Dan Cuneo lived in Alameda, across the Bay from 'San Francisco. He had a dentist appointment at eleven o'clock on Monday morning. Though it killed him to miss a day when they might be able to close in on a murder suspect, he also had a strong aversion to spending the day drooling with a numb lip next to his partner.
He'd read many, many magazine articles and listened to hundreds of hours of psychobabble nonsense about burnout, and the consensus was that if you wanted to avoid it, you had to keep some perspective on real life. Don't be a cop all the time. If you've got an appointment with a doctor, keep it. If you're really sick, stay home. The job isn't everything. So he had finally talked himself into believing that he wasn't abandoning the Silverman case by taking one day off.
He had accrued eleven extra sick days from the past couple of years-times when the exigencies of the job had won out when he'd been sick. But today he had the damned appointment and as a conscious exercise he had decided, albeit before Silverman had been shot, that no matter what came up-and there would always be something that came up-he was going to keep the appointment. Mental health.
To quell the voice of his conscience before it could change his mind, he called his partner on Saturday morning and gave him the news that he was calling in sick Monday. Russell, who lived in Sunnyvale, forty-five miles south of San Francisco, took this as an opportunity to make plans to go fishing on the Bay. He had three unused sick days in his bank, and like every other city employee he knew except Cuneo, he believed that it was bad luck to let too many of them pile up. So on Monday he went fishing.
This morning, Tuesday, after three days out of the office, both inspectors had enormous amounts of busywork waiting for them when they checked in at a little after 7:45-a couple of dozen phone calls for each to return, transcripts of the tapes of witness interviews to proofread for accuracy-and they stayed at their desks for three and a half hours before breaking for lunch, which took up most of an hour at the McDonald's next to the Hall.
At one, they had to be out at the Academy for a mandatory, previously scheduled four-hour sensitivity training class. Every cop in San Francisco made fun of these attempts to create social workers out of law enforcers. But if you didn't go, your pay got docked.
Today's topic had been transgender issues, timely and relevant because the city had recently decided to extend the insurance of city workers to cover sex-change operations. This change in policy also brought to light some sensitivity shortcomings among city service personnel. Especially the police, who needed guidelines on how to refer to those of questionable gender during the arrest and booking process. The critical element was the person's self-definition-if someone defined herself as a transsexual, officers should refer to her as a female; if she possessed a penis, however, she should be booked as a male.
But even with all the education, the concepts remained mostly elusive to some people. Drumming "Wipeout" on the steering wheel as he drove back downtown after the class, dusk descending, Cuneo turned to his partner. "So if I don't want 'em to cut off my dick, I can't be a girl."
Russell threw him a frown. "You've just failed the course. You realize that?" Then, seeing that Cuneo was apparently sincere, he continued, "It's not a matter of wanting, Dan. You can be all the way to a woman in your brain and still have a dick. You might not want to get rid of it anymore, or it might be too expensive…"
"Not here. It's covered by insurance."
"Okay, not here. But most places."
"If it were me," Cuneo said, "I'd just move here, get a job with the city, lop that sucker right off."
So it went, variations on the theme until they got back to the homicide detail where Cuneo hoped they could put in some time, finally, on Silverman. At least get caught up if there'd been any developments. But by now, the inspectors had each put in ten hours and he knew Russell was going to want to go home to his family. So more or less casually, Cuneo walked over and stood outside the open door to Gerson's office until the lieutenant happened to look up.
"Dan, there you are. You and Lincoln got a minute?"
The room had changed since Glitsky's tenure. It wasn't a large space by any definition, but in the old days the big desk in the center of it had kept any meetings, by necessity, small. There had been one uncomfortable wooden chair across from the desk, affording any visitor maybe three feet of room. Anybody else would have to stand.
