A Certain Justice

65

The sound of the wind woke him. His watch read six-eighteen.

The television was still on in the boys' bedroom, where he had gone to watch the late news. This morning there was another talking head saying something about the Hunter's Point Naval Reservation, about Senator Loretta Wager and the President.

He sat up. Something was happening with the decommissioned navy base, and whatever it was – the details weren't all in yet – it was a major coup for Loretta.

They must have gotten something wrong. If she had been in the middle of these kinds of negotiations… She had never mentioned anything about it. He stood up abruptly and smacked the power button on the set, shutting the damn thing off.

He hadn't planned to fall asleep. There was too much to be done – get in touch with Loretta, place a call to Rigby about his job, connect with Wes Farrell, meet with Banks and Lanier and Griffin.

He walked to the bathroom, then the kitchen, put the water on to boil, walked to the east-facing window over the sink and pushed it open.

Smoke. The air looked clear – the sky was a cerulean, Maxfield Parrish blue – but he smelled smoke.

In his bedroom he checked his message machine. He realized that he'd known, without having to verify it, that Loretta hadn't called. Last night – his immobility, the drift off to unwanted and unplanned sleep – his body in denial. Now, suddenly, things were clearer than they had been. Sleep had its place. Patterns had begun to emerge from the chaos. Certain combinations made some sense. Not perfectly yet – all the pieces weren't there – but enough to make it obvious at least where he was certainly, without doubt, going wrong.

The patterns that did make sense – dimly glimpsed as they had begun to shift and sort out the night before – had shut him down for a while, that was all. It wasn't a reaction he was proud of, but there it was. He guessed his psyche, his body, whatever it was, had needed some time-out to adjust to the new truths, to get them organized. So he'd drifted off.

He stirred the tea, the phone's cradle tucked under his ear. If it came to it, he would need an ally, perhaps even a wedge; but other things being equal, he would rather go for a finesse. He wasn't at all sure that he was strong enough to win a direct confrontation.

Elaine Wager sounded exhausted, but after a beat of hesitation she agreed to see him – he could come over.

Since his discovery of the nature of Elaine and Chris Locke's relationship, as well as her mother's disclosure about the two of them, something personal had developed between Glitsky and Elaine. This was the first time he had ever seen her out of her lawyer's uniform. He thought of her not bothering to dress more formally… never mind it was Saturday… as something symbolic, she was open to him.

It might also mean nothing.

She wore black baggy pants cinched at the waist with a black nylon cord. She had tucked a purple scoop-neck sweater into the pants. Shades of her mother, she was barefoot. Her hair still wet, she stepped aside after opening her front door, letting him lead the way into the living room. She settled on one of the stools by the bar, crossed her legs.

He stood a moment, looking west out her windows. The day was clear and bright, the Pacific glittering in the distance. 'Have you heard from your mother?' Glitsky didn't turn around. The clarity of it all out there held his attention. He needed some clarity.

'Yesterday. We were… why, is she all right?'

'I think she's all right. Did you see her last night?'

'No, not since the afternoon. Abe, what's this about?'

Now he turned. 'I'm afraid it's still about Kevin Shea. And I suppose before we go on I'd better tell you something else.' As he brought her abreast of the change in his own situation, he was relieved to find her at least still listening. You never knew – the bureaucracy was its own environment, and if he wasn't part of it anymore he would cease to exist to most people still in it, but Elaine wasn't one of them – she kept with him.

When he finished she said, 'But I'm not clear what this has to do with Mom. We should call her.' She was reaching for the telephone on the bar.

Glitsky crossed the room quickly, pushed the button down, took the receiver from her hand. 'I don't think so,' he said. 'Not yet.'

'Why not?'

He took a breath. This was the moment. 'Because I think she's probably part of it.'

'What? What are you talking about?' She was off the stool now, on her feet.

Glitsky kept his voice low. 'Your mother was the only person who knew I was meeting with Wes Farrell, Shea's lawyer. The only one, Elaine, the only possibility. She must have told Alan Reston about it and he had a DA investigator follow Farrell home with a warrant.'

'And? I'm supposed to think that means something?'

'Then last night-'

'No! I don't care what you say. That just isn't my mother! My mother isn't part of anything! How dare you?'

The reaction. He knew he'd hit a nerve – Elaine had possibly reached the same conclusion on her own and didn't want to – couldn't? – admit it to herself. She had moved away and now moved back at him. But then the fight abruptly went out of her. All at once her shoulders sagged. Backing up, she let herself down into one of the leather chairs.

Glitsky went on quietly. 'Right at the beginning you told her I was soft on her Shea theory. She kept me close so she could watch me, Elaine. So she could blow the whistle on me if I got in the way. And that's what she's done.'

He saw her swallow, sigh, nod – in agreement, in weariness. 'She did it to you, too, didn't she?'

'Mom gets what she wants, Abe. That's Mom.'

'And what did she want from you?'

Still looking for the words that might excuse or at least explain her mother, Elaine said, 'It would have been good for me, too, Abe. I mean, for my career. This was going to be one of the biggest murder cases of the decade – maybe as big as OJ – and I couldn't lose. Nobody could lose it, at least no reasonably competent DA, which I am. It would have set me up.' She looked up at him. 'It wasn't like it was all just for her.'

'Some of it was, though, huh?'

Elaine shrugged. 'Some, maybe. That was always the way. Mom got something, but she delivered for you, too.'

'Not for me,' Abe said, 'not this time.' He came and sat on the ottoman, pulled it away a bit. 'But this isn't about me. At least not much anymore. Maybe not even you, except I think a little more than me. It's your case and it's gone sideways, Elaine. Your mom knows it – I told her last night. She called Reston, all right, but not to call him off.'

'But she wouldn't-'

'I think she would.'

'Would what?'

'I think you know exactly what, Elaine.' Glitsky met her eyes and knew he had to go further. Being cryptic wasn't going to cut it. 'I think your mother is going to let something happen to Kevin Shea. You said almost the same thing yourself yesterday.'

But this, suddenly, was too much for her. It was, after all, her mother. 'She would not go that far, Abe. That's not my mom. I'd need some proof about all this.' She matched his own gaze. That's what we do, isn't it? Isn't that what you've been saying? Well, okay, my mom maybe could be part of some of this. Maybe that's who she is. But I need a lot more than you getting put on leave, more than the case going sideways.'

'I'll tell you some facts, Elaine. Leave your mother out of it if you want.'

She sat back down.

By now it was all too familiar to Abe – the knife wounds, Lithuanian Rachel and Colin Devlin, the interpretation of Kevin Shea as hero and victim. And then, even to Glitsky as he spoke, the last cog falling in. He remembered Hardy's comment about clients speaking for themselves, that they lied once too often, how that one lie was the tip-off that there were more. But the one 'lie' on Kevin's videotape – that the police had betrayed him – turned out not to be. At the time, Glitsky simply hadn't known about it. He told her: 'Everything Shea said on the tape is true.'

Elaine was shaking her head. 'I don't understand what she could possibly get out of all this, assuming what you say is true. Why would she…'

'She's got her man in the DA's office, she's got Philip Mohandas and his people thinking she's on their side, she's even got the president of the United States-'

'Get real, Abe, that's just-'

He held up a hand, stopping her, and told her about Hunter's Point. It had an effect. Elaine became silent, taking it in.

'We're talking a hundred thousand votes, Elaine, minimum. We're talking another term, more influence, more power, maybe even the vice-presidency, if Kevin Shea is innocent, if there's even a serious perception that he's innocent.'

'It wouldn't all go away. Not just over that.'

'Yes it would. You think about it.'

Elaine could do the figuring. If Shea was guilty, then Loretta Wager was the crusading personification of justice who had the guts and vision to put her outrage to use in the service of her people. But if he was not, if he were innocent and she'd led the rush to judgment, she became a strident harpy, a bigot herself seeking only a white scapegoat. To satisfy the gaping maw of her own ambition.

'She can't let him be innocent, Elaine – she's invested too much in his guilt. She doesn't have a choice…'

Elaine sat there. 'But what if it came out after…'

Glitsky was shaking his head. 'How would it do that?'

'Well, you, for example. You could-'

'No, I'm a discredited police inspector who didn't follow orders. My credibility is shot as it is. I pull anything like this and it only gets worse.'

'Okay, then, Wes Farrell…'

'Shea's own attorney? I don't think so. And I don't think you're it either – not after the fact, if something does happen with Shea, not if you don't have any hard proof that Shea didn't do it.'

'I could find-'

Glitsky was shaking his head. 'No you couldn't. You can't prove a negative, which is the bitch about getting accused in the first place. I think it's why we're supposed to prove people did do something, not didn't, although normally I don't go around preaching for the presumption of innocence. But it does have its place.'

Glitsky stood and walked back to the windows, to the blessed clarity. 'And that leaves nobody to argue for Kevin Shea, not after he's dead. Can you think of anybody else? I can't. This has been well thought out. Reston, the FBI, getting rid of me… and after Shea is gone and it's over, the whole thing gets – pardon the phrase – whitewashed. And it's going to work unless we do something now.'

Elaine sat back in her chair. 'And what do you propose, without destroying my mother?'

'I want to bring Kevin Shea in to you. You're still the DA of record on the case, right?'

'I think so.' Then, at his sharp glance, 'Sure. Yes.'

He crossed back to her. 'All right. I think you're a lot safer right now than the jail. I also don't believe your mother would ever let anything threaten you. If he's with you, he's safe. So I've got to contact Farrell, get in touch with Shea, bring the boy in.'

'And then what?'

'Then I don't know, tell the truth. We're guaranteeing Shea's safety, and essentially, that's all he wants.'

'All right, that can be arranged. We can go to one of the towns down the Peninsula…'

'Try someplace small and upscale. Say, Hillsborough or Atherton. I've got to have something I can give Farrell.'

'Abe.' She reached a hand out and touched his knee. 'Do you really think this is what's happening?'

He fixed her with his eyes. 'Yep.'

'And you think you can really do this, get Shea in custody this morning?'

'I'd better.' Then: 'You want to call your Sergeant Stoner for me, see if you can find out if he remembers where Farrell lives?'

'Can't we just call Farrell and ask?'

Glitsky shook his head. 'I don't know if I mentioned it. I'm pretty sure Farrell's phone is tapped,' he said. 'It gives me pause.'

66

Philip Mohandas normally would have been gratified by the turnout so far, but he'd been wrestling with demons for the better part of the night and they had beaten him down.

It was just seven-thirty and already there were hundreds of people milling about Kezar Pavilion on the southeastern border of Golden Gate Park (about three hundred yards from the apartment at Stanyan and Page where Kevin Shea and Melanie Sinclair were just waking up). He could see the stream of people flowing down the side streets across the lawns of the park. It was a beautiful morning, a little windy with a heavy smoky smell to the air.

Mohandas knew that the combination of wind and fire was making problems in Bayview, for the first time in North Beach, and he noticed a small pillar of smoke rising due east and a little south, perhaps over by Divisadero. The march might have to jog north a few blocks if it got much worse, but the wind wasn't really his problem.

His problem, if he was going to have one, would be crowd control. This was the case often enough that he was used to it, but it always caused him concern, especially here today when his credibility was so clearly on the line. This was his show. He'd called it into being, and the response – from the look of things so far – was going to be overwhelming. He couldn't allow things to get out of hand.

