The First Law

24

Treya and Abe Glitsky sat in their car where she'd parked it near their place. Her last few comments sounded like she was defending Clarence Jackman and Abe wasn't much in the mood to hear it. "So he accuses me and Diz instead?"

"He's not under the impression that he did that."

"Then he wasn't paying attention."

"Well," she said, "he's politically bound. Don't look at me like that; I'm completely with you on this. I'm just explaining his position. And for the record, I think it stinks. I'm well into serious anger myself. What else does he expect you to do?"

"That's easy. Stay completely out of it."

"Can you do that? Do you want to?"

"I don't know," he said. "I keep telling myself it isn't my case. It has nothing to do with me."

"Except that they shot at Diz."

"And beat up Freeman. And maybe had something to do with this prostitute who hanged herself. And nobody seems to be trying to stop them."

"Which still doesn't make it your job, does it?" She reached over and touched his leg. "That's not a criticism. It's a real question."

He put his hand over hers. "Okay, here's where we are then, it seems to me: Diz tells me the lawsuit is pretty much over. The attacks on Freeman and Aretha and maybe Diz worked. Let's say it is Nick Sephia and his pals. They're done on that score, right? Nobody caught them, but the threat's over. They don't need to do anything else. So I can let that go, clear conscience, not my job. You with me?"

"All right."

"But the other side, where's Holiday in the picture? That part's not over, not even close. Even leaving out whoever killed everybody in the line leading from Silverman, meaning Creed and Wills and Terry, they've still got to take out Holiday if they want to be able to rest easy. And maybe knock off Diz."

"And maybe you, too."

Glitsky pulled at an ear. "Okay, maybe that. But it doesn't change the fact. They're going to have to try to get to Holiday. And maybe Diz after him. So, given that, if there's some way I can help stop them, I don't see how I can keep out of it."

"No." She sighed. "I don't see how you can, either."

"Which leaves what? Play by the rules? Whose rules?"

"I know," she said. "I know."

"Jesus Christ, Roy, this was originally going to be one of the famous quick and dirties, you remember that? Bang bang bang bang and it's all over. Now, shit." They were in Wade's enclosed patio, where he was finishing another jigsaw puzzle. He'd summoned his brother to his home after Liz had told him about this new wrinkle she'd found out from her boyfriend-that some lieutenant named Glitsky who used to run homicide and now was somehow tight with Silverman's widow had put it together that the ring hadn't been taken during the Silverman robbery. "What kind of stupidity made 'em think up taking some rings? Nobody needed the rings. And without 'em it's foolproof. What were they thinkin'?"

Roy, straight in from his shift, was still in uniform. A jumpy wariness clung about him as it often did when he had to confront his intelligent and powerful older brother. "I told 'em that, Wade, the same thing. The money and the pouch, that's all. But Julio thought the ring locked it up tighter."

Wade grimaced. "Julio's an idiot. A psychopathic idiot." "He's not so bad. He was trying to help." "Don't give me that," Wade said. "You see what the little fuck did to Freeman? I say go out and put the old man off his feed a few days, maybe get him thinking about his workload, and what's he do? Fucking kills him." "I didn't hear that. Freeman's dead?"

"Not literally. Not yet anyway. But not because Rez didn't try." He shook his head with disgust. "I tell you, that guy scares the shit out of me. I don't know why Nicky's got to hang with such an animal. What he did to those two faggots, Jesus, when a couple of quick shots would have done it as well. Better. Then the two of them get their chance to finish it up, and they miss Holiday, for Christ's sake. And again, once he's dead, it's all over." He saw something on the table in front of him and placed a large piece he'd already connected into a corner of the puzzle. "So now it's the loaves and fucking fishes. We get rid of everybody we need to and we've still got three more, and one of 'em's a lieutenant. Christ! When's it gonna end, Roy? How's it gonna end?"

Roy wiped his palms on the arms of his chair. "Same as always, Wade. Same plan. It's going to end with Holiday. He'll turn up, maybe at his house, maybe with his lawyer again, maybe jail, but someplace. Then he goes, and after that nobody's going to worry about whether he's guilty or not anymore."