Gerson, by contrast, had installed a modular unit that hugged the back wall and turned the corner, where he had his computer, printer, fax machine and telephone. This arrangement left an open area in the middle of the room, made the office seem larger. The lieutenant was a bass fisherman and had brought in and hung on the walls a few of his mounted trophy fish and several framed promotional photos of boats and fishing equipment. On his last birthday, the unit had pitched in and bought him a mounted plastic bass that, when activated, sang "Don't Worry, Be Happy," and he'd hung it over his computer.
Now Cuneo, Russell and Gerson sat facing one another on their identical ergonomic rolling chairs. No one looked happy; all seemed angry, or at least worried. Gerson was telling them about Glitsky's input. "He thinks Wade Panos is screwing with your investigation."
Cuneo, paying attention, was whistling a tuneless melody. Russell, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, asked, "Did he say why?"
"No, not really, nothing substantive. Just that Panos doesn't have a great rep."
Cuneo stopped whistling. "The guy's a major philanthropist. What's he talking about?"
"I think he's talking about some of his guys, the beat patrolmen."
"What about them?" Russell asked.
A shrug. "Some of them, sometimes, get a little enthusiastic, it seems. Play a little rough with the residentially challenged, roust 'em out of their neighborhoods."
"Good for them," Russell said. "Somebody needs to."
"It's probably because they don't get the sensitivity training we real cops get."
"You're joking, Dan," Gerson said, "but you're not all wrong. Evidently it's a legitimate problem, at least enough so Panos is getting sued. He could probably run a tighter ship. But you ask me, the real problem is that Glitsky's old school and Panos isn't a righteous cop, simple as that. He doesn't like the patrols."
"So Glitsky's take is that Wade Panos himself is personally screwing with our investigation?" Cuneo asked. "Why would he do that?"
"No idea," Gerson said. "But Glitsky's all over it. He went to Silverman's, you know. And yesterday morning he talked to Lanier."
"Lanier?" Cuneo straightened up. "What about? What's Lanier got to do with anything? You mean with Silverman?"
"I don't know." Gerson shrugged. "This Panos thing."
"What Panos thing?" Russell shot a look at his partner, came back to Gerson. "Are we missing something here, Barry?"
"I guess Glitsky's wondering why Panos got into it at all."
"Why?" Russell raised his voice. "I'll tell you why! He came down to Silverman's because one of his employees discovered the body, that's why. Then it turned out he happened to know about this poker game, which was the source of Silverman's stolen money. Next day he gives us names of the players in the game and one of them looks like he's with the guys who did it. What's the problem with that? Tell me that isn't good police work."
"I can't. It is. I don't have a problem, not with you. Not with the investigation either."
"I got another one for you, Barry," Cuneo said. "What's any of this to Glitsky anyway? Why would he give any kind of a shit?"
Gerson pressed his lips together, reluctant to diss a fellow lieutenant. Finally, though, he decided his inspectors needed to know. "My gut feeling is I believe he wants to get back into homicide, though God knows why. His dad knew Silverman. I guess he thought it gave him a wedge."
"And this helps him how?" Cuneo asked.
"I don't know, to tell you the truth. The kindest thing I can think is he's really trying to make himself useful somehow. I mean to us, to you. I've been trying to figure it out, but it baffles me." He shook his head. "Or maybe… no."
"What?" Cuneo asked.
"Nothing."
"You were going to say something," Russell said.
Gerson looked at each of them in turn, considered another moment. "Well, I don't really think this is too likely, but if Glitsky starts to make you guys doubt your sources, maybe you get tentative, don't make the arrests you need to. You look bad, which makes me look bad, and pretty soon they want a new lieutenant up here."
"And they pick Glitsky out of a hat?" Cuneo asked. "I don't think so."
"Are you really worried, sir?" Russell asked.
Gerson was matter of fact. "I can't say I'm losing sleep. But if you guys could bring in a quick collar here, it wouldn't break my heart. I…" He went silent again.
The inspectors waited. Finally Cuneo said, "What?"
He sighed with resignation. "When I mentioned this to Batiste, he said there might be something else in play. With Glitsky."