And unfortunately, in spite of the early arrivals – a good thing – there were signs of other, potentially disruptive elements.

First was the presence of so much armed authority – he had passed truckloads of National Guard troops on his drive out here earlier, mobilized and ready to roll, parked all along Fell Street. In addition, at least a hundred city police were on patrol, many on horseback but a large number on foot, too, in the open pavilion and its surrounding streets, even by the tent that he was using as his staging area.

The uniforms weren't the worst of it. Since the release of Kevin Shea's tape the previous afternoon, he had become increasingly aware of the backlash problem, which – to be honest – he'd expected a little sooner. But now, even though the official response to the tape had initially been skeptical across the color spectrum, he had been hearing reports of spontaneous outbreaks of angry white people taking to the streets.

Already this morning he had seen the police subdue and carry away one belligerent white man with a placard. True, it was an isolated case, but it was worrisome. That the man had come out at all, knowing how badly he'd been outnumbered… he must have thought there would have been others, perhaps many others.

Mohandas held no illusions – he knew any meeting between a white and black group, in this context, today, could get ugly fast. He had to get the show on the road as quickly as he could, keep his crowd moving and focused. That was the key.

Suddenly Allicey was standing next to him. 'Lot of the people with us, Philip, hearing us, what we're saying.'

He nodded. She motioned out to the growing crowd. 'This is it,' she said. 'This is the difference between you and Loretta Wager. You are with the people.'

'You think so?' He often thought that the most important function Allicey served for him – out of hundreds – was her belief. She never wavered. The mission was the freedom of her people, of their people. They had been oppressed for so long, still were. And that's because they had struggled to be included. That had been wrong, he'd decided. The path lay in separation and connection with your own. It – was a spiritual thing, a constant battle, and you could not afford to lose your faith, to mingle with those who would dilute it. Or, like Loretta Wager had done, sell it out for power and influence.

'You are, Philip. With the people.'

He shook his head. 'I must be getting old. My vision is a little blurred. '

She rested a hand on his arm. 'You have been tempted.'

He nodded. 'So much of it now seems to be logistics, money, getting concrete things done.'

'But, Philip, the world isn't made of concrete.'

'More than you'd think, Allicey.' He sighed, smiled weakly, then turned toward the tent behind them. But he did not walk on.

Instead he stopped and faced her. 'I can't put a name to what it is.'

'The temptation.'

'To what?'

There was sadness in his face; his eyes were shot with red. The week had been grueling. 'To not believe. To not believe it's going to change. And if not, should I take the devil's offer? That way, something I do might have an ending." He folded his hands together in front of him. 'Something might close up, Allicey, feel finished. You hear what I'm saying?'

'The river just flows on, Philip. It doesn't close up. It doesn't end.'

'But where's it goin', girl, where's it all goin'?'

'The point is, it's going, Philip. It's moving ahead.'

'Is it? ' he asked.

Carl Griffin pulled into the city lot under the freeway overpass behind the Hall of Justice. Exhausted from the long late fruitless nights and only marginally aware that it was a Saturday, he wasn't even hungry.

Griffin was a working dog who basically liked his weekends and his Monday Night football, but when he had a report to finish he liked to get it done so it didn't hang over his head, and he and Marcel Lanier had interviewed, together, over twenty people last night. All of whom had agreed that there had been a riot, that the DA had gotten killed, yeah, all of that, but so what? What else was new?

People seemed sick of it – talking about it, dealing with it. Others, not knowing what they should admit they saw or didn't see, did or didn't do, were scared of the cops. Griffin could see it in faces, in their body language. Nobody was talking very much. But the reports had to get done – lack of paperwork would bite you every time you didn't get to it, or did it sloppily. Griffin thought they didn't call it the homicide detail for nothing. Griffin himself was not what he would call an idea man, but he remembered every step of things he did and could assemble the basic package in twenty-five minutes or less.

So he and Marcel had flipped a coin at the Doggie Diner on Army at a quarter to twelve last night to determine who would come in this morning – or before Monday at least – and write the report on what they hadn't found, and Griffin had lost.

The roasting-coffee smell – was it coffee? – was strong here in the lot, riding on a morning breeze coming off the Bay. Griffin schlumped across the pavement, down the corridor by the morgue and the new jail, into the back door, around the metal detector.

Glancing into the lobby, he saw that the lines of cited rioters had vanished, perhaps in response to the outbreak here a couple of nights ago. He didn't know what the sheriff was doing with those people anymore and he didn't much care just so long as they were kept out of his way.

Only Ridley Banks was in the office, arms crossed, slumped in his chair, feet on his desk. He appeared to be sleeping, maybe had spent the night here. Griffin put on a pot of coffee, emptied his pockets and plopped his papers down on his desk, pulling his chair up to it with a sigh.

The phone rang in Glitsky's office, and he sighed again, let it ring once more – Ridley wasn't going to get it – then pushed back and stood. There was a police department notice on the wall next to the open doorway that he ignored as he went inside and picked up the phone.

'Homicide, Griffin.'

'Hey, Carl. Abe. How you doin'?'

'The band's just settin' up and the chicks aren't here yet so it's kind of slow. What's up?'

'I got a favor to ask. What's your day look like?'

'Nothin'. I'm in for the report on last night. After that, before that, whenever, you name it.'

'How'd last night go? You find anything?'

Griffin eased a leg over the corner of Glitsky's desk, put his weight on it. 'The short answer's no. Nobody really even heard the two shots, would take an oath on it.'

Glitsky hung back a second. 'I thought you already had those. Yesterday, those old ladies…'

'Yeah, I know. But they didn't hear two shots. The two of 'em heard one shot each. Lot of folks heard one shot.'

'So what does that mean?'

'Hell if I know. I just write down the answers and let the lawyers figure it out. Probably means nothing – somebody heard the first one, thought it was a backfire, it got their attention, then bang - oh yeah, maybe a shot. People weren't their usual talkative selves, some reason.'

Okay, Griffin was thinking, so we got nothing. He didn't want to spend more time doing the third degree on what they didn't have. 'So what's the favor?'

'Elaine Wager may be coming in with Kevin Shea, could be an hour, maybe a little more.'

'You're shittin' me. Kevin Shea himself?'

'What I want is for one of our guys – I don't want any other DA or the sheriff involved – one of you to escort her and Shea down the Peninsula, to wherever Elaine tells you.'

'You really got Kevin Shea?'

'Almost, I think. I just want to be prepared. And Carl, this is a favor, not an order.'

Same difference, Griffin was thinking.

Just at that moment Banks appeared in the doorway holding the PD notice. 'Is that Abe?' he asked. 'Let me talk to him.'

He handed the paper to Griffin, took the phone.

'Lieutenant, this is Ridley…'

Griffin heard it in the background as he scanned the paper. What was this bullshit? Glitsky placed on administrative leave, questions on current homicides should go upstairs to Frank Batiste, the assistant chief.

Banks was telling Abe that the lab hadn't been able to find any fingerprints on the yellow rope that had hung Arthur Wade but that he'd been frustrated with an evening gone into the pisser and he'd gone over to Jamie O'Toole's place last night and told him they were pursuing the knife wounds on Mullen and McKay with doctors in the area and were sure they would be bringing them downtown, perhaps under arrest, by the afternoon.

'No, I know it's unlikely,' he was saying, 'but I think Mr O'Toole's about ready to cave, cut a deal, do a little talking about the principals who might be involved here, save his own sweet white ass.' Banks cast a look at Griffin, smiled blandly. 'Figure of speech, Carl,' he said. Then, listening another moment: 'Anything else you want out of the lieutenant?'

Griffin looked down at the paper in his hands. This was why it was a favor, not an order, so it wasn't, in fact, the same difference. Still, Abe was a good cop, a fair guy. Whatever it was probably had to do with the brass and Griffin didn't get involved with that. 'No. Tell him I'll be there.'

Banks did, then hung up, pointed to the paper. 'Can you believe this idiocy? What's this about?'

'Yeah, I know,' Griffin said, putting it on Abe's desk. 'When they first started talking about making him lieutenant, I warned him.'

'You warned him?'

Griffin nodded. 'You get to lieutenant, you stop being a street cop, which is what Glitsky is. Like me. You can't change what you are.'

Banks, in the longest discussion he had ever had with Carl Griffin, flashed on his girlfriend – maybe now ex-girlfriend – Jacqueline coming to the same conclusions as this overweight flatfoot. It amazed him. 'Beware of any job that requires a change of clothes.'

'Yeah, that's what I mean. That's exactly it.'

"Thoreau wrote that.'

'Who?'

'Thoreau.'

"The guy who wrote Presumed Innocent?'

Banks couldn't help himself. 'Yeah, him.'

Griffin, oblivious, was moving on. 'I liked the movie but I still think the guy – the attorney – did it, not his wife.' Then, without missing a beat: 'Did I hear you talking about knife wounds with the lieutenant? I ever tell you about Colin Devlin?'

Chief Dan Rigby, trying to keep a low profile, was on a field telephone with an irate and frustrated Mayor Conrad Aiken. 'Mohandas is there? He's going ahead with it?'

'Unless I stop him, sir, but I thought I'd call you first.'

'What's he trying to accomplish by this! Goddamn it!'

'Yes, sir.' Rigby waited.

Yesterday, after a series of referrals from cowardly lesser city bureaucrats had moved the request along to his office, the mayor had had a long and heated discussion with Philip Mohandas about the wisdom of his projected march on City Hall. The mayor pointed out the concessions he had already made – the increased reward on Kevin Shea, the appointment of Alan Reston. The city was genuinely trying to respond. The mayor, through his man Donald, had even gotten wind of the Hunter's Point deal and knew that Mohandas was still in the pipeline for administration of that pork barrel. What did the man want? Wasn't it ever enough? And Mohandas had replied that all he wanted was a permit to allow his people peaceably to assemble, as guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

Deaf to by arguments about the potential for violence, the inflammatory nature of the demand for Kevin Shea's head, as well as the difficulty in meeting that demand even with the best of intentions, Mohandas had informed the mayor he was going ahead with the march. His people deserved it. With or without the permit, the application for which had led to this meeting in the first place.

'Without a permit, the gathering will be illegal,' Aiken had warned. 'I could order and enforce dispersal, even your own arrest. Extend the curfew, declare martial law, and if you think things are bad now…'

'I understand all that,' Mohandas had said.

In the end Conrad Aiken – feeling a little like Pontius Pilate – had decided he could not issue the permit. The rally, gathering, whatever it was, might go ahead, but it would be without his imprimatur. His threats, he knew, were bluffs. He wasn't going to make a bad situation worse by calling up more reinforcements.

But until Rigby's call, Aiken was hoping against hope that Mohandas would – for once – not push things beyond their limits, that he would see the light and act responsibly. Now, clearly, that was not going to happen. The crowd, according to Rigby, was already at about two thousand and the streets surrounding Kezar were packed.

Well, Aiken was thinking, it could be Mohandas had heard at least a little of what he had been saying. The man wasn't budging on pushing his agenda, but there was one sign of conciliation, even in his intractability. At least Mohandas had not gone public with the mayor's decision not to issue the permit – not yet.