"What about the lawyer?"

"With Holiday gone, who's going to pay him? Why would he care?"

"But if he does? If this guy Glitsky does?"

"They won't. Stop worrying."

"Worrying's what I do."

Roy forced a grin. "Come on, Wade, you know how it is. Holiday's a job to these guys, something they do to get paid. Hardy and Glitsky, they both have families, for Christ's sake. On the off chance one of 'em might get a wild hair around this, we give 'em a nudge and they drop the thing like a hot potato. Maybe we even do that soon, get them out of the way now."

"What kind of nudge? You hurt them, you're asking for more trouble. And if Rez is part of that, you'll be covering up for what he does the rest of your life."

"I'm not thinking about hurting anybody. Just make 'em think."

Wade held up a hand. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know how. Just make it happen."

Hardy was on his way out of his evening hospital visit when Roake was coming in. She was professionally dressed and told him she'd had to be in court all afternoon. Life was going on since it had to. How were things here? Any change?

There wasn't any news and the two found themselves again in the gift shop, sitting at the one table. Roake in the nicest, most concerned way imaginable commented on how terrible Hardy looked, how lousy he sounded. Was he eating? Getting any sleep? He should try to take better care of himself.

"I'm working on it," he told her. "But in the meanwhile, I've got a problem maybe you can help me with."

She nodded. "If I can."

He took a deep breath and came out with it. "I know who beat up David. Does the name Nick Sephia ring a bell?"

It did. Roake remembered the earlier "mistaken" battery when Sephia had turned and knocked Freeman to the floor outside the courtroom during the summer. "You're sure it's him?"

Hardy considered for a second. "Beyond a reasonable doubt, and you would be, too."

"Okay. So what's your problem?"

He gave her a truncated version of his own interaction with Blanca, backfilled through Jackman and Glitsky, then brought it around to Silverman and Holiday. "In any event," he concluded, "Blanca started out fine, but recently hasn't been too inclined to bust any hump for me. Somebody convinced him I'm just scamming to get Holiday off."

"But somebody shot at you."

"If you happen to believe that." He shrugged. "I can't explain all this, Gina. I don't think, though, that you have the stink that Abe and I have somehow developed. You're Freeman's fiancee. You've seen Blanca here. He'll talk to you."

"And what do you want me to say? Or do?"

At this, Hardy tried to smile. "First, just deliver a message. When I originally told Blanca I thought I knew who'd shot at me-this was like two hours after it happened-he checked on Sephia and found out he was in Nevada, at least four hours away."

Roake's brow furrowed in thought. "Which leaves him out."

"That's what Blanca thought, too. And that seemed right, even to me, until John Holiday pointed out that Nick's got the use of the Diamond Center's helicopter. Forty-five minutes to state line."

Roake seemed to be waiting for more. At last she said, "Excuse me for thinking like a defense attorney, but since that's what I've been my whole life, Nick having access to a helicopter doesn't mean he shot at you."

"No, of course not. But at least it means that my accusation wasn't whole cloth. I wasn't just getting in a random dig at Panos and his people, which is apparently what Blanca has been thinking. The thing is, I believe that both Jackman and Blanca really do want to find who did this thing to David. I'm telling you it was Sephia. If you mention this incident between David and Sephia last summer, or maybe Kroll's threat to David the night before… before this happened, maybe they'll listen at least enough to call Sephia in to talk. If there's a god, it's not even impossible Blanca could be convinced to pull a search warrant."

Roake's eyes had taken on a faraway cast.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

"What? Oh." She lifted her left hand, displaying the diamond ring. "Just imagining what I thought I'd be feeling like today. Married to him, I mean." Her smile didn't come any more easily than Hardy's had. "Not like this." Then, abruptly, "But the answer is yes, of course I'll go see Blanca, or anybody else you suggest. He's on in the morning?"

"Yes."

