Glitsky 01 - Certain Justice, A (49 page)

Other things? What? He was chewing on the back end of his pen, some ink leaking out and staining his lower lip. He had to think about the jury – what the hell was he going to do about the racial makeup of the jury? That was going to be thorny, a crap shoot as always. Still, he was getting so he believed he could find twelve people who wouldn't be racially biased, even in a case this potentially explosive.

How many black friends did Kevin have? Okay, maybe it was a cliché, but it also happened to be a fact. He knew there were at least a couple – they'd all been out drinking together. Good witnesses. Kevin would know the names.

But what he was going to need more than anything was a couple of other suspects – hell, not just
suspects –
he reminded himself. The guys who goddamn
did
it.

He tore back another page from his legal pad, scribbling like a madman. Maybe he
was
mad. Here's a long-haired fifty-year-old pot-bellied man in a sweatsuit, a smudge of black ink emanating from his mouth, mumbling incoherent words. His old fat dog lay curled at his feet – a dog who, truth be told, farted more often than he really should – due to the rich, canned, all-meat (and occasional beer) diet that his owner felt was the proper nutrition for a dog. He hadn't wanted the goddamn animal in the first place, but since he had him, he wasn't going to have the guy live on kibble and meal, not a real man's dog like Bart Dog Farrell. No siree.

The streetlights came up – most of them functioned properly on Ocean Street. As it sometimes did, the wind died at sunset. Wes Farrell looked up, surprised not so much at where he was as at where he'd been.

Caught up in it. Alive.

Marcel Lanier had been snagged by Carl Griffin to go with him and look again at the Dolores Park area, so Ridley Banks, who had been teaming with Marcel the last few days, was on his own.

The day had been circumscribed for him by his decision to stay away from the homicide detail. He had every excuse to do it – in their zeal to lay something on Peter McKay and Brandon Mullen, both he and Marcel had allowed their regular workloads to slide a bit, and some time working the street might yield fruit with their other homicides.

But also, Ridley had sensed that if he began any more exchanges with his lieutenant about his suspicions concerning Loretta Wager's past, Glitsky would blow. So he had left his encoded note and things would proceed or not, but either way he felt he had done all he could. He had no more evidence than he'd given Abe, but he still felt that Senator Wager had some skeletons that homicide inspectors ought not to dance with – but he didn't want to argue about it, make a stink. He just wanted to be thorough or, more precisely, he wanted Glitsky to understand what he
might
be dealing with. Whether he chose to do anything with that understanding would be his decision.

Ridley's girlfriend, Jacqueline, worked as a legal secretary in one of the high-rise firms, and he was waiting now in the reception area to see if she would be getting off soon and would want to get something to eat. Though it was full dusk, the workday for the secretaries in Jacqueline's firm ended when their attorney bosses went home – officially there were normal business hours, but anyone who left at five or five-thirty soon found themselves unemployed. Jacqueline's day ended not when her work was done, not when she had put in her time, but when her attorney told her she could leave and not before.

She came into view around a corner down the long muted hallway, and, watching her approach, he appreciated her matter-of-fact style. Ridley wasn't into either flash or sleaze, although – actually
because –
he had experimented with both when he had been younger. Jacqueline was a working woman, as he was a working man. She had a good heart, a warm smile, a civil tongue and bone structure.

There was a tension in her bearing, but she greeted him normally. She had, he thought, too much class to display all her emotions. 'Good timing,' she said. A buss on the cheek. More tension. She was wearing a long woolen skirt and lavender blouse. Ridley was aware of a vague scent of cinnamon. He thought he might marry her before too long, though they hadn't really talked about it yet.

In the elevator, he took her hand. 'What's the matter?'

She took a long breath, held it for a couple of floors. 'Stan's working all weekend,' she said. 'He wants me to come in.'

This wasn't at all unusual. Stan was Stansfield Butler, III, 'her' attorney – a thirty-four-year-old married white man with two young children, bucking for partner next year after six years with the firm. Hours meant nothing to him. He lived his law.

Ridley shrugged, reluctantly accepting this news. 'That's all right,' he said, squeezing her hand. 'All the troubles, I'm sure I can pull some comp time.'

They had tentatively talked about getting away, maybe up to Point Reyes for a couple of days, but this kind of last-minute demand was always a possibility. Jacqueline had been Butler's loyal and highly efficient secretary-assistant for four years. She was under no illusions, however – if she said no too many times (once? twice? she didn't know the precise number), she would be replaced. It had happened to too many of her co-workers. She was black and she was staff. If she wanted to keep this good-paying professional job she should not put any priority on her personal life. That had to come second if she were to survive.

'Well, that's not it, exactly.'

'Not what?'

The elevator door opened and they stepped into the enormous marble-tiled foyer. There was a fern bar for young professionals across the lobby and they gravitated, by habit, in that direction. Jacqueline would often take a glass of chardonnay after work.

She stopped walking, turned to him. 'I'd hoped to go to the march, Ridley. I'm not sure if I'm going to come in for Stan. Not tomorrow. I... I told him that.'

Ridley chewed on that for a moment. 'And what did he say?'

'When he picked up his jaw, he said that was my decision. If I didn't come in, then I'd have made it for myself. He said that this late he'd have trouble getting another secretary, and if he lost the client because
his
secretary wasn't available, well...'

They both knew where that was going. Ridley put his hand gently in the small of her back and they were through the doors into the bar. The taped music was New Age. There were a couple of free tables in the front by the floor-to-ceiling windows.

After they had ordered (Ridley had a ginger ale), they linked hands on the small table. 'You were going to the march? With Philip Mohandas?'

'Not
were
.' She was matter-of-fact, not defiant. 'Am.'