'My advice, sir,' the chief was saying, 'is we watch it closely, but I think to try and stop things at this point would be to invite a disaster. Permit or no permit.'

The mayor swore and the chief agreed with him.

And then the horrible, ugly, unbelievable reality struck Aiken like a club. Suddenly he knew the strategy Mohandas was contemplating… he was saving the news that the mayor had refused to grant permission for this march for greater effect as the rally progressed. And that would let loose the furies.

Aiken could not allow that to happen – not only would it ignite the volatile crowd, it would be a political disaster. How had he overlooked this possibility while he was talking to Mohandas yesterday? He'd simply wanted to have the march not happen – he'd had enough of riots and this was certain to become another one. He'd been trying to do what was right and keep the city from another explosion of violence and rage. He'd really thought there had been a chance that Mohandas might call it off. Yesterday, Aiken had needed his no-permit stance as a fallback for those who would accuse him of irresponsibility for condoning the march at this critical time.

But it was going to backfire on him. He saw it clearly now. Mohandas was going to exploit his refusal to issue the permit in the worst possible light, and make the mayor into a racist, the worst epithet there was for a San Francisco politician.

He could not let it happen.

Dan Rigby was still on the line, waiting for instructions. 'Chief,' Aiken said, 'I think you're right about not interfering unless there's trouble, but I'm going to go you one better. I'm going to issue the permit.'

'Look at this!'

Melanie was peeping through the apartment's front window at the mass of movement below. Kevin came up behind her and rested his hand gently on her rear end, leaning over to look.

'It's Mohandas's rally,' he said. They had both heard about it on television. 'Wes better come through here. If I'm not mistaken, this whole thing is about finding us.'

Melanie turned around, pulling the shade down all the way. 'You want to call him now?'

Kevin thought about it. 'He said nine. But yeah, I do.'

'So do it.'

Kevin would be calling precisely at nine o'clock, so Wes thought he'd take care of Bart, get that out of the way early. He made it all the way down the stairs into the apartment's lobby, didn't even hear the phone ring this time.

Special Agent Simms was back in the van with two techs and one marksman. She had decided to keep one of the shooters on hand at all times – there might not be time to round up both.

After the close call at Pizzaiola, she had not been able to sleep until nearly three in the morning. She had given instructions that any call to Wes Farrell, no matter how mundane, and from whatever source, was sufficient grounds to awaken her.

There had been none.

The last call had been long before sleep came, the warning that his phone was being tapped, from some leak somewhere. It infuriated her. Too often somebody discovered these things. She thought the penalty for exposing a secret tap to its mark should be death, but Special Agent Simms thought that, under certain conditions, the penalty for jay-walking should be death, too.

The good news was that Farrell had not unplugged his phone. He hadn't even taken it off the hook. It was possible, she supposed, that he didn't believe it was tapped. Some people were that way – you could tell them you were sleeping with their spouse and they'd smile and say they didn't believe their spouse would ever be unfaithful. He/she just wasn't that kind of person.

More realistically, though, and her real hope, was that Farrell had no way to get in touch with Shea except by phone. It was their only link, and he'd have to use it at least once. She was also counting on the public's perception – no longer true – that you had to stay on the line for a reasonably long period of time before they could pinpoint a location for either party. Maybe Farrell was thinking he'd keep it quick if Shea called him, get him off in ten seconds or so. But that would be enough.

And, in that ten seconds, they'd have to make arrangements about how to connect again, wouldn't they? And it would all be on the tape here in the van.

They'd get him. It wouldn't be long now.

67

With three separate telephone numbers, each with its own answering machine, Loretta Wager could be here and gone at the same time at any moment of the day or night.

Last night, for example, she had been here for Alan Reston, gone for Glitsky. She didn't feel good about what had to happen with Abe, but she would make it up to him when this was all over. In a way, she loved his tenacity – but she couldn't have even Abe compromising her position right now. If he could just be made to leave things alone until this was over they could pick up where they were. And she thought that might even be by tonight. Reston had brought her up to date on the Wes Farrell phone tap, and the assumption was that the FBI would be able to move by sometime this morning at the latest.

After Abe had left her at City Hall, when she had called Reston's real number (not the one she had randomly punched in while Glitsky was standing there) and talked to Alan about Glitsky's request that she step in and straighten out the new DA's head – there really wasn't much discussion about whether or not to complain to Chief Rigby and put the lieutenant out of commission, temporarily. It had to happen.

Once that was done, she fully expected to get a call or two from Abe. And she simply wouldn't be available. She had pulled her curtains, turned out the front lights. If he drove by to see her she wouldn't be home. She didn't think that if he came by he would wait all night, but if he did she had a story for that too – exhaustion, earplugs, a Dalmane.

But he had not come over, had simply phoned twice and left messages and that had been that. He was a man's man, she was thinking. He wouldn't come whining to her about his problems. She liked that about him, too.

He'd simply wait until they were together again, she believed. He'd bring up his questions about where she'd been – not in any accusatory way – what reason to accuse her of anything? – and she would come up with something plausible that had unexpectedly prevented her getting back to him. There were any number of excuses that she knew she could make him believe. He was upset and she couldn't blame him, but she just couldn't talk to him until after…

Drinking her morning coffee, now having decided it was safe to open the curtains, she allowed herself a moment of repose. She had decisions to make about who she was going to call back – her daughter and the mayor had both left urgent messages, but five minutes wasn't going to make any difference.

There was, she thought, something truly thrilling about physical infatuation. She was thinking back to when he'd been her young stud at San Jose State, how – remarkably – his body hadn't changed much at all. The chest had filled, broadened somewhat, but the belly was still a flatiron.

There would be such sweet – bittersweet – irony if they could somehow, against all these odds, stay reconnected. She smiled unconsciously. On the desk at City Hall… the man was a piston.

But more than that, she loved how he seemed truly to envision himself as such a pragmatist, a working cop, downplaying the brain of the Talmudic scholar that she knew his father was. And really such an idealist. If he only knew the truth of some of the hard – impossible at the time – choices she had had to make…

Maybe sometime in the future she could let him know. When it would either matter more or not at all. Later, if their infatuation developed into the real thing. She was so incredibly moved by his sweet trust of her.

Would he ever forgive her?

Well, after this she would make it up to him. She'd try. She owed him that much for the part of him she had carried with her, lived with over the years. And the other part now – the one that she had found again.

'What is it, honey? You sounded so upset.'

Elaine had been righting herself over it, and in the end blood had won out. She had to talk to her mother – she couldn't just take Glitsky's word for something so important – and get a straight denial or a confirmation. Either way, then, she would know, and would better be able to act. Her mother would never lie to her.

Loretta answered her that she didn't know why Abe would have said such things to her. 'I just saw him last night, honey. He told me about this and I passed it along to Alan Reston. Didn't he tell you that?'

'He said you didn't call him back.'

'That's true, but how could I? I didn't get home until nearly one – I was out with a couple of the supervisors' aides, trying to work out the administration of this Hunter's Point thing. I've got a few other things besides Lieutenant Glitsky on my mind just now, hon. I think Abe must be feeling the pressure. I've got to talk to him. Is he there now?'

'No, he's gone over to Farrell's. I just wanted to know what you'd do…"

'It sounds to me you're doing just right, Elaine. I'd do the same thing. If Abe can bring you Kevin Shea and you can guarantee his safety, then of course you've got to do it. That's all I've called for time and time again – the man's arrest.'

'That's all you want?'

'What else could I want, child?'

'Even if he's innocent?'

'Of course. Especially if he's innocent, which I don't think he is, mind you. I think Abe might be losing his perspective a little bit. If you hear from him, you have him call me, hear? Get this boy back on the right track.'

'All right, Mom… I will.'

'And as for you, I'd be a little careful.' Loretta went on about the pitfalls of abandoning procedures, then ended: 'All right, now you take care, I've got to talk to the mayor. You need anything else, just jingle me back, okay?'

Damn damn damn you, Abe Glitsky! You don't know what you're messing with.

'So I thought, Senator, that you might be able to put the best perspective on this oversight by personally delivering the permit to Mr Mohandas. I mean, the whole point of the rally is to protest the city's foot-dragging. I thought you could offset that…'

'I think you're right, Conrad. If you want the truth, I don't think I would have approved the permit on this thing yesterday either if I were in your shoes. That's off the record now, but I believe you did the right thing. Now, though, since the rally seems to be going forward…'

'I could send a limo. Be there in fifteen minutes with the signed permit.'

'If you could make it a half hour I'd look a little better on television.' She laughed conspiratorially.

'Thank you, Senator. I don't know how to thank you, but I'll remember this.'

'Oh, nonsense, Conrad. It just gives me an excuse to say a few words in public, and you know I just live for those moments.' She laughed her deep, throaty, self-deprecating laugh.

'Still…'

'You hush now. Send your limo over. Bye bye.'

68

Glitsky had stayed with Elaine, discussing how they'd do it, for most of a half hour, then had called the office and lucked out by getting Carl Griffin, who'd drag a log a mile through deep sand and never ask why. After that he'd planned to drive directly down to Farrell's, but when he had gotten into his city-issued car by habit he checked and adjusted his rearview mirror, fiddled with the seat, moved it back a notch – and stopped dead.

It was a full ten minutes before he turned the ignition key.

Farrell, wary as a terrier but not quite half as cute, greeted Glitsky in a blue-tinted suit that fit him perfectly. With his hair slicked back and ponytail tied up he almost looked like a practicing attorney except for what looked like an ink stain or something that colored his lower lip and part of his chin.

In the living room papers were lying around, old food containers, beer bottles, soda-pop cans, pizza cartons. Farrell introduced his visitor to Bart the dog and then, catching Glitsky's look, told him the cleaning lady had unexpectedly taken some time off.

Thinking, 'What? For a century?', Glitsky picked his way across the room and plunked himself down on an overturned milk crate. 'Business a little slow lately?' he asked. Bart came up and sniffed at his shoes, his cuffs, his pants. Glitsky petted him.

Farrell came back from doing something in another room and was looking at his watch. 'I got about eight forty-one.'

Glitsky checked his own. 'About.'

'I can't figure how I can avoid the call with Kevin. There's no way I can reach him to warn him off. I've got to be here for him when he calls,' Farrell said, lowering himself onto the futon. 'That was you last night, wasn't it?'

"That was me.'

'So how do you think we ought to handle it?'

Glitsky reached down and scratched at Bart's head again and the dog nuzzled up against his shoes.

'You really don't know where he is?'

Farrell acted offended. 'Look, Lieutenant, I'm here. I'm here for no money because I believe Kevin Shea is as innocent as you or me. If I knew where he was I'd be with him. That's my story and you can take it or leave it. I'm not playing any lawyer games. I'm out of the trade.'

A nod. No apology, though. 'So the only way we find out where he is, we got to take the call?'

'That's how I see it.'

'Then it's going to be a race. You got a back-up place, someplace you decided you'd meet if everything fell apart?'

'No,' Farrell said wearily. 'You know, Lieutenant, we hadn't exactly planned all this. What do you mean, a race?'

'I mean as soon as the FBI places your boy, they're going to be rolling, and you'd better plan to be doing the same thing. I've met Special Agent Simms, and she's here to put out fires, no questions asked.'