"All right." Again, her focus shifted. "Can I ask you another question? How do you know?"

"Know what?"

"That it was this Sephia person. Do you have any proof?" The question obviously struck a nerve-Hardy visibly reigned in a rising tide of temper. She put out a hand and touched his. "Don't get mad at me, Diz. I'm on your side, but it's a legitimate question."

"I'm sure it is. Jeff Elliot had the same one."

"Well?"

"Well, I'm getting damn tired of it, to tell you the truth. I know it was Nick. What am I supposed to do, let him kill more people while I try to find proof that he's killed others?"

She drew a deep breath. "The short answer to that, I'm afraid, is yes. If he did kill somebody else, or even beat up David, and God knows I want pure, sweet revenge for that. But still, you need…"

Hardy cut her off. "So he shoots at you, you don't fire back?"

"No. Somebody shoots at you, you fire back at where the shot came from. That, as you know better than anyone, is self-defense. If you happen to kill the shooter, two things, you've proven he was behind the gun, and you get your revenge. But you don't get shot at, decide who it must have been, then go to his house and shoot him back two days later. Because what if it could have been, even should have been your guy, but it wasn't?"

"That didn't happen here."

"No? What's different?" Again she touched his hand. "My only point is you'll hurt yourself, Diz." After a minute of silence, she added, "You've got to find something, that's all. At least for yourself, if not for the law. You've got to know. Really know."

Hardy shook his head and swore under his breath. Another silence built. Broken finally again by Gina. "Here's a terrible thought," she said.

"Terrible is my favorite. What is it?"

"Just that I've got the key to David's apartment." She started running with the fantasy. "If something David owned found its way into Sephia's, say, pocket, and Blanca happened to see it, that might get to probable cause for a search. I can't believe I'm saying this."

"They do a search of his place, they got him," Hardy said, rising to the idea. "The plant would only get them inside. It would take some real evidence after that-say blood splatter on his clothes, and my guess is that there would be plenty-to arrest him."

"Right. We'd just be facilitating a legal search."

They looked at each other with a thrill almost of illicit love, both of them wondering how it would be to play outside the rules. To beat these criminals at their own game.

Finally Hardy pulled out of it. "It's a beautiful idea, Gina, but maybe we won't need it."

"I couldn't do it anyway," she said.

"I don't know if I could either."

"Probably that's a good thing," she said. "It's why they're them and we're us."

"Right," Hardy said. "If we don't do it by the book we're as bad as they are. Does something seem wrong with this picture somehow?"

Hardy and Frannie hadn't had the best night of their lives so far, and now with Glitsky's urgent and atypical call inviting himself and Treya over to talk about their options, it didn't look as though it was going to improve. They were in the kitchen, an hour after a dinner that had featured a meltdown of sorts from the kids, who had finally processed the reality that their father had been shot at and badly hurt in the bargain.

They might not know exactly what it was, but they understood that something truly bad was happening. Uncle Moses and Aunt Susan had been here until late last night, Rebecca and Vincent banished with their younger cousins to the back of the house while the adults drank and argued. This morning, their father and mother had barely spoken- were they getting divorced? Why was someone trying to hurt Dad? Were they actually trying to kill him? What were they going to do about that? What was Dad going to do? He was trying to find who it was, wasn't he? Get them arrested? What were the police doing? Were they in danger?

Hardy found it difficult to finesse these questions, particularly since Frannie wasn't helping much. She was still mad at the situation, mostly at her brother, true, but beyond that she'd been dealing with the kids' blossoming reaction to all this since six o'clock this morning, by which time her hung over husband was already long gone for work. Tears and fears. What was going to happen to them? What if Dad died? What was this all about?

"I don't want to live like this," Frannie said. "I don't know how these people have done this to us." They were keeping their voices abnormally low so that Vincent and Rebecca, doing their homework in the rooms directly behind the kitchen, would not have more cause to worry. To Hardy, the tension in the house twanged with every sound.

He crossed the kitchen and put his arms around his wife. She leaned up against him. "I don't know what to do," she said. "I just feel so helpless."