"What's that?" Russell asked.
Gerson paused again, lowered his voice. "I'd really like to keep this in this room, between us. All right?" Both inspectors nodded. "Well, it seems Lieutenant Glitsky has a couple of lawyer friends, we're talking good friends, defense lawyers, and they're the guys who are suing WGP. They can't very well have Panos get a lot of press for helping us solve a murder case right now-it'd make him look too good in front of the jury."
Russell came forward. "And you're saying Glitsky's working for these guys?"
Gerson backpedaled slightly. "I'm not saying anything. I'm telling you what Batiste mentioned to me as a rumor, nothing more. To the extent it intersects with your investigation here, it's probably worth your knowing, although I don't know how much credence I'd give it. There's also talk that your suspect-Holiday, right?-he's been out working the streets, rounding up witnesses against Panos, too."
"Why? What would be in it for them?" Cuneo asked.
"They're asking thirty mil or so, which is ten to the lawyers if they win. Any small percentage of that is a nice payday for whoever was on the team helping them. How's that sound? Plus if we somehow screw up in homicide, maybe Glitsky gets the gig back here."
"We're not going to screw up, Barry," Russell said. "This one's falling in by the numbers. We brace Holiday in the morning, get him and his partners nervous about each other talking. Then somebody gives somebody up and we bring them all in."
"You're sure they're it?"
"The kid, Creed, he basically ID'd them." Russell spread his arms. "Show me anything else, Barry. No, this all fits."
It was full dark by the time Russell and Cuneo checked out. They planned to arrive at the Ark tomorrow at 10:00. Holiday worked the early shift and they'd catch him there and have a long conversation.
Cuneo considered trying to talk Russell into going by and leaning on Clint Terry or Randy Wills more that night, but he knew that Lincoln would want to be home, a priority with him. Besides, Cuneo had his own date with Liz from Panos's office, and it made the second date difficult if you blew off the first one at the last minute. Finally, they'd already worked eleven hours today and there'd been nothing but stink about overtime lately. Cuneo knew that everything probably could wait until tomorrow and it wouldn't really make any difference. Certainly, nothing had happened since Friday. Cuneo was always frustrated by the pace of investigations; this case was proceeding as it should.
The two inspectors had not done any substantive investigative work on the Silverman murder since 8:30 the previous Friday night, when they'd gotten Creed's tentative identification of Terry, Wills and Holiday. It was now 6:30 on Tuesday, ninety-four hours later.
It was a small but welcome surprise. The attorneys had all finished with Aretha LaBonte's deposition by early evening. Hardy would be home by dinnertime. Up in his office, he called Frannie with the news, then checked his messages-nothing crucial-and packed some file folders into his briefcase. Downstairs, he stopped in the doorway to the old man's office. Dick Kroll, who'd stayed for a little chat, had gone, and Freeman was alone at his desk, lighting the stub of a cigar he'd started early in the afternoon.
"Do you have any idea how great it is to be able to walk in here without Phyllis stopping me to ask what I want?" Hardy asked.
Freeman had the cigar in his mouth and spun it over a wooden match. When he had it going, he drew on it contentedly, then placed it in an ashtray. The firm's longtime receptionist, Phyllis, was a tyrant in the lobby, whose chief role was to block access to Freeman. Hardy's suggestions regarding her termination were a recurring theme that Freeman mostly ignored. "I believe Mr. Kroll is getting concerned," he said with satisfaction, "and not a minute too soon." He gestured ambiguously. "He just offered to settle."
"How much?"
"Four million. I must be losing my touch. I had him pegged at three and a half."
"I remember." Hardy stepped inside the office, sat on one of the chairs. "Still, it seems a long way from thirty."
Freeman blew smoke. "Yes, it does. Although, as Mr. Kroll points out, it's a mil and change for us right now. He seems to believe that our compensation-yours and mine, the firm's-is the critical factor. He doesn't even consider that it might be about our clients. Or his, really."