'Kevin Shea is a fire?'

'I know she's considering him armed and dangerous.'

'But he's not. He's nothing like that.'

Glitsky shrugged – people got things wrong all the time.

' So I just ask him where he is and head out there?'

'Yeah, I think so.'

Farrell shook his head, blew out a long breath. 'And then what?'

It didn't take long. They were still in San Francisco's jurisdiction, regardless of the FBI's presence. Glitsky – he omitted the fact of his administrative leave – could make a formal arrest, with the bonus of it being in the presence of Shea's attorney and another witness. The assistant district attorney, Elaine Wager, was on board and she'd agreed to help, get Kevin Shea down to a safe zone, maybe even assist Farrell in trying to get the indictment quashed.

The telephone rang. Both men looked at their watches – it was well over fifteen minutes before the call was due.

To Farrell, there were still logistics, a lot of them, to discuss. He didn't feel ready, but he grabbed it before the second ring was over. Listening, he began to frown. 'Yeah, he's here, just a minute.'Then, to Glitsky: 'Elaine Wager.'

Elaine told Glitsky she had talked to her mother, who had denied all of his allegations. All she wanted was Kevin Shea's arrest – that's all she had wanted all along. Loretta didn't really think – and Elaine had come to agree with her – that it would be a good idea to transport Shea out of the city and county. That was really a police matter, and Elaine was with the DA's office, not the PD. It was beyond the scope of her professional responsibilities. She had to be careful not to go outside the accepted procedures – look at all the problems that kind of thing had caused for O.J. Simpson's prosecutors. Did she want that kind of circus.

No, the smart thing was to play it by the book. She could still have Abe deliver Shea to her, and then they could all go downtown and book him and somehow guarantee his safety. To think anything would happen in jail was really just paranoia. People rarely got killed in jail, especially if there was the kind of notoriety that there was in this case. Whatever, Kevin Shea would be especially protected. He should not be concerned about it.

Glitsky was thinking maybe she should ask Jeffrey Dahmer about that, but held his tongue. Then he told her that her whole new idea wasn't going to fly.

'Why not?'

'Because Mr Farrell isn't delivering Kevin Shea to the San Francisco jail, not without more assurance of security than that.'

Which was where it ended, except for the final note that Elaine thought that Abe might be working too hard, seeing things that weren't really there.

He replaced the phone gently into its cradle. It was five minutes of nine. He relayed the message to Farrell, who had been hovering, getting the gist as it developed.

'So now what?'

Glitsky stared across the room. 'I don't suppose you'd be amenable to taking your client downtown?' He didn't even wait for an answer. It was going to come down to him and Loretta, as something in him had known it would have to. Farrell started to reply but Abe stopped him with a gesture to show the question hadn't been serious. But this next one was: 'How about if I can get the senator herself?'

Farrell, embittered by Elaine's turnaround, was shaking his head. 'I don't know if she-'

'She can. Reston's her man. She could get him to promise protection, and meanwhile call off the FBI, take the message to the community, get Mohandas to call off his Dead or Alive rhetoric.' He paused. 'She's the only one who can do it.'

'But why would she? Didn't she just tell… wasn't that her daughter…?'

'She's protecting her daughter's job, her career. This is different.'

'She won't do it, Lieutenant.'

Glitsky was grim. 'She might.' He was on his feet. 'You got a beeper?'

'No. I used to.'

Glitsky pulled at his belt. 'Here, take mine. If she'll do it, if we can deliver Shea to her, if she stands up for him in public, you won't get a better guarantee than that.'

'But even if she does, how will you…?'

Glitsky pointed at his beeper. 'I'll call that number. If you get a chance, call me back and tell me where you are, where Shea is. If you get there before the FBI, get the hell out of wherever you are, go someplace else and wait for me to call you again. If not – if the feds are right behind you, call nine one one. Point is, get some other people there. Get some witnesses.'

'And what if Loretta Wager just won't do it?'

At the door, Glitsky turned. 'Same basic plan, counselor, except if you don't get beeped and do manage to get out in front of the feds…?'

'Yeah?'

'You didn't hear it from me, but ride like the wind.'

69

There was the doorbell – the limo, she supposed. She had told the mayor a half hour and apparently he was in such an all-fired hurry that he'd sent it in half that time.

She was just finishing her hair. Well, she wasn't about to do the rest of her makeup in the car. She'd tell the man he'd have to wait.

Her steps echoed on the hardwood as she walked up through the back rooms to the foyer.

'Abe!'

'I tried to call,' he said. 'Nobody answered.'

'No,' she said. 'I know. I got your message but I got in so late…'

'Elaine said she'd talked to you.' He squinted out at the sun, into the wind. 'You mind if I come in a second?'

'Well, I'm expecting a… sure.' She smiled brightly at him. 'It can only be a minute, though. I've got to get to the rally.'

He stopped midway through the door. 'You're going to the Mohandas rally?'

She reached out and touched his sleeve. 'Not what you think. The mayor asked me to deliver the permit for it, that's all.' She shrugged. 'Political favor. The limo ought to be here any-'

He brought the door to, closing it with the flat of his hand. She tried a smile – confused, actually concerned about him, the pressure he was under. She moved toward him-

'No,' he said.

She drew back. 'No what, Abe?'

His gaze was flat, without expression. Cop mode. She tried again, reaching out. He moved to the side and away from her. 'I was a half hour away from picking up Kevin Shea, getting this whole thing over with the only way I could,' he began, 'and you sandbagged me.' He was moving slowly away from her, keeping a steady distance, back through the cavernous living room toward the library.

'Abe, please, I did nothing of the kind. If anything I was trying to help you both – Elaine from making a mistake that could cost her her job, her career; you from being drummed out of the police department altogether.'

He nodded, something had been confirmed. But he was holding it close, giving nothing away. 'As opposed to what?' he asked.

'As opposed to this administrative leave, that's what. You're hurting yourself, Abe, with such a-'

'How do you know about the administrative leave, Loretta?'

A blip of lost control. A vein showed in her temple. 'Well, I…'

'I got the word around midnight last night. When did you get it?'

He had maneuvered them both back into the library, where they had come the first night. It was the closest thing in the house to his turf.

Loretta was framed by the door.

'I don't know,' she said. 'Really, I just don't know.' Her eyes looked wounded. She took a step toward him. 'Why are you being so cold, Abe? Why are you talking to me this way. All I did was tell Elaine to make sure she followed the rules.' She ventured a couple more steps, stopped. 'That's who told me about you. It was Elaine.'

'About the leave?'

'Yes.'

He nodded again. 'How did she know? I never mentioned it to her.'

A narrowing of vision. 'Well, then she didn't get it from you. Maybe she talked to Alan Reston. Maybe she heard it on the news. All I know is that she told me.' She closed the last few feet between them. 'Abe, please. Why are you doing this?'

Now, her eyes glistening from the pain he was putting her through, she lay her palm on his arm. 'Please.'

He stepped back. Her hand fell. 'I want you to call her,' he said.

'And say what?'

'Tell her I've explained things to you. How they stand. Tell her it's the right thing.'

'But it isn't. It could ruin the case, ruin her.'

'There is no case, Loretta. Kevin Shea is innocent and you know it.'

The response had the quality of a reflex, but she took a little extra time to phrase it. 'No white men are innocent, Abe. You know that.'

He'd heard this a thousand times in one form or another, and it had no effect on him now. 'Some are,' he said simply. 'Kevin Shea's one of the good guys, Loretta.'

'Oh, so why don't we put up a statue to him?'

'He didn't do it and you've railroaded the whole country into thinking he did.'

She narrowed her eyes. 'So what?'

'So what? You can undo it.'

'Get a life, Abe. Even if this boy himself didn't do it – don't you see? – he represents what happened.'

She stood firm. 'What would be worse, Abe, is if no one got arrested or punished for what happened to Arthur Wade… If it just went unavenged.'

Suddenly he'd had enough. He wasn't here for politics or philosophy. 'You have to call Elaine.'

Her back stiffened. 'I'm not going to do that. It could ruin her, it could end her career, everything she's worked for-'

'No,' he said, 'it could ruin yours.'

She let a brittle laugh escape. 'You think this is about me. Abe, please, come on…' She kept following him, slowly moving in closer, one step. Another. Hesitant on the face of it, a confidence underneath. It had always worked before. 'This is about Elaine. Only Elaine, not me.'

She was cornering him, giving him no other way – he didn't want to take it as far as it could go, not unless – until – she forced him. And that's what she was doing.

He knew what he knew, but if he could just get her to back off on Kevin Shea that would be enough. Enough for him. There would be a certain justice in that, and sometimes that was all you got.

But she wasn't going to leave Elaine. She couldn't leave her – Elaine was something she hadn't ever wanted to use in this way, but now it was developing that she must. It could end this impasse with Abe. It could save her…

Loretta Wager had molded a life using the clay she was given – every daub of it. If you had a secret, a knowledge, you hoarded it until it could provide its maximum effect.

This was the time.

She sat on the arm of the chair, weary with the weight of it. 'Abe, don't you know? You really don't know?' A tear finally broke loose and she let it roll down her cheek. 'We cannot hurt Elaine, Abe. We cannot let her be hurt. Not either of us…'

'It's not Elaine,' he began again impatiently, 'it's-'

She slapped the leather on the back of the chair. 'Goddamn it, Abe, listen to me. It is Elaine. It is Elaine.'

She let the moment simmer. Watching him as it registered. A beat. Two.

'What are you saying?'

She paused again. Then: 'Do you think I wanted Dana Wager instead of you? Do you think I wanted him for me?' She shook her head. 'I wasn't going to force anyone – force you – to marry me because I was carrying your baby. Okay, you weren't ready to marry me for myself. Don't you understand? I had to have someone who would. And Dana was there. He never had to know. He never knew.' She stared at him. 'And neither did you.'

No reaction. A still frame of the moment of impact. Next, slowly – so slowly – Glitsky's arms coming uncrossed, his face going slack.

Loretta, nodding now, the tears beginning to fall freely. On her feet, another tentative step toward him. 'She's your daughter, Abe. Elaine is your daughter.'

'Get the hell away from me!'

'Abe!'

'Get away!'

Somehow, he had crossed the room. His face – flashes of heat. A tingling, terrifying. A jab in his left arm – his heart was stopping.

'Abe, please…'

'Goddamnitgoddamnit…' A snifter. On the bar. Grabbing it up, squeezing. Impossible. No more control.

The explosion on the hardwood. Shards of broken crystal.

'YOU TELL ME THIS NOW?'

'Don't yell at me, Abe. Please

'DON'T YELL AT YOU? Don't yell at you? Jesus…'

Walking in small circles, turning. Nowhere to go. 'Goddamnit.'

Another try. 'Abe…?'

He pointed at her. 'Don't come near me! Don't you dare take another step!'

She waited, hands at her side.

Slumped in the chair, he heard her moving around in the house.

Minutes had passed.

He still had to do it – do his job – but he found he couldn't move. It had come to where he had known it must. But she had rocked him. He knew it was true. The old nagging sense of familiarity, of vague but real recognition. Elaine was his daughter.

He could not make himself stand up, go in and accuse Loretta, face her. He was afraid of what he might do.

