The First Law

8

"Is this the same man who prides himself on living According to John Kennedy's old motto of never explain, never complain? I've only heard you say those words about a hundred and fourteen times now."

"I'm sure I meant them every single time, too."

"Well?"

"Well, this particular fine day"-and it was, the good weather continuing as they drove together into work-"I'm going to have to do some explaining before I can succeed in doing some real good."

"The explaining part will neither be appreciated nor understood. And neither will the real good, if in fact that's what it is."

Glitsky stared at the road ahead of him.

His wife kept it up. "When are you going to learn, Abe? There's no point in trying to live by a motto, even an excellent one, if you can't dredge it up and act on it when you really need it. Which you do today, believe me. You don't want to even start to do this."

He kept his voice civil. "So what do you suggest I do?"

She turned to him. "You know that one."

"No. I'm asking."

She sighed. "All right, then. I suggest you do absolutely nothing. You go up to your office and close the door and read a good book."

"And just ignore all this other stuff? "

She glanced over at him. "How can I put this so you understand? It is not your job. You are not responsible for what happens down there. You should not even care."

"How can I not care? Tell me that."

"Easy. You say to yourself, 'Self, I'm at my job because I have a wife and a child and two kids in college and I need the paycheck and benefits. That is why I go to work,' Period."

"And that's how you feel about your job?"

"Actually, no. I love my job, but it's not the same situation."

"How is it different then?"

She rolled her eyes. "I don't believe we're having this discussion. It's different because I care about the job they're paying me to do. You, on the other hand, care about a job nobody's paying you for. It's like if you decided you cared about, I don't know, being an astronaut. I'm sure astronauts have problems all the time, but guess what, Abe? They're not your problems!" She slapped at the console between them. "And neither are homicide's!"

They rode in silence for a block. Finally Abe said, "So I shouldn't go to Gerson?"

Again, Trey a sighed. "You think you know something, call one of your people there. You've still got friends there, right? Marcel, Paul. They make the same argument to Gerson, tell him what you told them-the ID might be funky- then you buy them a hamburger, everybody's happy. What's the problem with that?"

"I don't know," Glitsky said. "I really don't know. It just doesn't seem right, somehow. And it still leaves me having to explain why I was by Silverman's if he finds out, which he will."

"How would he find out? Who's going to tell him? The young rent-a-cop?"

"I don't know, but he's going to find out-that's the way these things go-so given that, it'd be better if he heard it first from me."

They'd gotten to a parking place in one of the lots under the freeway, a couple of blocks from the Hall of Justice. Glitsky switched off the motor, but made no move to get out. Treya pulled down the visor and carefully, with an exaggerated calm, applied some lipstick. She was breathing heavily through her nose. When she was done, she-again, carefully-closed the lipstick and dropped it back in her purse. At last, she turned to her husband. "Well?"

"I'm thinking about it," he said.

Glitsky was in a booth at Lou's with Marcel Lanier, a longtime colleague in homicide. He was bragging modestly about his wife, who'd convinced him that there was no point in having a motto if you were going to jettison it at a real opportunity to have it work for you. It would be like being a Boy Scout and just before a rafting trip in Class V rapids forgetting to put on your life vest. "So what good would all that earlier 'Be Prepared' stuff have done you?"

Lanier squinted in the dim light. "I know you don't drink, Abe, especially this early. Otherwise I'd be worried. What the hell are you talking about?"

Glitsky blew on his tea. "Not explaining to Gerson about why I'm interested in this Silverman thing."

"And this has to do with the Boy Scouts somehow?"

The tea was too hot and Glitsky put it down. "Never mind, Marcel. Let's leave it. What I really want to talk about is Wade Panos."

Lanier made the face of a chronic heartburn sufferer. "Do we have to?"

At a few minutes after eleven o'clock, about two hours after Glitsky had told Lanier about Creed's perhaps bogus identification, there was one sharp rap at his door. Glitsky took his feet off his desk, snapped shut his latest Patrick O'Brian novel-Desolation Island. He opened his drawer, deposited the book, pulled some paperwork over in front of him. "It's open," he said.

Glitsky wasn't altogether stunned to see Barry Gerson. He came to his feet with what he hoped was a warm greeting, invited the lieutenant in, shook his hand, told him to take a chair. "Returning the courtesy visit?" he finally asked.