Hardy crossed a leg. "So the four mil, what's that break down to?"
"Call it almost three hundred grand per plaintiff, which after taxes is a hundred and fifty."
"Still," Hardy said. "That's real money."
Freeman waved that off. "Pah! It's gone in a year, maybe two. Besides, it's his first offer. I told him flat no, not even close. But I did learn something."
"What's that?"
"Panos has four mil of his own that he's willing to give us, forget the insurance. Where'd he get that kind of money?" He chewed his cigar for a moment. "Anyway, I told him flat out that my intention was to put his client out of business. The man's a common gangster and he knows it."
Hardy grinned. "You should have just been honest and told him what you really thought. So what'd he say to that?"
"He got a little put out. Said making this a personal vendetta wasn't doing either of us any good. I was being irresponsible to my clients." Freeman clucked. "He also said he was going to approach you directly."
"Me? What for?"
"Evidently he thinks you might be more amenable to reason. I told him to help himself. I hope you don't mind."
"Not at all. I'll just refer him back to you."
Freeman nodded, amused. "I told him that's probably what you'd do."
"And he said?"
"He said if it kept coming back to me, I was looking for trouble."
Hardy came forward. "He threatened you? Directly?"
But Freeman waved that off. "It wasn't even that. Cheap theatrics, that's all. That's what they do. They're cowards, basically. Wouldn't you agree?"
"Basically. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't try something."
"No chance. They're scared so they want to scare me. It's all just posturing, besides which, as you well know, I'm bullet proof."
Hardy grimaced. "I hate when you say that."
The old man grinned. "I know you do; that's half the fun. But you watch, this time next week, they come back with six, maybe eight mil. We get there, I might even start listening. But I might not." He smiled contentedly. "Have I mentioned that I love my job?"
"Couple of times," Hardy said. "And I my family, to whose bosom I now fly. Can I drop you home?"
"Naw." He indicated the clutter on his desk. "I've got some work here. Gina won't be home for an hour or two anyway."
"Is she picking you up here?"
"Are you kidding me? It's what, six blocks? I need the exercise. See you tomorrow. Drive carefully."
At the dinner table, Rebecca was making a face of disgust. "That is just so gross," she said.
"I think it's cool," Vincent retorted.
"It's not gross, Beck. They love each other."
"But he's so… I mean, you know what I mean."
"Old?" Frannie offered. "Ancient?"
"Not just that. I mean, yeah, he's old, but also, I mean, like.. ."
Hardy held up a warning ringer. "Uh-uh, nice or nothing at all. This is David Freeman we're discussing. He is a great man and has every right to happiness and wedded bliss, just like I have with your mother." He gave Frannie a wink.
"And I with your father," she said.
"But, God." The Beck ignored them both, couldn't let the topic go. "I mean, think about Gina. She kisses him?" She shivered at the thought.
"More than that, I bet."
"Thank you, Vincent," Frannie said. "That's enough."
"And since it is," Hardy said. "I've got a fun new game. The Beck can go first." He turned to his daughter. "Here it is. You try to say a whole sentence without using the words 'like' or 'mean.'"
The Beck was a very intelligent child. She hesitated not at all before smiling cruelly at him. "Then I wouldn't be able to say that I like my daddy even though he's really mean."
This tickled Vincent, who held up both hands as though she just scored a touchdown. "Good one, Beck. Six points for the Beck."
Hardy grinned all around. "Six points, true, but unfortunately, grounded for life. It hardly seems worth it to me."
After dinner, the adults adjourned to the living room with the last of their wine while the kids cleared the table and started washing the dishes, a relatively new development in the Hardys' ongoing campaign to increase the quality of their life at home. Frannie sat on the couch with a leg curled under her, Hardy in his wing chair with his feet on the ottoman. Without benefit of the kids' comments, they had returned to the subject of Freeman's upcoming nuptials. "Do you think he's all right?" Frannie asked. "I mean physically."
"David? He's a horse. Why do you ask?"