The doorbell rang. Her limo.

He had to move.

Get up, Abe, get up!

If he moved, if he saw her face…

Steps echoing on the floor, the door opening. 'Hello. Yes, I'll be ready in five minutes. You can wait in the car.' He couldn't let her. He couldn't stop her. She'd beaten him. She'd won.

70

'All right, Kevin, call.' Wes Farrell stood in his coat and tie by his kitchen wall phone, talking to it like an idiot. 'It's eight after nine and you said you'd call at nine on the dot and this isn't the time to go flaky on me.'

He had the television on in the war zone of his living salon, and CNN was broadcasting, live near Kezar Pavilion. The whole country was following San Francisco this Saturday morning. Mohandas had appeared a couple of times, the same sound bite about the plans for this to be a peaceful march, a demonstration to the city's leaders, the country's leaders, that… blah blah blah.

The phone jangled. Wes snapped for it, knocked it from its cradle, grabbed again but the receiver fell to the floor. He snagged it up. 'Kevin? Give me your address.'

'Drop the phone, Wes?'

'Kevin, listen to me. We got some big problems. Just give me your address and I'll be right over there.'

'Are you watching this thing on TV?'

'Kevin, give me your fucking address right now.'

'What kind of problems, Wes?'

'I'll explain when I get there. Give me your address.'

Kevin's tone shifted. 'We're still on go, though? I mean, the basic plan…'

Wes was silent. Then: 'Where?'

Kevin gave him the address, the apartment number. 'Fourth floor, in the front,' he said. 'Looks right over the park. There's a million people down there.'

Wes was swearing at himself all the way down to his garage. He couldn't believe that his own brain was failing him so badly. What he should have done was just give Kevin the phone number on Glitsky's beeper, tell him to get out now and go someplace else, then beep him and tell him where he was, which would be where they'd meet. But of course, he was too incredibly stupid to have thought of that. Not when it could have done any good.

Special Agent Simms was in her car with her three fellow agents and moving before Farrell had pulled out of his garage, so she had at least some blocks on him.

It had been unwise of Farrell, she thought, but good for her side, to ask Shea for the address. Still, what else could he have done? Anyway, she had all of the advantage now. The address, the apartment number, the jump on the chase. Maybe they wouldn't need to use any firepower, unless…

Well, she would see. Certainly she wasn't going to get scared out of using the tools they had brought. She wasn't about to show any weakness on that score. The public might have screamed about that woman and her kid the FBI had had to kill up in Montana, but within the ranks of the bureau it was generally conceded that the whole thing had been unavoidable. It had been – what was his name? – the guy Webster's fault for getting them all in that position, certainly not the Bureau's. Start worrying about criticism, the media response, you might as well hang up your badge. You wouldn't get anything done.

She would do what she had to do.

The first action would be the simplest and most direct. She would go up and knock on the door, say she had a federal warrant and he was under arrest. In a perfect world he would open the door and come out with his hands over his head.

Somehow she didn't have the feeling it was going to go down exactly like that.

In spite of Mohandas's best efforts to get things going, the rally wasn't about to start on time. They never did. His mouth was dry in spite of the constant popping of Tic-Tacs. He couldn't stop pacing inside the tent. Allicey, taller than he was, kneaded his shoulders whenever he passed by her.

It was nearly nine-fifteen and there were still people pouring into the Pavilion. The police were patrolling but all seemed calm. There had been two more skirmishes that he had seen from up here, but both had been quickly suppressed.

The smoke from the Divisadero fire was getting a little worse – the wind and all. He'd definitely have to skirt north when the march began. He wasn't going to give much of a speech. There wasn't that need today – he'd already said it publicly so many times – and the turnout was so great that he thought it would be more effective just to get them moving, let it speak for itself.

What he'd do was welcome everybody, talk a minute about the reality of how things worked, not the lip-service they always got but the way results just didn't seem to come all the way to them. The mayor had played into his hands so beautifully he couldn't believe it, but he'd have been a fool not to use what he'd been handed on a platter. He could almost hear himself: '… but in spite of the words we have all heard time and time again about this city's cooperation, the plain fact is, my brothers and sisters, that even this rally, even this peaceful gathering to show our concern, our despair, over the denial of justice for the tragic murder of our brother Arthur Wade…' He would pause here for the outburst to die down. 'The plain fact is that they have even made this gathering illegal. They said we couldn't have this march. They wouldn't give us the permit. But I say our strength is our permit. Our unity is our strength. And let God himself be our judge!'

It was going to sing all right.

And then he'd lead them out, down the seething streets all the way to City Hall. In righteousness, in rage, and in glory.

71

She came briskly out of the back room. She was wearing her dark blue hat, suit coat, clutch purse. Things were moving along. She had defused Abe, and now she had to hurry.

As she got to the foyer she stopped, her body sagging. She, herself, was wearing down. 'I've got to go out. Please get out of my way.'

Glitsky stood blocking the front door. 'I'm going to call Wes Farrell from here and tell him that you're coming with me to personally guarantee Kevin Shea's safety.'

'I'm going to the rally, Abe. The mayor has asked me to deliver a permit-'

'I'm not asking, Loretta. I'm telling you. Forget the permit. I'm giving you a last chance – although God knows why.'

'A chance for what?'

'You've been saying all along that all you wanted was Kevin Shea arrested. Of course he deserved some consideration, some safety. Well, I'm giving you a chance to prove you're not lying.'

'I'm not lying. Why would I lie?'

'Why? Because your career is over if Kevin Shea is innocent and you know it. You can't have him be innocent. You can't let him be arrested and get a chance to be heard. That's why you've been blocking me.'

'This is stupid… I haven't been blocking anybody, Abe. Not you, not anybody. You've just gotten-'

He raised a hand. 'I know, I know. Paranoid, overworked, irrational, any and all of the above. Yeah, that's me. You got me.'

She moved forward. 'I've heard enough of this. Let me by!'

Pushing at him, he might have been a wall. Until he exploded, grabbing her by the shoulders and shoving her backward. She stumbled, nearly went down, recovered. Her eyes blazing, she straightened up. 'You want to talk about careers being over, Abe. You just ended yours.'

Glitsky didn't care. He spoke with a forced calm. 'You're not getting by. Understand that. You've got about ten seconds to agree to go out of here with me. And then you're not going to have a choice about it anymore.'

She stared for a beat, then told him he was crazy.

'Six seconds,' he said.

'Why would I agree to something like that? I've got a driver waiting right outside the door here. I've got to-'

'All right. Time's up.' Glitsky's face was set, ashen. 'Don't say I didn't give you an out, Loretta. You wouldn't take it.' He took a labored breath. 'I'm arresting you for the murder of Christopher Locke.'

The reaction took a moment – a squinting, a half-turn, lack of belief. 'You can't… this is absurd.'

'No, Loretta, this is the truth.'

'Did you dream this up last night or something? Abe, you're out of your mind. I wouldn't…'

He was shaking his head. 'He wasn't turned around in the car, looking out the back window. He was sitting next to you, without a clue.'

'You're insane.'

He ignored it. 'You were near the riot all right, even driving toward it, inside the car. But you never made it, did you?'

'Of course we did. How can you even say-?'

'Because there's this thing I work with called evidence. There were no signs that a crowd had been anywhere near your car, much less throwing rocks at it, kicking it from behind. I walked all around it. Looked.'

'Then you missed it.'

'No, I didn't. I wondered about it the first time I inspected the car. What I missed was what it meant.'

'And what did it mean?'

'It meant that what you did do was you pulled up a couple of blocks short of the action and shot Locke behind the ear. That was the shot no one heard.'

'I did not. That did not happen-'

Glitsky's voice didn't waver. 'But it was also the shot that left no glass shards at all in the wound and too many powder burns around it – but you wouldn't have known about any of that. That isn't politics. It's just stupid grinding, police forensic stuff – not very interesting.'

She folded her arms in front of her, shaking her head. 'And what did I do then?'

'You drove down a dark dead-end street – all the streetlights were out – and walked around the car and fired a shot through the passenger window that would appear to have been fired at you, and then you probably used the butt of the gun to knock a bigger hole in the safety glass.'

'Probably. Only probably? You're not sure?'

'I don't know for sure what you used, but probably we'll find out eventually. But what it was – it was another mistake.'

He waited. She didn't ask, eyes fixed, unyielding. So he continued. There was just the one bullet hole in the safety glass, which was the problem. You thought the window would break with the shot, but it just made a nice neat little hole, didn't it, some spiderwebs around it. So you had to hammer a bigger one, something two bullets might have passed through. Except for the reality that even two.25 caliber bullets won't put a fist-sized hole in safety glass. You probably couldn't get one with four.'

Her expression remained impassive, but she eased herself down onto the bench against the hallway wall. 'This is fascinating,' she said.

'Right. The other thing, the clincher if you want to hear it…'

'Oh, please…"

The venom in her voice paralyzed him for a second. In a way it was salutary, helping wipe out the last traces of any sympathetic feeling. He felt the scar stretch through his lips, knew he was giving her his piano-wire smile, the one Flo had told him could give nightmares to mass-murderers.

'This was the moment, just this morning, when it all came together. Before that, almost everything was there – I didn't know that nobody had heard two shots, but the rest of it. Except I didn't want to see it. I went to adjust the seat in the Plymouth. You know the car. It's the same one you and Locke rode in.'

Still nothing. No reaction.

'Remember the other night, you and me counting "one two three", pushing the seat up so you could drive? You remember that? So this morning, there I was sitting in the driver's seat, and it struck me what was so wrong about the bullet hole in the door of your car, the driver's door. You want to know what that was?'

Silence.

'It would have had to go through you first.'

Finally, against her will: ' What are you talking about?'

'I'm talking about you being unable to drive, to reach the foot pedals without the seat pushed all the way forward. And if the seat was forward, which it had to be, the trajectory of the shot from the hole in the window to the hole in the upholstery would have had to hit you. It would have had to go through you, Loretta.' He waited. 'So you weren't in the seat. You were outside, in the street, firing the one shot – the one shot everybody heard – through the safety glass. The one you said almost hit you.'

'You're wrong. I was trying to get away from there. Chris had just been shot, the seat must have slid back with the acceleration.'

Glitsky had broken witnesses before, and when you started getting denials of details, you knew you were there. He crossed the foyer, sat at the opposite end of the bench. He didn't intend to break her. Not before he made her undo some of the damage she'd done – to herself, to Elaine, to Kevin Shea – and she was the only one who could do it. He needed her for that first, then he'd deal with the rest.

He almost whispered it. 'You killed him, Loretta. You had to.'

She wasn't giving it up. 'Why should I have killed Chris Locke?'

She was leading him there. 'The simple answer is because you couldn't control him anymore. But it really wasn't that simple. He was blackmailing you, you were blackmailing him. You knew each other's secrets.'

'About what?'

'About the money you laundered through the Pacific Moon.'

That he had come to this knowledge, finally, rocked her, although she covered it – her tightened lips were all that betrayed it. 'I explained that to you, Abe. That was completely legitimate.'

'No,' he said. 'Chris Locke was prosecuting the case, and then he met you and the two of you became involved, wasn't that it?'

'No. None of this is it.'