Gerson, polite as an undertaker, inclined his head an inch. "Something like that."

"But not exactly?"

"No, frankly, Abe. Not."

"All right." He squared himself, linked his fingers on the desktop in front of him. "How can I help you?"

"Actually, I came here to ask you the same thing. I thought I'd made it clear yesterday when you came down to the detail that my door was open to you. You needed anything, all you had to do was ask."

"That's true. I appreciated that, too, Barry, I really did. I still do."

"But?"

"But then I had a talk with"-he almost named Batiste, stopped himself-"with some colleagues, who didn't think it would be smart of me to abuse the privilege. It might look like I was trying to insinuate myself back into the detail."

"Which you're not."

"No. Of course not." Glitsky pushed his chair back, crossed his arms behind his head. "I'm minding my own business up here, keeping an eye out for payroll irregularities."

But Gerson didn't smile at the witticism. "So you're denying that you went down to Silverman's last night?"

Glitsky repressed his own rare urge to smile. Of course, as he'd told Treya, Gerson would have to find out. He was almost pleased that he'd predicted it. "Nobody's asked me. If they did, if you're asking me now, I admit it."

Gerson nodded. "You mind if I ask you why?"

"Not at all. My father went down there with Mrs. Silverman and I didn't think it was a good idea. I wasn't there ten minutes."

"You expect me to believe that?"

Glitsky let out a weary breath. "As I told you yesterday, my father was Silverman's best friend."

"You mentioned that. I remember." Gerson straightened to his full length in the chair. "And as I believe I told you yesterday, I would inform you as soon as we unearthed anything that moved the case forward."

"Of course. I appreciate that. It's just that my dad and the wife hadn't heard from your department and thought they'd take an inventory. I told my father it wasn't a good idea for him to be involved because of the discussion I had with you. That's what happened."

"I was out yesterday. Cuneo and Russell both had personal time off. That's why nobody called the wife." At Glitsky's look, he added, "Hey, it happens."

"Yes it does." Good, Glitsky thought, I've got him explaining, too.

"So you just went down to Silverman's and found them there?"

"He called me and left a message. And I don't need to answer these questions. I've got no interest."

Gerson displayed a small air of triumph. "And because you've got no interest, you didn't talk to Lanier this morning?"

"So what?" Glitsky pushed his chair back far enough to allow him to cross a leg. "You want to know the truth, Lieutenant, I was trying to do you a favor."

"Goodness of your heart, huh?"

"Believe it or not, I actually have some understanding of the job you've got. I thought I could save you some misery."

"And how would you do that? "

"Do you know Wade Panos?"

"By reputation, sure."

"And what's his reputation?"

"He does a good job. Maybe a little rough, but he keeps the scum factor down in his neighborhoods."

"And that's it?"

A shrug. "What else is there?"

Glitsky came forward again. "Do you know he's being sued?"

"Who isn't? People sue people all the time. What's that mean?"

"Maybe nothing, except when there's something like fourteen plaintiffs asking around thirty million dollars."

"Again, I ask you, what does that prove? Hell, you know. Somebody's always suing us. Brutality, invasion of privacy, stealing candy from schoolkids, you name it."

"True enough," Glitsky said. "You're probably right. Panos is a saint."

"I never said that." But Glitsky still had a look, and Gerson said, "But what?"

"Only that I'd think hard before I gave him point in any homicide investigation."

"He's not point. He had leads, that's all. The poker players."

Glitsky locked his ringers on the desk. Said nothing.

Gerson raised his voice. "And in fact the names he gave us took my boys someplace. You got a problem with that?"

"Not at all."

"So? What, then?"

"So, the usual suspects, huh? Two guys with sheets."

"Three, as it turns out. Randy Wills isn't any choirboy, either. So yeah, the usual suspects. Happens every day."

"No question about it." Glitsky turned a neutral face up at him. "Your boys find any evidence to go with their suspects?"

"They'll be getting warrants."

Glitsky clucked, then nodded, all understanding. "They looking at anybody else in the meanwhile?"

"Why do they want to do that when the guys Panos gave us look good for it?"

"You're right," Glitsky said mildly. "Waste of time. That'd be stupid."