"Just that it seems so sudden. I wonder if he found out he's dying or something and maybe wanted to have his estate automatically go to Gina."
"He could just as easily put her in his will." He shook his head, smiling. "I think they love each other, strange as it may be."
"Why do you say that?"
Hardy sipped some wine, lowered his voice. "Well, the Beck wasn't all wrong at dinner. David's not exactly Brad Pitt, you know. He's not even Wallace Shawn."
"And this matters because…?"
"It doesn't, I know. We should be above all that superficial stuff. Still…"
Frannie put on her schoolteacher look. "And we wonder why the Beck worries so much about how she looks."
Hardy was grinning broadly. "At her very worst, light-years better than David."
"I'd hope so, but just for your information, I would take a David Freeman any day over, say, a John Holiday."
"That's very noble of you, but I believe you'd be in the minority."
"And fortunately," she said, "I don't have to choose. I've already got a perfectly acceptable husband."
"Perfectly acceptable," Hardy said. "And people say the passion goes." He finished his wine, looked at the glass as though wondering where it had all gone. "But you just reminded me…" He was getting up.
"What?"
"I've been so swamped at work with these depos; I wanted to check in with John. The thing he called about Friday."
"Is he in more trouble?"
"Probably not. I hope I would have heard. I-" The telephone rang and got picked up in the kitchen on the first ring. He turned back to Frannie and made a face. "Well, if that's Darren, there goes an hour."
But his daughter yelled back. "Dad! For you."
Matt Creed tried the front door, then shone a light around the spacious lobby of the Luxury Box Travel Agency. Everything was as it should be, and this was not a surprise.
This was the upscale portion of his route, close up to Union Square. In spite of the city's recent campaigns to discourage vagrancy in the high-tourist area, the vast majority of security problems this far north in Thirty-two still had to do with the homeless or mentally disabled population.
Unlike many of his colleagues, Creed didn't try to roust these unfortunates completely out of the beat. He didn't want them sleeping, parking their shopping carts, urinating or taking care of other personal needs in the doorways or elsewhere on the property of the client buildings, but beyond that, he was happy to leave them alone.
But tonight, late now, in the last hour of his shift, he had turned right onto Stockton and taken maybe ten steps when he saw an exaggerated movement, a shadow in the mouth of the alley across the street. Creed knew the spot pretty well. Since it ended at the delivery bay for a building on the next block over, it was more a driveway than a true alley. After the workday, in the lee of the prevailing winds and equipped with a dumpster that often doubled as a drop for leftover cooked food from some nearby restaurants, it had become a popular sleeping site for the area's homeless. Normally, Creed walked right by it on the last leg of his route.
But when some kind of bottle came skittering up the street toward him, slamming the curb and shattering at his feet, he stopped. He would never have done so normally, but perhaps because of leftover jitters from his recent Shootout, tonight he pulled his weapon and crossed over. At the mouth of the alley, Creed could still hear the footfalls of the man running away. He stopped there, then stepped to the side against the adjacent building to catch his breath. After the excitement at Silverman's last week, he considered just guarding the opening and calling for some backup. Roy Panos was undoubtedly somewhere in the beat and could be here in ten, max.
But then he thought about the grief Roy would give him. A homeless guy throws a bottle in Creed's direction and he can't handle the situation himself. He needs backup. It might even cost him points with Wade, who made no secret of his disdain for cowardice, or timidity of any type for that matter. If you worked for Panos, you were macho or you were soon unemployed.
But Creed's jaw was tight, his teeth clamped down, all of his senses on alert. One part of him knew that it was all because of last week, of getting shot at. He thought of Nick Sephia's boast last night that getting shot at made him horny, and couldn't even find a shred of humor in it. Or truth. Even thinking about it now-
But what was he thinking of? This wasn't anything like a burglary in process. It was a homeless guy-Creed had seen him, or his shadow anyway. A homeless man who'd somehow scored a bottle of wine and got mad when it was empty. He probably hadn't even seen Creed, much less aimed at him. Shaking his head at his own demons, he realized with surprise that he still held his weapon, and he holstered it-whatever this was, he was sure it wouldn't call for a drawn gun-and turned on his flashlight.
