down if it nicked him on the pinky. A hit in any large muscle and the slug would flatten and pretty much take the fight out of its target, guaranteed. A body hit was a death sentence.