Perhaps correctly, Gerson must have gotten the impression that Glitsky was including him among the less intellectually gifted. He'd burst in here ten minutes ago holding the high moral ground and for the past several minutes had been drifting into the lower regions, and losing territory even there. It didn't appreciably improve his attitude.

He stood up.

"Well, you know," he said, "stupid or not, I'm running the detail now. I'm calling the shots with my troops and what I came up here to tell you still goes. Silverman is my case. I'm controlling the investigation. Yesterday I'm a good guy and bend a little and you take advantage of it, hiding behind your old man. Well, I'm telling you now. You keep you and your father out of it, all the way out, or I'll haul your ass in before the deputy chief. Don't think I won't." His voice was rasping now, low-pitched with anger and the need for control in the cramped room. "In fact, you might want to remember that every homicide in the city is my case now and my guys work for me."

Glitsky knew he could a draw a punch with one sarcastic word and it hovered temptingly on the tip of his tongue. There'd be a great deal of pleasure in it. But he only leaned back, crossed his arms, and nodded. "I got it," he said.

David Freeman had to be at his office at 1:30 p.m. to hold the hand of another of his co-plaintiffs being deposed in the Panos lawsuit. Yesterday they'd started at 10:00 a.m. with a gentle, turbaned professor of Comparative Religion at City College. In his mid-fifties now, soon after the terrorist attacks Casif Yasouf had been walking back to his car, parked at the Downtown Center Garage, from a meeting at the St. Francis Hotel, when he had the bad luck to run into Roy Panos, in uniform. The assistant patrol special was abusing a homeless man in an alley, kicking him and his shopping cart down toward the western border of Thirty-two.

Mr. Yasouf's version of events was that he'd simply tried to intervene as a citizen, telling the policeman that he didn't have to use such tactics. Panos, he said, had then abandoned his pursuit of the bum and turned on him, lifted him easily by his shirt, slapped his face hard twice and told him to take his rag-head ass back to Arabia. Frightened and bleeding, Mr. Yasouf finally fled. He reported the incident to the regular police the next morning, complete with Panos's name from his tag. Two days later he abandoned the complaint. Again-his version-because someone had set fire to his car.

That deposition hadn't finished up until twelve-thirty the next morning and by the time Freeman had gotten back, walking as always, to his apartment at the foot of Nob Hill, it was after 1:00 a.m. and Gina Roake was asleep in his bed. It had been their bed now, since a few weeks after his physical confrontation with Nick Sephia.

About a year ago, things had started to change with Freeman and Roake. Before that, Freeman had maintained a discreet and rotating harem of up to a dozen women. He was, after all, a wealthy and successful old man with an established, urban, sophisticated lifestyle that did not include the sort of entanglements that he believed were the unvarying attendants of exclusive physical relationships. He had always kept an armoire of women's robes for his visitors. The medicine chest was well-stocked-toothbrushes, creams and so on.

Roake was, at forty-eight, not exactly a babe in the woods herself. She, like Freeman, had had several longstanding but essentially casual relationships, and had never been married. They had seen each other in professional and social settings-courtrooms, fund-raisers, restaurants, even the occasional judge's chambers-for years, but had never shared more than pleasantries.

Freeman had a long-standing tradition that whenever he won a large case, he would celebrate alone-a fine meal at one of the city's restaurant treasures with an old and noble wine, then a final cognac or two at the Top of the Mark, or one of the other towers-the St. Francis, the Fairmont. That night, at the Crown Room in the Fairmont, he sat savoring his Paradis at a small table by the window overlooking the Bay side. He appreciated the walk of the shapely, grown-up woman as she got off the elevator, unavoidably registering that she appeared to be alone. It didn't matter, he told himself. This was not how he met women, ever.

He'd been playing the case over and over again in his mind throughout the night, all the high points up to and including the glorious moment of the "Not Guilty" verdict. People had no idea what a rare and lovely thing it was, even in San Francisco, to get a defense verdict. The best defense lawyers in the world won maybe five percent of their cases-Freeman himself hovered around fourteen percent, but he believed himself to be an almost unparalleled genius. And he was right.

