The First Law dh-8

by John Lescroart

  So Glitsky had waited some more.

  Now they were in July and evidently something had finally materialized, but obviously with a wrinkle. "So what's to hope about getting back on Monday?" Hardy asked. "How could it not happen? You walk in, say hi to your troops, go back to your desk and break out the peanuts."

  The lieutenant's desk in homicide was famous for its unending stash of goobers in the shell.

  Glitsky made a face.

  "Apparently," Treya said, "it's not that simple."

  Hardy finished a macaroon, sipped some coffee. "What?" he asked. "Somebody from the office saw you in the apron? I bet that's it. We can sue them for discrimination. You should be allowed to wear an apron if you want."

  "Dismas, shut up," Frannie said. "What, Abe?"

  "Well, the PD will of course welcome me back, but maybe at a different job."

  "What job?" Hardy asked. "Maybe they're promoting you."

  "I didn't get that impression. They're talking payroll."

  "Head of payroll's a sergeant," Hardy said. "Isn't he?"

  "Used to be anyway." Glitsky hesitated. "Seems there's been some concern that I was excessively close to my work in homicide."

  "Evidently this is a bad thing," Treya added.

  "As opposed to what?" Frannie asked. "Bored with it?"

  "You haven't even gone to work for a year," Hardy said. "How does that put you excessively close to it?"

  Glitsky nodded. "I raised some of the same points myself."

  "And?" Hardy asked.

  "And in the past few years, as we all know, my daughter was killed, I had a heart attack, and I got shot in the line of duty."

  "One of which actually happened because of the job." Treya was frowning deeply. "He also got married and had a baby, as if there's some connection there, too."

  Glitsky shrugged. "It's just an excuse. It's really because my extended disability made them put a new guy in homicide for the duration…"

  "Gerson, right?" Hardy said.

  "That's him. They probably told him it was his permanent gig when they moved him up. And now that I've had the bad grace to get better, they're embarrassed."

  "So transfer him," Hardy said. "What does the union say?"

  "They say Gerson's been doing okay so far, and it wouldn't be fair to transfer him before he's even really gotten his feet wet. It might look bad for him later. Whereas I've already proved myself."

  "And so as a reward, they're moving you out?" Frannie asked. "And down?"

  "Not down," Treya said. "He's going to be lieutenant of payroll."

  "I don't even know where payroll is," Glitsky said, "much less what they do."

  "That's perfect," Hardy said. "You wouldn't want too many people working at jobs they know about."

  "God forbid," Glitsky said. "And the great thing, as they so graciously explained to me, is that this is not a punishment. It's an opportunity to improve my resume. I spend maybe a year in payroll; then they promote me to captain at one of the stations. Couple of years there, next thing you know I'm a deputy chief."

  "His lifelong dream," Treya added with heavy sarcasm.

  Hardy knew what Treya meant. Glitsky had worked fourteen years in the department before he got to inspector sergeant at homicide, and then another eight before they promoted him to lieutenant of the detail. Abe didn't crave varied administrative experience. He wanted to catch murderers.

  "Have you talked to Batiste?" Hardy asked. This was Frank Batiste, recently promoted to deputy chief. For many years, as Captain of Inspectors, he had been Glitsky's mentor within the department. "Maybe he could throw some juice."

  But Glitsky shook his head. "Who do you think I talked to?"

  Hardy frowned. "I thought he was your guy."

  "Well…" Glitsky made a face.

  Treya knew that her husband wasn't comfortable complaining about a colleague, so she helped him with it. "It seems like Frank's going through some changes himself."

  "Like what?" Frannie asked.

  "It's not Frank," Glitsky said. He wasn't going to let people bad-mouth another cop, even if there might be something behind it. "He's stuck, too. His wife hasn't sold a house in a year. They got kids in college. Times are not sweet."

  "So he makes them bad for you, too? What's that about?"

  Again, Glitsky wouldn't rise. "I can't really blame him, Diz. He can't afford to lose his own job to make me happy."

  "That wouldn't happen," Treya argued. "He's too connected."

  "People might have said the same thing about me last year," Glitsky said. "It's a different world down there lately." He shrugged. "Frank got the word from above; then he got to be the messenger. If he didn't want to deliver it, they'd find somebody else, and then he's not a team player anymore. He had no choice."

  But Treya shook her head. "He didn't have to tell you good cops don't go where they choose, they go where they're ordered. That doesn't sound like a friend."

  "I could hear me telling one of my troops the same thing." Clearly uncomfortable with the discussion, Glitsky looked around the table. "As for being friends, Frank's my superior officer. He's doing his job."

  "So you're really going to payroll?" Frannie asked. "I can't really see you crunching numbers all day long."

  The edge of Glitsky's mouth turned up. "I'm sure there'll be lots of hidden satisfactions. In any event, I'll find out on Monday."

  "You got a backup plan?" Hardy asked.

  Glitsky looked at Treya, tried a smile that didn't quite work. "We've got a new baby," he said. "What else am I going to do?"

  2

  It was a Thursday evening in early November. Daylight Saving Time had ended on the previous weekend, and consequently it was full night by six o'clock. It was darker even than it might have been because the streetlights on O'Farrell Street between Stockton and Powell had not come on-perhaps they hadn't been set back for the time change.

  A fifteen-knot wind was biting and blowing up from off the Bay, pushing before it the occasional large drop of what was to be the first real rainstorm of the season. Although Sam Silverman's pawnshop was located only one block south of the always-congested Union Square neighborhood, tonight-with the awful weather and deep blackness-the street out front was all but deserted.