"That's what Abe and Treya are coming over for," he said. "We'll come up with some plan, the four of us."

"But I don't understand why the police, or Clarence Jackman for that matter, why they don't believe you in the first place. That's the part that's making me crazy. You didn't do anything wrong."

"That's funny. John Holiday seems to think I started the whole thing. Me and David." At Frannie's look of disbelief, he explained. "Going after Panos."

"Hello?" Frannie didn't want to hear this nonsense. "You've got over a dozen clients he's harmed one way or another. That's not you starting it."

"I tried to make that same point myself. Evidently Mr. Panos can do whatever he wants, and if somebody like me calls him on it, I'm at fault."

"John really said that?"

"More or less."

"That really makes me mad."

"You must be a bad person, too. Anyway, I tried to explain that maybe I'm not a moral paragon, but what I'm doing is within the law, whereas everything Panos has done and is doing is against it. Call me delusional, but that's a big difference."

"Did he get it? John?"

"Not really. He's not much into right and wrong. He simply pointed out that I should have been prepared to handle this stuff before I started in on Panos to begin with."

She moved back into his embrace. "It's like this bad dream where you're drowning and calling out the names of everybody who could save you on the shore right around you, but nobody hears."

"I know," Hardy said. "I know." What else could he say? That's exactly what it was like. He and Frannie were having the same nightmare.

Or maybe not exactly the same. She boosted herself up onto the kitchen counter, and she sat with her ankles crossed, her hands clasped between her legs, her head held low. "This has always been my biggest fear, you know that? That somebody was going to take all this law stuff personally and come after you. Or us. Me and the kids. And you always told me that that never happened. Except now it has."

"I know." He rested his own weight against the opposite counter. "What do you want me to say? I never thought it would."

"But now that it has… maybe we should reconsider…"

"What?"

She raised her eyes. "Maybe everything, I guess."

Hardy didn't like the sound of that at all. "Everything takes in a lot, Fran. You're not saying you and me, I hope."

"Not specifically, no… But the life we have. If it's not safe…"

"This is one moment, Fran. It's not our life. Our life has been good. It still is good."

"But not living like this. If we lost the kids…"

Hardy stepped toward her. "That's not going to happen-"

"Don't!" She snapped it out, stopping him. "Don't say it's not going to happen. You don't know what's going to happen. You've always told me that this wouldn't happen."

Hardy backed off, took a breath. "So what are you saying? What do you want to do?"

"I don't know!" Anger flashed in her eyes. Then, after a beat, with some measure of calm, "I don't know. Maybe we should just leave here. Start over someplace else, with you doing something else?"

"And how do we do that exactly? What do we live on, for example?"

"We'd find something."

"Something that's going to support four of us, with two kids in college in a couple of years? I don't know how we're going to do that. And then what? Sell the house?"

"We could."

"Frannie. We can't." He approached again, but more cautiously. "Listen to me. I don't want something else. This is what I do. I'm trained in it and I'm good at it. I may even be doing some good from time to time."

"But your life is threatening all of us, Dismas. Can't you see that?"

He gathered what he felt to be the last of his reserve. He'd come to where she sat and he set his hands on either side of her hips. He felt that it would take all his strength to keep his voice modulated, and when he spoke, it was almost in a whisper. "Can't you see that what's at stake here is exactly that? The way we live, the way we want to live. Some crop of assholes comes in and threatens us, threatens that, what do you want me to do? What do you want us to do? Pack up and move? I don't believe it. Because then what?"

"You're alive at least."

"We're alive now. And we're where we belong. We're just scared."

"And so we live with this fear?"

"Sometimes, yes. Sometimes we have to. Hopefully not for too long." He brought a hand up and touched her cheek. "Look, Fran, I don't like it any more than you do, but you just can't let the bastards win. Sometimes they push you far enough and you've got to fight or else they'll take it all. They'll just take it because they can, because nobody will stop them. And that's wherever we move, whatever we do."