Taking a last deep breath, he walked into the alley.
It wasn't much over ten feet wide, seventy or eighty feet deep. The beam on his light was strong, but at this distance still only dimly illuminated the dumpster at the end, on the left side. Normally, at this time of night, there would be a couple of guys sitting on the delivery dock, maybe three or four piles of debris that turned out to be men wrapped in their newspapers and layers of clothes at the small indentations of doorways along the alley. Tonight he saw nothing.
But the alley had no egress except the way he'd come in. The guy who'd thrown the bottle had to be hiding in or behind the dumpster. Creed walked another ten or twelve steps. "Hey!" he yelled, his voice echoing eerily off the walls on three sides. "Come on out here. We've got to talk."
Nothing.
Creed swore to himself, stood a long moment shining his light on the dumpster. "Come on," he said again. "Whatever it is, we'll get it worked out, all right?" He had half a mind to forget about it, to simply turn and walk out of the alley to Stockton and back to the precinct, where he could tell the lieutenant that there was this possible problem he might want to send some guys to look at. That wouldn't even involve either of the Panoses. And what was he going to do with this guy when he came out, anyway? March him down to the precinct? Knock him upside the head? Clean him up and buy him some coffee? Not.
Screw it, he thought. This is dumb.
He turned around and started back toward the street. He'd gone six or eight steps when another bottle exploded a few feet behind him, the broken glass spraying the ground around him with little diamonds. Creed nearly jumped out of his shoes.
But now, truly pissed off, he turned around. "Okay, asshole, you want to have some fun?" The beam from his flashlight preceding him, he raked the dumpster side to side and front to back. "Come on out! Don't be stupid." Ten feet back, he stopped again, gave the flashlight another pass.
Finally, movement at the back of the dumpster. He brought the beam over, took a step in that direction, then heard a noise-a second movement, to his left, at the front of the dumpster, maybe six feet from him.
He was turning in that direction…
And then he was dead.
John Lescroart
Hardy 08 – First Law, The
Part Two
^
Sometime earlier today-time was routinely meaningless now-Gina Roake had been with them in Dismas Hardy's office, in David's building. These men, these unlikely avengers. She knew where they would be going when the meeting broke up, and why.
Now she was back where David had asked her to marry him. The most stunning, shocking and unexpected moment of all her life. She sat straight, unmoving, at the little rickety table, now reduced to its usual state, without the linen or china or crystal. Could that lovely service have been here? When was it now, that eternity ago?
She looked at her hands. The ring caught her short again and she held her left hand within her right and stared at it while more immeasurable time went by.
The kitchen was in a round turret that jutted from the corner of the apartment. The glass in the curved, original windows was probably sixty-five years old. Looking through them was a wavy vision through perfect water, and now she stared downhill at the impossible world going by as though nothing had changed. Cars passed at the intersection a block down; a couple embraced and kissed against a building; a woman pushed a baby stroller up toward her.
She hadn't dressed for work in several days, so she wore blue jeans and tennis shoes, a UOP sweatshirt, a blue band to hold her hair back. No makeup of any kind. She was rubbing her hands and looked at them again, surprised that now suddenly they struck her as the hands of an old woman. She'd been biting her nails, and the week-old red polish was chipped and pathetic. She made a fist of her right hand, let it go, made it again, and held it until it hurt. Old or not, she recognized that there was still strength in these hands.
Perhaps the biggest shock was what it had taken her this long to process-that her old friends in Hardy's office had truly scared her. She'd been playing with the big boys in her real life for a long time now, consoling or lecturing her clients, being a goddamned equal to her male friends and lovers, kicking ass in the courtroom, taking no shit and giving no quarter. That's why she was successful. That's why David loved her.