'He represented the DA's office and dropped the charges, said there wasn't a case and you got to keep the money…'

'That's not true. This is…' She was standing up, but he took hold of her by the wrist, held her. She sat back down.

'But the money wasn't why you killed him. What he knew made you nervous maybe, but the records had been destroyed, cleaned up, sanitized. You had the same thing on each other. You could live with that.'

She looked at him, waiting. She'd give him nothing.

'Because he rejected you and he took up with Elaine. Because now he was really out of your control. He was going to play fast and loose with your daughter, your baby. You could handle that for yourself – but your daughter wasn't going to have it like you did. She was going to have it better. You were going to protect her because you knew what Chris Locke would do. It would be what he'd done to you.'

'And exactly what was that?'

'He'd use her, then throw her on the slag heap when she became… inconvenient.'

'I haven't been with him in years. I wouldn't…'

Glitsky nodded, the first admission.

'Besides, you can't prove any of this. I did not kill Chris, I did not launder any money. For God's sake, Abe, it's just…'

He stood, walked to the window next to the door and looked out, his back to her. The limo was parked right there.

He counted to fifteen, then without turning, said, 'The proof is in your hand, Loretta. You going to shoot me in the back? What are you going to say? That you thought I was a burglar? A rapist?'

He turned around.

Loretta was standing by the hallway bench, clutch purse in one hand, the small gun leveled at him in the other.

Glitsky's eyes went to it. 'I've got a good friend who's an attorney and I've left a letter with him,' he lied. 'It says that in the event of my death, they should compare the ballistics on the bullet that killed me with the one that killed Chris Locke.' He nodded at the gun. 'They're going to match, Loretta. And the letter goes on about a few of the other things we've talked about this morning. It also mentions your name.'

He took a step toward her. 'It's over, Loretta. It's over.'

Slowly she lowered the gun. 'I had to kill Chris. He was going to ruin my daughter… was already doing it…'

Glitsky nodded. He already knew this. 'I'm going to need to take that gun for evidence,' he said.

'You can't think I'm going to give you this gun.'

'I'd prefer it,' he said, 'but it doesn't really matter. I don't need it.'

'Without it you don't have any physical evidence. You don't have a case.' She took a step toward him, her expression set, tone low. 'We don't have to have this happen, Abe. I can throw it away, get rid of it…'

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the pocket recorder he always carried, turned it off, played back the last few moments, her admission that she had killed Locke. When he flicked it off, he held out his hand. 'The gun,' he said.

She gave it one last try. 'Abe. This won't work. Alan Reston won't prosecute me. You won't even get him to go to a judge for an arrest warrant.'

"That may be so. But I can arrest you for murder without a warrant. When I book you into county jail, the press will be there, and they'll ask me why and I'll tell them. And then Alan Reston will either have to prosecute or explain why he doesn't, which he can't do. And even if he doesn't, okay, then you get away with murder, but I've done my job.' Glitsky took a step toward her, his hand outstretched. 'Now either use that gun or give it to me.'

It took her a long moment, but finally she turned it barrel in and handed it to him. As he put it into his pocket, she asked him, 'What do you really want, Abe?'

'The same as I've always wanted, Loretta. I want to arrest my suspect. I want some protection for Kevin Shea.'

'And what do I get?'

Her singularity of purpose continued to impress him. It never ended. 'There's always a deal, Loretta, isn't there?'

She waited.

'You think I'm about to let you walk on a premeditated murder?'

'I don't know what you're going to do, Abe.' She stood in front of him. 'I'm telling you what I need, that's all. It's your decision.'

'Either way,' Glitsky said, 'you're dead politically.'

'Maybe.' Her eyes rested on him. 'You're such a fool,' she said, 'but we could have had it all.'

The doorbell rang, followed by a knock at the door. Another. 'Senator?' The limo driver.

'Do we have a deal, Abe?'

Another knock. 'Senator, we're running a little late here.'

'I need your word, Abe.'

Glitsky, in spite of his official administrative leave, was still the nominal head of homicide, and a cop inside out. He had known she would probably try something like this devil's trade, but there was still the moment before it was irrevocably done. The temptation to let it go – he didn't have to take it out all the way…

He suddenly felt clammy, sick with the portent of it.

'We'll talk about the possibility of a deal later, but no guarantees. I want you clear on that. You either go with me to Kevin Shea right now or I take you downtown. And if I do that, it's beyond the control of either of us. You're charged with murder and it can't be undone. Or' – he pointed a finger – 'or I take you out to Kezar Pavilion, where you might do a little good. It's your decision, Loretta. You decide.'

Her bluff called, she hesitated, took in a breath, then crossed the foyer to the door. 'I'll tell him I'm driving over with you.'

Glitsky went to make his phone call to Wes Farrell.

72

In response to the four outbreaks of interracial scuffling and five serious injuries in the last half hour, the National Guard had moved into positions of closer conformity with the proposed march route, and the trucks with their troops had closed off all traffic and were lining the streets on either side of Golden Gate Park. New arrivals wanting to join the march were going to have to leave their cars blocks away and breach this wall and its security measures as they walked in, and hundreds were doing just that. In the park's panhandle the tent city took up the center and the tide of people would in theory flow around the roped-off living areas.

Special Agent Margot Simms – who had elected not to act in concert either with the San Francisco police or the National Guard – had her driver pull to the side of the road only four blocks from Kevin Shea's apartment. She looked down the hill at the flood of people moving toward Kezar, the troops, the stalled traffic.

How to get through that? Well she was with the FBI, that was how. She wasn't going to put her own men at risk, and she was going to do her job, which was apprehend Kevin Shea, by force if necessary. She gave the order to circumvent the sawhorses that closed off the streets and head down, past the Pavilion, to her destination. She did not give a good goddamn what, or who, might be in the way. She knew that Wes Farrell, the lawyer, was going to be facing the same problem she was, and he would have no identification to flash to get him by this hurdle.

They were still ahead.

The car crept through the pedestrians, several of them whacking the roof, the hood. Two blocks in three-and-a-half minutes – then they were stopped by a couple of teenaged National Guardsmen, rifles out and jittery.

Simms got out of the front seat, held up her badge, identifying herself. The two boys – one with a black nametag reading 'Morgan,' the other a thin, hawk-faced boy whose tag read 'Escher,' looked at one another, and Morgan said, 'Yes, ma'am?'

'My colleagues and I need to breach your line here.'

Again, the silent consultation. Morgan said, 'I'll have to get permission, ma'am.'

Simms stiffened. 'I'm giving you permission, son. This is the Federal Bureau of Investigation and we are in a hurry.'

'Yes, ma'am.' But neither man moved.

'Well?'

'Well, our orders are to keep vehicular traffic out of the parade route…'

'I'll go check.' Escher ran off. Morgan made a gesture. 'It won't be long,' he said. 'Five minutes.'

Farrell, more familiar with the city than Simms, figured the rally would be a mob scene, so he went the back way over Portola and Twin Peaks, thinking he would wind up on Ashbury and then park. He could walk the rest of the way, which he supposed he'd have to do in any event.

The beeper went off as he was passing by a gas station on 17th. He pulled in, ran to the pay phone and punched numbers.

'You've got the senator with you? Herself?' Farrell couldn't believe it.

Glitsky was curt. 'Give me the address. I don't have any time.'

Farrell did, and Glitsky said, 'That's right in the middle… that's where the march is starting.'

'You got it, and I hear on the radio they've closed off the park. Where are you coming from?'

'Pacific Heights.'

'You're going to have to come around the back way, maybe up Judah.'

Glitsky thanked him. 'Take me ten minutes,' he said.

'Don't bet on it, and by the way, your idea of getting out of it if I'm there before the feds…'

'Yeah?'

'I don't think so. Not today.'

Simms was talking to another man with another nametag – Florio. The stripes on Florio's sleeve indicated he had some rank. She explained her position – the Guard would have to let her through the park, they had an arrest to make. Federal warrant. Most Wanted List. Florio raised his eyebrows. 'Kevin Shea?' he asked. At the mention of Shea's name, both Morgan and Escher snapped up.

She looked right, left, then back to Florio. 'No comment on that,' she said. 'Can we get through here?'

She was back in the car and it started moving again through the pedestrians, Morgan walking on one side, Escher on the other, escorting them.

'He should be here,' Kevin said.

'He got caught in the traffic.'

He couldn't stop looking out the window, pulling up the shade, glancing down. Melanie came over to him, moved the shade back. 'Sit down. Come on, Kevin. Looking out isn't helping anything.'

'Sitting here isn't helping anything.'

'Sitting here is waiting for Wes. He'll be here.'

Kevin started snapping his fingers, his nerves eating him. 'We should have-'

'Hey.' She touched a finger to his lips. 'We're doing it.' She leaned over and kissed him. 'I love you. Just wait, Wes will be here. It'll be all right.'

He was reaching for the shade again, going to look down on the Park. The downstairs doorbell sounded. 'There he is,' Melanie said, crossing to the buzzer that unlocked the lobby door. She was about to push it when Kevin jumped up from his chair. 'Wait!' and went to one of the side windows. Opening the shade a crack, he looked out and down. 'Okay,' he said. 'It's him. I think… I've never seen him in a suit.'

'Kevin, who else would it be? Nobody knows we're here.'

He gave her a look. 'Famous last words,' he said.

As directed by their supervisor, Morgan and Escher remained at their new positions as escorts of the FBI vehicle, which had pulled to the western curb at Page and Stanyan, across the street from the apartment.

Simms sent one man with a field telephone and a suitcase into the park to find a reasonably elevated spot from which he would have a clear shot at the fourth-floor front window of the apartment building across the street from them – a tree or a telephone pole – should it be necessary, should the order be given. (Their backup unit was on the way but, with the traffic problems, she didn't want to have to wait for them. They might not encounter a Florio who would cooperate.)

Simms took her two other men and they made their way through the pulsing crowd onto the street, eventually into the open courtyard that faced the park, and to the front door of the apartment. She rang the entire bank of doorbells for the first floor, and someone buzzed open the outer door.

'Cake,' she said, holding the door for her men.

Out in the street Morgan and Escher were guarding the car, the only one parked on Stanyan. People kept washing by, around it. Someone's amplified voice came ringing over the distance – the rally was getting underway.

'Whose car, man? I been walkin' ten blocks, my dogs be achin'. Thought no cars allowed in here. They was, I woulda brung mine.'

Morgan wasn't supposed to talk to the crowd except to answer informational questions and give directions, but this big guy had one of those immediately friendly faces, a big smile, a wife and kids in tow, here to support the cause. But he wasn't trouble.

Everybody wasn't on the warpath.

'FBI,' Morgan said, then added. 'They got Kevin Shea tree'd in that building. Bringing him in.'

'Hallelujah,' said the man, his smile brightening. 'Don't got to walk so far now, all the way City Hall. Ought to just park my dogs here.' Then, turning to the crowd behind him, spreading the good word. 'Hey, you all hear this? They got Kevin Shea.' Pointing. 'Yeah, right over yonder.'

Upstairs, the deadbolt thrown again, Kevin, Melanie and Wes had decided that, even with the crowd outside, their odds were far better facing it than an armed, trigger-happy and belligerent FBI.

