The First Law (42 page)

“I did. We both did, although Nick lost more. Sam had a great night.”

“John, why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“You never asked, Diz. Nobody asked. It never came up.”

He heard a sigh over the line. “Okay. So who else would have known about it?”

“Anybody else who was at the game. I heard the cops knew. That’s how they got to me.”

“I hate to bore you with another list, but I doubt I can get my hands on the police version.”

Thirty seconds later, Hardy had the names of the poker players and another question. This, to Holiday, was as easy as the first one. “Sure. Julio Rez and Roy Panos. The three of them are always together. You notice they were at the game, too?”

“So who’s Rez?”

“There’s a woman in the room with me. It’s hard to be frank.”

“But trouble?”

“That would be a fair assessment. I bet it was him.”

“Who?”

“Rez. Who shot at us. Nick driving. Or vice versa. It doesn’t really matter.”

“But with Roy Panos, it gives us three, doesn’t it? And that does matter. That’s the magic number.”

“Well, whatever it is, it sure looks like you’ve kicked up a lot of shit.”

After a short pause, Hardy’s voice came back, the tone harsh. “What’s that supposed to mean, John? I’m doing all I can here for you.”

“I’m not denying it. You have my undying gratitude. But the sad fact of the matter is, all you’re doing is exactly what you should be doing for yourself, anyway.”

“I
should?
There’s no
should
here, John. I’m doing you a favor, plain and simple. You’d be advised to count your blessings.”

“Kiss my ass, Diz. You’re doing this because I wouldn’t be here in this mess if it wasn’t for you.”

“Me? Jesus Christ . . .”

“Jesus Christ yourself. Who do you think started this whole thing? Here’s a hint. It wasn’t Panos, who was minding his own business until some lawyers decided to take him down and make a pile of cash in the process.”

“You know what kind of business it was, John?”

“So? They broke some rules. What are you and Freeman all of the sudden? The guardian angels of the Tenderloin? You’re telling me you guys went after him because of your concern for justice and goodness? My ass.”

“Talk to some of my clients.”

“I have, Diz. Remember. I know a lot of them. Hell, I
found
half of ’em for you. Hookers, thieves, robbers, con artists every one. And yeah, okay, so some of them had dope planted on them, big fucking deal. None of them are strangers to dope, anyway. Better than getting beat to shit, which Panos could have done to them just as easily as planting dope.”

“And just as illegally.”

“Please, please. Sanctimonious crap. You got in it for the money. The fact is Panos was providing a service the cops don’t . . .”

“So you’re defending him now?”

“No. I’m saying you were in it, too. From the beginning. It’s never been a moral issue between you guys, just a conflict of interest.”

“Great. I appreciate your input. So nobody’s right? What was Silverman? Or Freeman?”

“Collateral damage. Both of ’em. The inevitable next step, that’s what. What was Panos going to do, let his nephew go and take this rap? Be sued to death? I don’t think so. Hell, he offered you
four million dollars
to just go away and you said no, remember? What’d you expect him to do, send you a Hallmark card?”

“I think we ought to just go,” Michelle said.

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Away from here.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know. We just live.”

“We wouldn’t be living. We’d be hiding.”

He was on the ottoman in front of her. She was sitting in the chair by the window. She reached over, flipped the blinds open, then closed them again. “Isn’t that what we’re doing now?”

He smiled at that. “It won’t be too much longer. My lawyer’s got some ideas.”

“Oh yeah, it sounded like you were great pals.”

Holiday glossed over that. “Besides, if I run it looks like I’m guilty of something.”

“I hate to mention it, John, but so does not turning yourself in.”

“I was hoping maybe you wouldn’t notice that part.” He took her hands in his. “This is going to work, Michelle. All of it. Our life. I don’t want to start it out on the run. I didn’t do any of this.”

“I believe you,” she said, “but it seems like they have so much.”

“It’s all easily explained. A little turn of the prism. It was three other guys, and now Hardy knows who they are. He’ll get their names in front of the right people. You’ll see. Another two or three days, they’ll cancel the warrant and it’ll be all over.”