Except now the case was over. There would be no need, even, of an appeal. His mind, consumed by its strategies for most of a year, was suddenly empty. He felt a mild euphoria and with the meal and wine, a deep physical contentment. The cognac was the essence of perfection. He stared out the window, over the sparkling lights.

He turned back to the room. The woman had materialized in front of him.

"David? I thought that was you."

Still half in reverie, he smiled. "Gina. Hello. What a pleasant surprise."

"I don't want to bother you if you're busy," she said.

"Not at all, at all. Please, join me if you'd like."

She'd sat and they had talked until last call, after which she took a cab home. In the next month, he asked her to lunch nine times-he preferred lunch dates because there was less expectation of automatic intimacy than with dinner. Either party, in the get-to-know stage, could back out without embarrassment or loss of face. In that way friendship, which in Freeman's opinion was always preferable to physical attraction, could be preserved.

In Roake's case, though, a strange thing happened. By the time it became obvious that they'd be sleeping together, he'd stopped seeing anyone else. Before he asked her to his apartment for the first time, and without any kind of agonizing analysis, he got rid of the contents of his armoire, the other feminine accoutrements. Then slowly, over time, she'd started leaving articles of clothing of her own at his place until she had her own drawer in his bureau and the entire armoire all to herself. She hadn't spent the night at her own apartment now for three months.

This morning, Freeman barely woke up in time to catch Roake as she was out the door on her way to work. He reminded her of the depositions that had now begun on Panos, and wondered if she might make it back here for lunch, even a little early if possible, since they wouldn't get dinner together for who knew how long.

Now he checked his watch: 11:20. She should be home any minute. Billy Joel's CD of piano concertos-a Gina find-played almost inaudibly in the background. Rubbing his palms together, he was shocked to find them damp with nerves. He caught a glimpse of himself in a wall mirror and shook his head in amusement. David Freeman hadn't been nervous arguing before the Supreme Court. He couldn't remember his last attack of even minor jitters, but he had to admit he had them now. His eyes left his own image and went to the little eating nook in the cramped and narrow kitchen. Normally the table was a mess, piled high with yellow legal pads, lawbooks, half-empty coffee mugs, wineglasses and sometimes bottles, newspapers, binders and file folders.

Today, it looked perfect and elegant. He'd spent most of an hour removing the usual detritus and what remained were two simple place settings in silver, crystal champagne glasses, one yellow cymbidium in the center of the starched white cloth, echoing the sunlight that just kissed the edge of the table. There was a beaded silver champagne bucket to one side, a bottle of Veuve Cliquot's La Grande Dame, purposely chosen for the name of course, nestled in it in chilled splendor. He'd arranged for Rick, the chef downstairs at the Rue Charmaine, to deliver the light lunch- pike quenelles in a saffron broth and an artichoke-he art-and-pancetta salad-precisely at noon.

One last glance at himself, and he had to smile. Certainly, no one would mistake him for handsome. But he'd done all right, and today he looked as good as he could, which is to say he probably wouldn't scare most small children. He wore the one nice suit, a maroon-and-gold silk tie. He'd managed to shave without cutting his neck and his collar was free of his trademark brown specks of dried blood. It would have to do.

And here she was. On time, cheerful, kissing his cheek. God, he loved her.

"You're looking good today, mister. If I didn't have a meeting in two hours…" She kissed him again, then backed up a step. "I thought clients didn't trust nice clothes."

"This isn't for a client." He realized he had taken her hand when she'd come up to him and hadn't released it. "Come look at something."

She stopped in the doorway to the kitchen and turned to him. "Who are you and what have you done with my boyfriend?" Then, more seriously, "This is beautiful, David. Is it an occasion? Don't tell me we started seeing each other a year ago today and I didn't remember."

"It might be an occasion someday," he said, "in the future." He drew in a deep breath and came out with it. "I wanted to know if you'd be interested in marrying someone like me."

She looked quickly down to the ground, then back up, staring at him with a startled intensity. "Somebody like you? Do you mean hypothetically?"

"No. I said that wrong. I meant me. Will you marry me?"

For an eternal two seconds-they were still holding hands-she did not move, looking him full in the face. She brought her other hand up and held it over her mouth, obviously stunned. "Oh, David…" Her eyes filled. "I never thought…" She looked at him, hopelessly vulnerable, terrified. A tear spilled out onto her cheek.