No one except possibly the FBI knew they were anywhere within miles of here. They'd be an all-but-anonymous few white faces in the crowd, and Wes assured them that there were a lot of others, more than he would have thought. Everybody with a placard, a message, or a cause had come to the party.

Kevin could wear his ski cap. They could get away from the heat here and then wait for Glitsky's call on the beeper when they got to a safer spot.

In the apartment's lobby Simms spoke by walkie-talkie to her sharpshooter and decided she would give him the extra few minutes he needed to get into position before she took her two other men upstairs with her to make the arrest. With the crowd, he had found it difficult to blend in, find a spot, get set up. She told him she would give him ten minutes max – call her if it was going to be sooner.

In the interim the three of them would split apart to check the layout of the building, identify any potential hidden exits, back doors, fire escapes. Make it air-tight.

They would meet back here in the lobby, then go up and take him.

'… and we have just received an unconfirmed report that Kevin Shea has been located at a building not five blocks from where we are standing right now at the Kezar Pavilion. Philip Mohandas has left the podium, almost at a dead run, and is leading the marchers – it's a tremendous and very angry crowd and I'm sure you can hear them chanting Shea's name over my voice – he's leading the way out toward the edge of the park.

'We'll be trying to follow Mohandas as he…'

Glitsky had pulled his siren and flasher and put it on the roof. Loretta was sitting next to him, silent and withdrawn as they careened through the narrow streets, now south of the park, almost there.

Glitsky felt he'd been awake for days. He had the AM radio on, had heard the latest reports. Somehow – how did these things happen? – somehow it had gotten out.

Now Philip Mohandas and a crowd estimated at between five hundred and several thousand had converged on the Stanyan Street apartment building. The FBI was, reportedly, inside the building, but so far – according to the news reports – had not moved to make an arrest. In actual fact, no one seemed to know for certain what was transpiring inside, or whether Shea was there at all, or if anyone was with him.

Except Glitsky. Glitsky knew.

He had to keep turning away to get closer – Lincoln Boulevard was closed so he came east a few blocks on Irving, then had to jag up Judah, which turned into Parnassus. Finally, he stopped a few blocks short of Stanyan – even with his siren there was no moving through the masses. He turned to Loretta, jerked open his door. 'Let's go.'

Loretta was recognized immediately, hailed and surrounded by the mostly adoring throng. They loved her, arriving at the moment when it was all coming down. Of course she was here – she'd led the charge all along…

The charisma had switched back on – her face was alive, her eyes bright. Glitsky had his badge out and did not let go of her arm as they were swept along into the heart of the crowd. 'It's Senator Wager! Out of the way! Give the woman some space! Let her by, let her by…'

As the focus of the greatest intensity became recognized, as the flow began to move in the direction of the apartment, Florio got an urgent call from Morgan on his field telephone that ordered him, Escher and three hundred other National Guard troops to mobilize in front of the building, to try and keep the courtyard clear if they could.

They had moved out double-time, beating Mohandas and the bulk of the crowd by no more than five minutes, getting deployed, breaking out their heavier gear.

Now the soldiers – helmets on, batons and riot shields up – had the place tightly surrounded, keeping the crowd back, but it was an insecure toehold. The multitude was everywhere, the air thick with shouts, screams. The blaze that had started on Divisadero had grown. Smoke from it was drifting low, blinding and acrid.

Sirens moaned in the distance.

The chant rose and fell, moving through the masses, never stopping, never losing its tenor of rage and urgency. 'We want Shea! We want Shea!'

They had been ready to get out when they started hearing the chant. Wes Farrell moved to the front window, cracked the shade, looked out, let it fall back, and then turned. 'This doesn't look too good.'

Melanie was holding Kevin's hand by the door. 'I love it when you talk like that,' she snapped at Farrell.

'The place is surrounded, Melanie. Look for yourself.'

'So now what?' from Kevin.

'Now we hope Glitsky shows up in time with the senator.'

'He is coming?' from Melanie.

'He said so.'

'And then what?' Kevin said.

They could hear the chant clearly up here. It wasn't going away.

'What about the FBI?' Melanie asked. 'I thought they were-'

'Except,' Farrell said, 'they're going on the assumption that you're armed and dangerous, so if we do hear from them, probably the first we'll know of it is they'll come shooting through this door

'God, Wes, you are a fount of good news.'

'I didn't make it,' he said, 'I'm just reporting it.'

'So what do we do?' Kevin asked for the third time.

'You want to go out there?' Wes said. 'Face that? No? Then we wait.'

Florio was looking at a sweating, breathless man in full uniform who was identifying himself as San Francisco's chief of police, Dan Rigby. He was outside the line of troops with a few of his uniformed men. Florio waved them through inside to the courtyard.

'Is Kevin Shea in this building?' Rigby was already moving, jogging to the building's entrance. 'Do we know this? Who else is here? Is the place secured?'

Inside, the lobby doors hanging open, Rigby went up to Special Agent Simms, who had just returned to the lobby and was planning to begin her assault upstairs.

But she couldn't do that, he told her. Not now. Not without more reinforcements. It was turning into anarchy out there in a hurry. If she came out with Kevin Shea, tried to get through this mob, what did she thing was going to happen?

Simms was beside herself. How had this developed so fast, gotten away from her? She had her men with her, she had her warrant – she should just tell this local yoohoo Rigby that she was going up to make the arrest and let the chips fall. But now – after first exploding at her for not informing the SFPD of her intentions and movements – he was trying to claim some jurisdiction of his own.

'What I'm saying is that I think we've got a bigger problem than you're acknowledging,' Rigby told her. 'How the hell are you going to get him out of here if you do pick him up? You have any idea what's going on out here? Where is he anyway? We need more people here. Jesus Christ.'

The other FBI agents and the city policemen were warily circling each other in the lobby, which was also now backfilling with residents of the building. Saturday morning, everybody home and wide awake.

Simms and Rigby – the knot of authority – had to move just outside the lobby doors, into the well of the courtyard.

'He's my prisoner,' Simms said. 'Let that be my problem.'

Rigby wasn't having that. 'It's in my city. Like it or not, it's my problem. What's happening right here' – he motioned out in front of them – 'is my problem. I'm not having another lynching in one week. We try to take Kevin Shea out through this, that's what we're going to have.'

Simms caught sight of something over the crowd. 'Who the hell's that? Somebody's on top of my car!'

Rigby turned. Philip Mohandas had a bullhorn in his hands, trying to get the crowd's attention. 'Get that lunatic in here!' Rigby barked at one of his men. Then, to Florio: 'Be nice, invite him in here if you have to.'

Then something else. Another noise, a further disturbance off to the left, one of the troops running up. 'Sir,' he said to Florio, 'there's a policeman here – no uniform – who says he's got a U.S. senator-'

But before he could finish, the crowd had been pushed aside and the line had given enough to let Glitsky and Loretta Wager through.

Simms took the field telephone from her hip. She nodded, looked up at the fourth floor, said 'hold on' into the phone, spoke to Rigby. 'They're lifting the shades. My man could take them out.'

They were all assembled at the fountain in the center of the courtyard – Rigby, Simms, Mohandas and his assistants, Florio, Glitsky and Loretta Wager.

Rigby gaped in disbelief at the senator, at his lieutenant holding her arm. 'What the hell are you doing here?'

'I'm here to arrest Kevin Shea,' Glitsky said.

'Like hell you are,' Simms broke in. 'He's mine.'

'You're on leave, Glitsky. Maybe you didn't get my message…'

'What's happening?' Farrell tried the shade again. 'I don't know. They're all down there at the fountain. Glitsky's made it – he's got Senator Loretta Wager with him.'

'Then why doesn't he come up here? Why don't we go down?'

'Going down is not a very good idea, Kevin. I think we better let them come up.'

The chant had ceased, at least in the forefront of the crowd. There was a restless milling, an awareness that something was happening – being decided in the center of the courtyard – and it was spreading backward into the mass.

Pulsing, waiting.

One of the uniformed cops came up to the group, then left on a run, crossing outside the line of troops, disappearing. In fitful starts, the chant would begin again, pick up, fade.

Glitsky, alone, peeled off from the group gathered at the fountain, walking slowly, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. He entered the building and made his way past the federal agents and policemen and disgruntled and curious citizens that now crowded the lobby.

There were four flights and except for the first – where some of the apartment dwellers had clustered – all of them were deserted. He walked at a steady pace, turning the corners, his hands on the bannister, twelve steps a flight, then walked the dingy rug to the end of the hallway and rang the bell.

The door opened. He had his badge on but his weapon was not drawn. 'Mr Farrell, how are you? You got a client you'd like to surrender to me?'

'Is this really going to work?' Farrell said, stepping back.

Nodding more confidently than he felt, Glitsky walked to the window and raised the shade, the signal they were waiting for down below.

Melanie and Kevin were standing together, arms around each other. 'Are you ready for this?'

He nodded.

'I'm with you,' she said, a whisper now.

'I'm with you. Whatever happens, however this comes out. You got that?'

'I got it.'

Farrell was leading Glitsky over to them, talking logistics, the law, the deal. Then it was time.

'Kevin Shea,' Glitsky said, 'I am placing you under arrest for the murder…'

73

Loretta Wager stood on the steps of the fountain, bullhorn in hand, facing the crowd.

Mohandas had not liked it (Allicey Tobain had hated it), but the senator had prevailed with the argument that the march was all about apprehending Kevin Shea anyway, wasn't it? So Mohandas had succeeded – the march had succeeded. They all had what they wanted. And if he didn't introduce Loretta, if they didn't somehow get this thing defused, what then? Another riot, more violence? Who would that benefit?

She had cut Mohandas out of the group – three steps away – for long enough to get it said – did he want to be on the short list for administering the Hunter's Point Shelter, or did he not? If he did not come across right now, he could forget she had ever mentioned it.

One last thing Loretta wanted – and this was a good time to bring it up because the chief of police was right here… Mohandas must clarify that the original one hundred thousand dollar reward was not for the death of Kevin Shea – they'd all heard that rumor on the streets and it was false. It was for information leading to his arrest – that was all.

That was all.

'My brothers and sisters,' she began, looking up as the shade was lifted. 'Kevin Shea has been arrested.'

A roar, an outpouring of relief and anger and frustration bouncing off the U-shaped structure behind her, echoing through the courtyard back on itself, multiplying in a crescendo of noise that rolled on, picked up, rolled on again.

'My brothers and sisters,' she said again, and at last the wave of sound broke, flattened, became still. She raised her voice. 'No one has fought harder than myself to see this moment. No one has kept this issue on the table more faithfully than Philip Mohandas.' Another round of applause. 'And it has come to pass.'

She paused, then pushed on.' But this is not the end of the story for us. Nor is it for Kevin Shea.'

'Kill him!' someone yelled out. 'Lynch him!' And a chant – 'Kill Kevin Shea, kill Kevin Shea…'

'No!' The bullhorn amplified it again. 'No!'

Gradually the crowd went silent.

'We've got Kevin Shea. Hear me. We've got him.' They were listening. 'Philip Mohandas is here. I am here, and we are with you. Your interests are our interests. It is not the San Francisco police that have apprehended Kevin Shea. It is not the FBI. It is us. All of us…'

A roar went up. More 'kill him, kill him,' but something else, and Loretta rode it. 'And now I'm asking you, I plead with you, you've got to believe us. We're going to see justice done.' She raised her voice, pointing over the crowd. 'But justice is not going to be served by another lynching today.'