She thought it was who she was, but now even that wasn't clear. Nothing was clear. She didn't know who she was, who she wanted to be, what she wanted to do. But beyond everything else was raw rage. She'd never known anger like this before, nor even understood that such a thing could exist. The desire to hurt someone was almost a physical pain in her stomach. That scared her more than anything.
Her mind returned to the men in Hardy's office. She'd known them forever, it seemed. They'd been colleagues in her life with the law. She'd clerked for Dismas at the DA's when she'd been in law school and he'd just been starting out. Glitsky always a presence, even long before the homicide years, with his passion for justice, for fairness, a stickler for procedure.
But then this morning, these people of the law suddenly making common cause with a man like John Holiday? But Holiday, Dismas and Abe were in this all the way together now, there could be no doubt of that.
And good lawyer that she was, where did that leave her? With them? If she didn't believe in the rule of law under all circumstances, then what kind of fraud had she been for all these years? If it seemed to these men that the law wasn't working as it should to protect them, did that give them the right to take it into their own hands? When the police didn't exactly move mountains to identify shooters in the various ghettos and barrios, did that condone or mitigate even slightly the violent retribution of a victim's relatives or friends?
She didn't think it did. No, she knew it didn't. She knew Glitsky and Hardy and they felt the same way. Or always had, until today.
Today everything was different.
And Gina now found herself with them. These men had become her true allies in this. The import of the collective decision as Abe had left Diz's office had been clear. He was going down to make the arrests himself if he couldn't move his own police department to do it for him. That was the pretext.
The subtext was that Panos and his gang would not go gently into the night. They'd proven themselves not only capable of violence, but committed to it as the way they dealt with obstruction. And the clock was running.
So Glitsky, left without an option, had come to his decision. He gave lip service to the arrest, but she knew without doubt that he'd get down to Pier 70 early, maybe a couple of hours early to avoid an ambush-in any event long before the four o'clock appointment he'd made with Gerson. And when they showed up, he'd be prepared to fight, quite possibly to kill. He had never asked Hardy or Holiday, and certainly not Gina, to back him up in any way. In actual fact, he'd been adamant on the point, expressly reminding them that he was a police officer acting in the line of duty. Diz, Holiday, anyone else who showed up to help him would, in the eyes of the law, be vigilantes. They must not be part of it.
To be part of it at all, if they lived, would ruin them.
But of course, he told them exactly where he was going, and when; what he planned to do, what he believed was going to happen.
A gust shook the ancient windows, then howled away down the street like the passage of the Angel of Death, the howl modulating down to a moan and finally fading to a dirge, then silence.
Gina had kept a Beretta. 40 caliber automatic locked in her desk drawer ever since one of her early cop boyfriends had convinced her that one day she'd need it. She had often thought to get rid of it-lawyers needed to believe that they didn't have to carry guns-but could never quite make the decision. And because it really would have been the height of absurdity to keep a gun she couldn't load or shoot properly, she went to the range every few months and fired off a couple of hundred rounds of ammunition to keep herself sharp. Over the years, she'd not only become comfortable with her gun and, in the process, turned into a capable marksman, she'd come to enjoy the experience-the smell of powder, the deafening noise, the awesome kick and power so far removed from the cops-and-robbers fantasy she'd entertained when she'd started.
She knew now. To shoot a high-caliber handgun was to taste death, in some ways to embrace the idea of it. The thing ruined flesh, obliterated bone. It snuffed out life instantly. As fast, she thought, no-faster than God could take it. The feeling was intoxicating.
Still at David's kitchen table, she looked at her hands a last time. Her ring, again, caught her eye, and suddenly the reality of all she'd borne coursed through her body like a current.
She nearly ran to the front door and outside to the street. She had to get to her desk, then to her car. Enough reflection. She was who she was-equal in her heart and soul and body to any man, and to her allies in particular. She'd suffered along with them, and now belonged with them. They were all in this and they would need her.
She checked her watch and broke into a jog.