But still the word didn't come. "I love you," he said. "Please say yes."

"Oh God, yes. Of course yes." Her arms were around his neck and she was crying openly now, kissing his face, eyes, lips again and again. "Yes yes yes yes yes."

"This Saturday?"

It was mid afternoon and they were taking a break in the deposition of their old friend Aretha LaBonte while she used the ladies' room.

Panos's lawyer Dick Kroll was waiting, taking notes back in the conference room, a large sunlit enclosure resembling a greenhouse that they called the Solarium. Freeman and Hardy were ostensibly filling their coffee cups in the old man's office.

Freeman nodded. "If you're free." "I'll get free. It's not that. I'm flattered that you'd ask me. I'm just a little surprised. No, I'm flabbergasted. I didn't know you were even thinking of it." "Well, there you go. You don't see everything." "And isn't Saturday a little soon if you just got engaged today?"

"Why would we want to wait once we decided?" "I don't know. Most people do, that's all. Send out invitations, plan the party."

Freeman was shaking his head. "None of that, Diz. We don't want a party. Just a best man-that's you-and a maid of honor and a judge. Oh, and Gina's mother." "It's nice you remembered her. Can Frannie come?" "And Frannie, naturally. Goes without saying." Hardy drank some coffee. "You know, I've been a best man twice now in two years. I stood up for Glitsky."

"Good for you." Freeman's enthusiasm was restrained. "You'll be in practice."

"I didn't need it. It was pretty easy. Like Aretha here." Again, Freeman shook his head. "Don't get complacent. Kroll's good, even if he's got no principles. In fact, it might be why he's good."

"I don't know," Hardy said. "I'm not seeing much yet." Freeman opened the door out to the lobby. Aretha was back at her place in the Solarium, and smiling, Freeman waved at Kroll, who was staring angrily in their direction. He pointed at his watch in an impatient gesture. Freeman waved again, turned back to Hardy. "He'll come up with something."

"I'm just saying we've got him on the ropes. I don't see him coming up with a legal something."

"You wait," Freeman said, "you'll see." Then, an afterthought, "What do you mean, legal something? What else is there?"

The law offices of Richard C. Kroll were located in one of the recently built and controversial loft spaces south of Market Street at Third and Folsom. For the past twenty minutes, Kroll had been turned around in his swivel chair, looking out of his second story, floor-to-ceiling window, for the familiar sight of Wade Panos to appear on the street below. It was the day after his latest deposition with Aretha LaBonte at David Freeman's office.

And now here Wade was, half a block down, on foot and in uniform as always, stopping to look into the shops as he passed them, even occasionally raising a hand to acquaintances on the street. An extraordinarily successful man in his element, Panos bestrode the pavement like a parade marshal, confident and unassailable.

Kroll's stomach rumbled, and he clutched at it. Taking a few antacids from a roll in his desk drawer, he stood up. In the mirror over the bar area, he got his face composed so that it wouldn't immediately telegraph the bad news he was about to deliver. By the time his secretary buzzed him with the word that Wade had arrived, he was back at his desk, apparently lost in other work. When Panos opened the door to the office, he looked up and motioned to the wing chair in front of his desk. He'd be done in just a moment.

Closing the folder, he finally found the nerve to look at his client. Wade, for his part, sat back comfortably, an ankle resting on a knee, his eyes half closed. He was always a patient man, and the small wait until his lawyer gave him his attention didn't seem to rankle in the least. Still, when Kroll closed the folder, he came out of his trance, suddenly all business. "So how bad is it?" he asked.

Kroll tried to smile. "How do you know it's bad?"

"You want to see me in person, Dick, it's bad. It's one reason I like you. Other guys, they get bad news, they give it to you over the phone, or leave a message. You? You got the balls to be here and try to break the fall. I appreciate that. So how bad is it?"

Kroll templed his hands on his desk. "Pretty bad."

Panos nodded. "Tell me."

"We got denied on the summary judgment."

"Which means what?"

"It means the judge decided that this thing's going forward."

Panos showed little reaction. If anything, he settled back a little more into his chair. "Okay," he said, "you said from the beginning that filing the thing was a slim chance. So it didn't work. No real surprise, right?"

"But there is a surprise."