A hesitant chorus, a murmur of 'amen amen amen.' Then silence in front of her, until abruptly someone yelled, 'Not Kevin Shea, he's got to die!' A reverberation, the sentiment spreading, and then wearing itself low.

Loretta looked down at Rigby, Mohandas, Simms. They couldn't help her. This had been her suggestion (they thought) – the only way to pull it off, and she had to do it. 'No one' - she raised her voice – 'no one hates more than I do the bigotry and the hatred that Kevin Shea stands for.' Now, more quietly: 'But I'm telling you that it is over here. We have him. Philip Mohandas and I are walking out of here with Kevin Shea and taking him downtown. He is our prisoner. I promise you that neither of us will rest until justice has been done. You all have my most solemn word.'

'… I don't believe this, ladies and gentlemen, Senator Wager has gone back into the building with Philip Mohandas, and now they are coming out surrounding, yes, I think I can see clearly – it is! It is Kevin Shea! A handcuffed Kevin Shea – an unidentified black man – perhaps a police officer – is on one side, Philip Mohandas on the other. Senator Loretta Wager is leading them out. Behind Shea is Chief Rigby. With them is a young woman – that must be Melanie Sinclair – and another unidentified man – a white man – in a business suit. The crowd, ladies and gentlemen, is silent as the grave.

'They're moving now through the courtyard, across the fountain area where the senator just gave her powerful speech. They appear to be – yes, there's a black-and-white police car at the curb, the crowd is all over it, nearly swarming over it. The situation is highly volatile, as this reporter sees it. They're approaching the line of National Guard troops. You hear the anger, the outbursts of rage at Kevin Shea, but so far the crowd is… the troops are letting them through now. They're in the crowd. There is nothing between them and the fury we've been witnessing here all morning, especially the last half hour.

'Now they're actually making way for Kevin Shea and the rest of them. They've gotten to the police car, the back door is open, the senator – Senator Wager – is inside the car now. Now Shea. Mohandas. The car is starting to move now, slowly, its flashers on. The crowd is making way, slowly giving way. Amazing. I believe they're actually going to get through…'

74

There were two cars. The police car with Wager, Shea, Mohandas and Glitsky, and Simms's FBI vehicle with herself, Rigby, Melanie, Farrell. The lobby and front steps of the Hall of Justice were jammed by the time they arrived – to Loretta it looked as though they had gathered every television camera in the western hemisphere, all the newspapers and magazines, radio stringers, off-duty cops, staff members, transients and regular citizens. But it was not a mob anymore. It was a crowd.

Behind them, back at the park, they were getting the word that the people who had attended the rally were dispersing. Loretta felt vindicated. She had been right. They had needed the symbol of Kevin Shea. The embers might still be smoldering to flame again later, but at least there was a sense that, for now, the crisis had passed.

Loretta thought it was the strangest ride she'd ever taken. Sitting there right next to Kevin Shea, she was startled when he had turned to her and thanked her for her involvement, her courage. He was innocent, he told her. He had tried to hold Arthur Wade up, not pull him down…

Even Mohandas, by the time they reached the Hall, seemed responsive at least to Shea's open nature. For all Shea had been through, he was remarkably gracious, with a kind of nervous humor, no trace of surliness. It certainly didn't seem to bother him to be tightly wedged between two black people. He seemed, in fact, glad to be there.

They didn't book him on the sixth floor but brought him immediately to Alan Reston's office, which no longer bore any sign of his predecessor. Reston, of course, had followed the drama at the park on television and was waiting for them when they arrived. So was Elaine Wager.

A discussion led by Wes Farrell and largely corroborated by Lieutenant Glitsky finally brought the flawed evidentiary package out into the open. Rigby wanted to know more about the investigation into the other suspects – O'Toole, Mullen, McKay, Devlin. They waited while Carl Griffin and Ridley Banks came down and did their little song and dance.

After all of that, however, Reston still wasn't inclined to an outright dismissal of the charges on Shea, not this soon and not on his lawyer's arguments. He dismissed Mohandas and the homicide inspectors, thanking them all for their cooperation, and then, behind his closed doors, announced to Loretta, Elaine, Glitsky and Rigby his decision to move Shea when night came to an undisclosed location and keep him under guard until they could get the evidence in front of a judge.

It was one-twenty when the bailiffs came down and led Shea upstairs to his solitary cell.

Glitsky had not left Loretta's side. She had watched him for any sign, any reaction when Elaine had come into Reston's office, but he had only nodded – a professional conducting business. Seeing them together, now, father and daughter – she realized it was the first time that all three of them had ever been together in the same room. A reunion. No, a union. A closure of some kind.

She requested a short conference alone with Glitsky in Reston's office. When the door had closed behind all the others, she turned to him. 'All right, Abe,' she said. 'I got Kevin Shea for you. That was the deal.'

Glitsky stood leaning against Reston's desk, five feet from her. Maybe Loretta had been in Washington too long and just didn't understand that in Glitsky's world everything didn't come down to a deal. He had been careful about what he'd told her – that once Kevin Shea had been arrested they could talk about the possibility of a deal, which they were doing now.

His hands were in his pockets, his face a stone. He couldn't let himself remember what had happened between them – or forget what she had done. He walked by her, across the room to Reston's door. Opening it, he looked back at Loretta and shook his head. 'Loretta, we never had a deal,' he said.

In the hallway just outside the DA's office Elaine was waiting, wanting to talk about what they had done, where it would go from here, oblivious to what had gone on inside.

Glitsky, trapped by convention and gutted by tension, couldn't get himself away. He was still there with Elaine when Loretta opened the DA's door. Seeing them, she put on a public face, then – for her daughter – a smile. She came up to them, her eyes glistening. 'I just needed another minute,' she said. 'All this happening…'

Elaine asked Glitsky if he wanted to join them for lunch, try to start the healing.

Glitsky said no. He had to go upstairs to finish up some work. Rigby had told him he could pick up papers on his desk but still wasn't to consider himself back on active duty. They would review the administrative leave and the reasons for it on Tuesday. Rigby didn't much care what the reasons were – whether they were good or bad. Glitsky had disobeyed his orders. That was enough. Glitsky even tended to agree with him.

'I'm seeing your mother tonight,' he told Elaine. Turning, he said to Loretta, 'Eight o'clock?'

Suddenly he leaned down, held her for the shortest instant against him, his hand behind her neck. 'It's your decision,' he whispered into her ear. Then, straightening up, smiling his non-smile, pointing a casual finger. 'Eight o'clock, then. Sharp.'

Sharp.

Elaine was going to be all right, her mother decided. Her zeal to prosecute Kevin Shea was not going to be the end of her career, not with Alan Reston there to run the screen for her. She might not even need Reston. She was stronger than her mother gave her credit for. She was looking ahead, moving on. She realized Chris Locke and herself would have gone nowhere. Maybe it had been for the best – although now, of course, it hurt. It would hurt for a while. She knew that.

But that, Loretta thought, was the point – Elaine had some perspective on it already. She'd survive. Her daughter would not break. She must never break, she was her mother's daughter.

They had finally gotten away from the cameras and madness and driven together out of the city, north to the Marin coast. It was so peaceful up there. They'd had the whole afternoon together, mother and daughter, something neither of them had had the time for in years. A quiet lunch at some little out-of-the-way place. No one bothered them, knew who they were or cared.

On a rise of the winding road back to San Francisco, they had pulled over and looked at the famous view, south over the bridge and the city. For the first time in days, there was no smoke. Elaine had dropped her off at home at five-fifteen.

Sharp.

It's your decision.

The wind had died down. She walked out onto the balcony – outside the library – that looked back over the Golden Gate Bridge. The sun was low but the evening had remained warm.

She was wearing a shimmering purplish sheath over black pants. Pearl earrings. She had made reservations at Stars, and of course even at this last minute there would be a seat for the senator. Would she like a screen set up, some additional privacy? Jeremiah himself would be in – might he stop by and offer her a little cadeau? He was a big fan of hers.

There were the formalities to attend to. She had finished the letter to the president, thanking him profusely for his humanitarian gesture regarding Hunter's Point and forwarding her strong recommendation that he consider Philip Mohandas as the administrator for the area's program. A deal was a deal.

She dictated five short letters on administrative and committee issues onto her micro-cassette and sealed and franked the envelope addressed to her office in Washington. It was on the small table next to the bench in the foyer where she would remember to put it in the mail.

It's your decision.

Her mind turned to the election, to her senate seat. Actually, there was a lot of irony there, she thought. The way Glitsky had arranged it, she had come out a hero in spite of her earlier stridency, her earlier calls for near-vigilantism. No one except Abe really had a take on what she'd done behind the scenes. She had miscalculated, but luck had been with her. Her reputation was going to survive pretty much intact.

Of course, there would be some, perhaps quite a lot of political flak she'd have to endure. She'd come out too strongly and too soon on Kevin Shea, before she had all the facts. People – the public, allies and enemies as well – would question her judgment, but she didn't think on balance it would hurt her chances. The Hunter's Point coup was going to get her a half-million black votes, which she thought would more than compensate for the loss of her moderate whites.

Shivering, though it wasn't cold, she let herself back through the French doors. The sun was casting prisms of light onto the hardwood. It was a beautiful house. She should spend more time here. Someone should appreciate all of this, all she had…

Crossing over to the bar, she lifted one of the crystal glasses and poured herself a good inch of the cognac she had shared with Abe.

There was a gold clock – it had been an early anniversary present from Dana – under a glass dome on the opposite bookshelf. The hours were marked in Roman numerals and the gold mechanism spun leisurely back and forth, around and around, underneath the clock's face. The hands pointed at the seven and the four. She found she could not take her eyes from them. There was no distracting second hand busily ticking the flying time away.

It was seven twenty-two.

The cleaning supplies – the brushes, picks, cloth, oil – they were all laid out on the velveteen which she had spread over the glass on the makeup table in the dressing room on the second floor just off her bedroom. It was a small room with one small circular window high up in the wall.

She put the snifter of cognac, half gone, beside the velveteen.

There was her note to Abe.

One of the clocks downstairs chimed the half hour. Seven-thirty. Suddenly she couldn't remember if she had left the front door unlocked for Abe when he got here. That would be important. She did not want to forget that.

So she walked downstairs again, through the foyer, took another few sips of her drink. The door was unlocked.

A glance back through the library. The sun had moved lower – the prisms had vanished.

He would be on time when he came to arrest her. She was certain about that. He had said eight sharp.

It was her decision.

She walked back up the stairs into her dressing room, put down the snifter where it had been before.

She picked up Dana's old Colt revolver that she had always kept up here.

The note, in light pencil strokes, read: 'Abe. Remind people that Dana and I used to go target shooting together. There must have been an accident when I was cleaning his old gun…'

Glitsky carefully lifted the piece of paper. Going into the bathroom, he folded it over and tore it into little pieces, then dropped the pieces into the toilet and flushed three times.

He walked into the bedroom and lifted the phone next to Loretta's bed, punched the numbers nine… one… one.