Hardy was going to write a book someday and call it
Nothing Is Ever Easy,
his companion volume to
Nothing Easy About It—A Parent’s Guide to Raising Happy and Well-Adjusted Children.
The inspiration for today’s chapter, after his fury at his client had ebbed slightly, came from trying to get interviews with the two names—Fred Waring and Mel Fischer—that Holiday had given him from Silverman’s poker game.

Both were listed in the telephone book. In hindsight Hardy realized that he should have recognized this right off as one of nature’s head-fakes, making it look as though something about these interviews might, in fact, be easy. He could have used some easy.

The morning had already wiped him out. Waking up with the world’s worst hangover hadn’t helped. Then there had been David at the hospital, then the long and fruitless wait for Blanca, running into Kroll and Roy Panos, their news about Aretha. Finally, the argument with Holiday about whether he was to blame for some of this. He really didn’t need that shit from his client, not today, not ever.

Even if, being honest now that his blinding anger had somewhat subsided, he admitted that it might be partly true.

For most of the past two hours, he’d been holed up in his office, lying on the couch, damp paper towels over his eyes. Finally, still hurting, he’d looked up the numbers of his two witnesses, found them, then punched up the one for Fred Waring. Hardy found himself on the Bernard Rulker & Co. broker hotline, press one if you’d like to continue in English, now press one if you’d like to open a new account, two if you’re an existing Rulker client and so on. Eventually, Hardy negotiated the maze and reached the point where he foolishly thought he’d soon be speaking to an actual person, but the “Please hold until one of our brokers can assist you” was in itself merely a prelude (“We appreciate your patience, please continue to hold”) to an actual timed four-minute Musak version of “Satisfaction.”

When a pleasant-sounding woman finally came on, Hardy got off his speakerphone, asked for Fred Waring, and learned that he was on vacation in Hawaii this week. No, they didn’t have a number where he could be reached. Could someone else help him?

Mel Fischer had an answering machine and Hardy left three phone numbers—office, home and cell—and a message: who he was, what this was about. The matter was urgent. He considered adding that it was a matter of life and death, but didn’t wish to appear too dramatic.

Twenty minutes later, he raised his head off the couch again. This was ridiculous. He was doing nothing worthwhile, and much needed to be done. The telephone book once again held the promise of good luck—Fischer’s address was on Taylor, apparently only a few blocks from his office. Filled with self-loathing as he was anyway, Hardy thought that the steep climb over Nob Hill would be just the kind of torture he deserved. He fought his nausea enough to get him up and down the stairs.

At the reception area, really an ovoid island in the center of the rotunda that was Freeman’s lobby, Norma the office manager, her elbows on the counter, was in deep conversation with Phyllis. Both women had been with the firm forever, certainly since before Hardy had arrived as a tenant, and neither could be said to be big fans of his. After all, he didn’t work for David or the firm, and yet he took great swaths of the great man’s time and used the firm’s Xerox, fax and other machines, and even associate’s time, according to his own idiosyncratic whims. Hardy couldn’t say he was overly fond of either of the two women, either. Still, the sight of them—they turned to look at him when he emerged from the stairway—forced him to square his shoulders, put forth a positive image.

Unexpectedly, Norma straightened up and motioned him over. She was a big-boned, solid woman in her mid-fifties who exemplified the competence that Freeman demanded. Fashionable without attempting to be glamorous, completely lacking the gene responsible for humor, she might have been the prototype for all of the legal office managers Hardy had ever encountered.

“Hello, ladies,” he said, his voice a completely sincere and solemn monotone. “How is everybody holding up down here?”

“Not too well,” Norma said. “Really not well at all.” Hardy had picked up the pervading malaise downstairs ever since the day after the mugging, but he couldn’t really imagine what Norma would have to say to him about it. But she continued, “With all of Mr. Freeman’s many talents, it appears he never really considered the possibility of anything like this happening. As long as he came in every day, things just seemed to run smoothly.”

“He’s always had a good manager,” Hardy said.

Norma smiled, grateful for the praise. “Well, thank you, but I was just saying I’m very much out of my depth just now. I can’t even sign paychecks and some of the associates need to be paid soon.” She hesitated, looked to Phyllis. “And frankly, so do we, the staff.”