Panos cocked his head, an inquisitive dog. "I'm listening."

Kroll noticed that his knuckles had gone white and he willed himself to loosen his grip. "You remember we decided that since you personally were not alleged to have harmed any of the plaintiffs, that you shouldn't be personally named as one of the defendants?"

"Right. It's just WGP and some of the assistants-" Noticing Kroll's look, he stopped midsentence. "What?"

"That's what Freeman and Hardy decided to hit. They were shooting to pierce the corporate veil, and it looks like they did it."

Still well back in his seat, still in a relaxed posture, Panos frowned. "You lost me, Dick. What's that mean?"

"It means…" Kroll stopped, shook his head, reached for another folder, and opened it. "I'll read the relevant part to you. How's that? 'Plaintiffs have introduced enough evidence to show that there exists a triable issue of fact as to whether WGP Enterprises Incorporated, a California corporation, and Wade Panos, an individual, are in fact alter egos of one another.' " He dared a glance up at Panos. "They're saying that the corporation is a sham and that therefore you should be personally bound in. Apparently the judge bought it."

"Dick, I've been incorporated for thirty years, and my dad before that."

"I know, I know." Kroll sighed. "But apparently they argued that the corporation is undercapitalized, among some other technical points. Also, since you're the only shareholder and you control the company's day-to-day workings on your own, they said the corporation is being maintained not as a legitimate entity but as an artificial dodge to avoid personal liability."

"Artificial my ass. I donate to all these charities through the corporation. I pay my guys and my bills with corporate checks. The corporation's as real as a heart attack, Dick."

"I agree with you, Wade, and certainly that's what I'd argue in front of a jury, and I might even prevail. But the judge ruled that it would have to be decided by a jury, so that's what we're dealing with."

"And if we lose, then what?"

"Then you're exposed. Personally."

Panos seemed to go into another kind of trance.

"It gets worse, I'm afraid," Kroll said. "It also means you'll be deposed before the jury gets to hear anything. You and me go up to Freeman's office, there's a court reporter taking everything down, and you're under oath."

Panos opened his eyes again, but didn't respond. Folding his hands in his lap, he took a breath.

The lawyer continued. "It also means that Freeman and Hardy get to ask you where you get your money, all of it. And how you get it."

This brought a small rise. "So then you object, right?"

Kroll nodded. "Yes I do. Except in a depo the objection is noted for the record, but you've got to answer the question anyway. And later the judge rules whether the answer is admissible."

"Later?"

"Way later."

Panos's chest rose and fell, long and slow.

"The point is," Kroll continued, "once they've got you in a depo, they can ask anything. That's how they finally got Clinton, you know. Not because of anything he did with Paula Jones, but because he said under oath that he hadn't had sex with anybody else. Then when Monica came along…"

Panos held up a hand. "Spare me the history lesson, Dick. What's this mean to me in the here and now? "

Kroll picked his words carefully. "It means they're going to be able to look at any bank account you have anywhere. It could be-I'm not saying it will be, but knowing Freeman I'd say it's likely-that it's going to be open season on your books, and not just your corporate books. They want your net worth."

"Why? What's the big deal with my net worth?"

"That's largely what they base punitive damages on, Wade. The idea is that punitives are supposed to punish, to hurt. The more you're worth, the more they ask, the more-"

Panos raised his head, stopping Kroll. His face betrayed no deep concern. In fact, it had a controlled calm that, given the circumstances, Kroll found to be a little scary. A small laugh came from deep in Panos's throat. "You remember when this started? You called it a-what was it?- a nuisance lawsuit?"

"I remember."

Again, the frightening smile. "I'd say these two sons of bitches have taken it a little further than that, wouldn't you?" He came forward in the chair. "Okay, you're my lawyer, what's your advice now?"

Kroll appeared to be thinking, although he'd known all along that it would come to this. "We might want to offer to settle now."

Panos lived with that notion for a beat. Then, "How much?"

"A few million, at least. Say three, four."

Panos shook his head, uttered an obscenity. "You think they'll take it?"

Kroll shrugged. "I don't think I would, especially after this ruling, but it can't hurt to ask. There's no other option really."

Panos grunted. "There's always another option," he said. He cast his eyes about the room, then settled them on his lawyer. "But you go ahead. Make the offer."