'You think it's worth your job?'

'It may sound old-fashioned, Ridley, but I think we've got to take a stand. This has gone on too long and nothing changes.'

'And you think standing up there with Philip Mohandas and a few hundred brothers is going to change something?'

'It won't be a few hundred. I don't know anybody who isn't going.'

'Yes you do.' Ridley detached his hand from hers.

'Don't,' she said.

'
You
don't.'

'This isn't you, Ridley.'

'No? That's funny. Somehow I thought here I was a cop and this march is all about how us cops aren't doing our job, how we're all controlled by a passel of honky trash, isn't that it? That's how I heard it. And you want to be part of that? And then you tell me it isn't about
me
? Give me a break, Jacqueline.'

'Don't be mad.' She had her hand out on the table.

'Don't be mad. Okay.'

'Maybe you're not seeing it... like us. I mean, maybe you've been inside it too long—'

'Gone Oreo, huh?' He glared across at her. 'You any idea what I been doing the last three days when I haven't had any time to see you or anybody else?'

'I—'

'I'll tell you what. I've been hunting down the people, trying to
find
the people who strung up Arthur Wade. No march on City Hall is gonna help me get any closer to those people.'

'You mean
that person
?'

'Kevin Shea?'

'Yes, him.'

Banks lowered his head, pulled himself back. His hand went to the table and took hers. 'Jacqueline, honey, listen to me. There was a
mob
of people killed Arthur Wade, not just—'

Now it was Jacqueline's turn to react. She slammed both of their hands down on the table. The ashtray rattled. People at surrounding tables looked over. 'You don't
feel
it, do you? You don't feel it anymore?'

'I feel it every day, Jacqueline. I'm
in it
every day.'

'But it's not in your guts anymore, is it?'

'What does that mean?'

'It means they sold it and you bought it. It means—'

'I didn't
buy
anything, Jacqueline. I walk around with my eyes open, is all.'

'No, you walk around being one of the
cops
, one of
them
, Ridley. You think you're on some
team
, like some gang where you're all protected by each other ...'

'Jesus, Jacqueline, where do you get this?'

'I get it from watching you. I get it from seeing what's changing and what's not. And you're fooling yourself, Ridley Banks. You think you're one of
them
now, you've made it. You're an
inspector
, high-class, can't be touched. But let me tell you something, and this week should have proved it to you all over again.
We
are second-class. That's what we're marching for. That's what this is all about.'

'Lord, Jacqueline,' he began, then stopped. 'And you think that's worth your job?'

She banged the table again, glared back at everyone who looked over. 'It shouldn't have anything to do with my job! It's a Saturday, for God's sake. It's the Fourth of July weekend. And no warning. What am I supposed to do, drop everything for the rest of my life every time Stansfield Butler the Third wants a goddamn cup of coffee, with skimmed milk yet. You think I weren't black, I'd have to worry over
that
?'

'But you are, girl, and you do.'

'And that's what we're marching against.'

'But it might also be anger that you're just a secretary, not a lawyer. Maybe black's got nothing to do with it—'

'
Just
a secretary! I. . .'

A man who looked like a young athlete in a coat and tie approached the table. 'Excuse me,' he said, 'I'm the manager here and some of the other patrons . . .' A gesture, not his fault. 'I wonder if I could ask you to continue your discussion outside.'

Jacqueline gave it back. 'And I wonder if I could ask
you
—'

But Ridley had her hand covered, lifting her, pulling her by it. 'Jacqueline, come on ...' Arm strongly around her now, leading her to the door.

Outside on the sidewalk she turned on him. 'Get your hands
off
me. Get
away
from me.'

'Jacqueline, please ...'

She struck out at him, turning away.

He grabbed for her again, but she spun, hitting him high on the forehead, the force of it pushing him back a step. 'You stay away from me. I don't want to see you. Get
away
.' She was backing up, facing him, a hand held up. Then, abruptly, she whirled and ran.

He followed her a few steps, gave it up and stopped in front of the huge windows of the bar. A sea of all white faces stared out at him through the glass.

He didn't feel like one of them. Not even a little bit.

The cupboard, as they say, is bare.' Melanie was opening the doors to the cabinet shelves. 'I mean, nothing.' She reached out and pulled a can of mixed fruit cocktail from the back of the shelf, a tiny tin of Vienna sausages. Kevin appeared in the kitchen doorway.

'What's your friend Ann live on?'

'I guess we're looking at it.' She opened the refrigerator. It, too, contained little in the way of food or drink. For breakfast, they'd finished some cheese and stale crackers. Lunch had been two eggs, scrambled, for the two of them, with water.

'I sure feel like a pizza,' Kevin said. 'I wouldn't mind a beer either.'

'Maybe we can order up. Do you have any money?'

Kevin checked his wallet, counting fifty-eight dollars out onto the kitchen table. He placed one of the ubiquitous flowerpots on top of the bills. 'Which reminds me,' he said, 'I haven't called work, told them I wouldn't be in for a while.' (He had worked twenty-five hours a week as a telemarketer selling business software to small companies, manning one of a bank of telephones out of a converted home in the Marina.) 'I wonder if they've noticed? Probably haven't even missed me.' Neither of them smiled when he said it. The banter couldn't cover the tension.

Melanie went back to the living room, flipped pages of the phone book and called a place she knew. When she hung up she said, They're not delivering, not with the riots.'

'Try someone else.'

Seven calls later – three pizza places, two Chinese, a Mongolian Bar-B-Que and a piroshki house – and not one was delivering. Melanie was standing by the phone in the living room, starting on the eighth, when Kevin looked up from his stuffed chair. 'I think I'm going nuts here, is what I think. Are you going nuts, or is it just me?'