Phyllis, unbidden, chimed in. “Clients have been calling every day. Where’s David? When’s David coming back? What am I supposed to tell them?”

The panic in the voice of Freeman’s dogmatic, capable and strong gatekeeper came as something of a shock, and brought Hardy up short. “I’d just tell them that their work is in good hands, that we’re hoping David will be back before too long. . . .”

“But they want to know when and I can’t tell them that.”

Norma handed a Kleenex down to her, came back to Hardy. “I just don’t know what to tell everyone. And we thought—Phyllis and I—that even though you’re not really a member of the firm, you’ve got more . . . Well, you’re more mature than any of the associates and . . . we thought maybe you could say something.” Her own composure broke suddenly. “Mr. Hardy, it’s all coming apart. I don’t know what to do.”

Hardy hung his head briefly. His head throbbed. His eyes didn’t want to focus. “I’ll do whatever I can, Norma, but I can’t say anybody will listen to me. I just rent upstairs and everybody knows it. But if you think it might help . . .” He looked around the expanse of the floor, into the open Solarium, the empty Xerox room. A truly ominous silence reigned. “How long do you think you’ll be able to hold it together? Assuming David doesn’t . . .” He found he couldn’t finish.

“David always kept a lot in petty cash. We used to argue about that, but now maybe I could use some of that . . .” She bit at her lip, closed her eyes in thought for a second. “The associates are still billing and we’re getting payments. Maybe I could access some of those assets . . .” Again, she stopped. “Best case, Mr. Hardy, let’s say a month, if he doesn’t recover.”

“But he’s going to, right?”

She nodded, shaky. “Of course. I didn’t mean . . . but it’s just that no one else can do what he does.”

“No. I know.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “You just tell me when, I’ll be there.”

Much to his surprise, she stepped forward and put her arms around him, squeezing and sending fresh spasms of pain across his back. “Thank you,” she said, “thank you.”

After a few more words of encouragement, he crossed the lobby, then descended by way of the semicircular staircase that opened into an ornate street-level foyer. It was the middle of the workday, just after lunch hour. Normally, the place hummed with activity and even enthusiasm—Freeman might be a slave-driver, but he was also a great lawyer with an immense talent for motivating his associates.

Hardy stopped and listened again to the silence above.

In some very real way, the world seemed to be ending.

Hardy carried his cell phone with him. It didn’t ring as he labored up the steep slope of Taylor Street, over Nob Hill, three blocks back down the other side. It still hadn’t rung when he got to Fischer’s address. Reasoning that anyone getting home and finding an urgent message would of course call right away, Hardy didn’t really expect anyone when he rang the bell. But then the voice came through the intercom.

“Who is that?”

“Mr. Fischer. My name is Dismas Hardy. I called about John Holiday?”

It was turning into a cold November. The overcast had thickened again, and the breeze had freshened to a true wind that had chilled him thoroughly and now gusted around him as he waited on the stoop. A full ten seconds passed. He was about to ring the bell again—nothing was easy—when he heard the buzzer and pushed against the door.

It was a two-story building without an elevator, and when Hardy got to the second floor, Fischer was standing in his open doorway as though guarding the sanctum within. He looked like he was pushing seventy. Thick-shouldered, with a tonsure of gray hair, he wore khakis, tennis shoes and a black Oakland Raiders sweatshirt. Though he barely reached Hardy’s shoulders, the old man projected a pugnaciousness and even resentment out of all proportion to the apparent situation. “All right,” he said before Hardy got to the last step. “What’s so urgent about John Holiday, the son of a bitch? May he rot in hell.”

Still a dozen feet away, Hardy paused. He held up his hands for a second, advanced another foot or two. “I have a couple of questions, that’s all.”

“You’re his lawyer?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I got a question for you. How do you live with yourself?”

“John didn’t kill anybody.”

“Hah! How’d Sam’s stuff get in his house, then? Aliens?”

“Maybe something like that,” Hardy said. “I hear you were at that last poker game.”

“Yep. What about it?”

Suddenly, Hardy found himself asking a question he hadn’t even thought about. “Have the police talked to you yet?”