  Silverman had already locked the front door and pulled both sides of the antitheft bars on their tracks. Now all he had to do when he was ready to leave was to unlock the door again for a moment, step outside, and pull the bars so that he could padlock them together. He stood at the door inside an extra second and frowned-that hour of lost daylight always depressed him for the first week or so.

  Sighing, he turned and walked back through the center aisle of his shop, reaching out and touching the treasures of other people's lives against which he'd loaned them money-guitars and saxophones and drum kits, silverware, cutlery, fine porcelain china sets, doll collections, televisions, radios, microwave ovens. Much of it bought new in a spirit of hope for the future, now most of it abandoned forever, secondhand junk without a trace of dream left in it.

  At the back counter, he stopped again, struck by the display. Jewelry was by far his biggest stock item, and the watches and rings, the necklaces and earrings, though lovely, tonight seemed to hold even more pathos than the other goods. These were mostly gifts-at one time they'd been the carefully chosen expressions of love, of vows taken and lives shared. Now they were locked under the glass in a pawnshop, to be sold for a fraction of their cost, with all the human value in them lost to time and need.

  He shook his head to rid himself of these somber thoughts. The start of winter always did this to him, and he'd be damned if he'd give in to it. Maybe he was getting that sickness where you got sad all the time when the weather sucked. But no. He'd lived in San Francisco his whole life, and God knew there had been enough opportunity that he would have caught it before now.

  It was just the early darkness.

  He glanced back at the front door and saw himself reflected in the gl
ass-a small, somewhat stooped, decently dressed old Jewish man. It was black out there. Time passed during which he didn't move a muscle. When he heard the wind gust, then fade, and drops of rain just beginning to sound slowly onto the skylight overhead, he started, coming suddenly back to where he was. He looked up at the source of the noise-the skylight, covered with bars, was just a dark hole in the ceiling.

  The thought crossed his mind that he wished he'd kept up his contract with Wade Panos. It would be nice on a miserable night like tonight to have one of his big and armed assistant patrol specials walk with him the two blocks around the corner to the night deposit box at Bank of America. But he and Sadie had gone over it and decided they couldn't justify the prices anymore, especially since Wade was raising them again.

  While it was somewhat comforting to have the private patrol watching out for you-especially on your walks to the bank-it wasn't as though this part of the city was a magnet for violent crime anymore. Nothing like it used to be. The shop hadn't even had a window broken in over twenty years. No, the Patrol Special was a luxury he really didn't need and couldn't afford anymore. And it wasn't as though the city police didn't patrol here, too. Maybe just not as often.

  Still, though, he considered calling the station and requesting an officer to walk over to the bank with him. But even if they could spare anyone, he'd have to wait here another hour or so. Maybe he just shouldn't do the errand tonight. But Thursday, after the poker game, was always his deposit night. And last night he'd made one of his biggest hauls.

  He flicked on the small night-light in the jewelry cabinet. Enough with maudlin. He'd better get finished here or he'd get soaked on the way to the bank. He considered that maybe this should be the year he and Sadie pack up and buy a condo like the ones they'd looked at last summer in Palm Springs. Maybe even Scottsdale.

  Although when they'd gone there in the summer a few years back, it had been way too hot. And leaving his friends here, and his synagogue-did they really want to do that? What did he think he was going to do in Palm Springs without the company of Nat Glitsky, a brother to him all these years? And Nat, with a new baby grandchild, wasn't going anywhere. Sam loved Sadie, but she was a reader-a very solitary and passionate reader-not a games person. Nat, on the other hand, loved all kinds of games-backgammon, dominoes, Scrabble, anything to do with cards. They had tournaments, for God's sake, with trophies. No, Sam didn't really want to move. He just wanted the days to be longer again.

  "Fart-knocker," he said aloud to himself, shaking his head. In the back room, he went to a knee, worked the combination, swung open the door to the safe. Lifting out the old maroon leather pouch, he was struck again by the thickness of it. He unzipped the top and ran his thumb over the top edges of the bills, nearly twenty-two thousand dollars in all, more than two months' worth of the shop's earnings, even if he included what he made on his poker fees. It would be the largest deposit he'd made in years.

  He zipped it back up and placed it in the inside pocket of his jacket. A last check of the shop, then he grabbed his fedora off the hat rack, pushing it down hard over his crown against the wind he'd encounter when he got outside. He turned out the lights and retraced his steps down the center aisle. Stopping a last time, he looked both ways up the street and saw nothing suspicious.

  He reached for the door and pulled it open.

  *****

  The plan was a simple one. Speed and efficiency. They wore heavy coats, latex gloves, and ski masks to thwart identification. None of them was to say one word before they knocked Silverman out.

  The old man was holding his hat down securely on his head with one hand, pulling the door to behind him when the three men came out of hiding in the doorways on either side of his shop windows and, pulling their masks down over their faces, fell upon him. The biggest guy got the door while the other two grabbed him by the arms, covered his mouth, and manhandled him inside and back up the aisle.

  In the back room, they turned the light on. But the old man had gotten his mouth free and was starting to make noise now, yelling at them, maybe getting up the nerve to give them some kind of fight, as though he had any kind of chance. But delay would mean a hassle.

  And since hassle wasn't part of the plan, the big man pulled a revolver from his pocket. The old geezer was actually making a decent show of resistance, struggling, manipulating his shoulders from side to side, grunting and swearing with the exertion. Because of all the lateral movement, the first swing with the gun glanced off the side of the man's head, but it was enough to stop him, stunned by the blow. The instant was long enough.

  The next swing connected with Silverman's skull and dropped him cold. He slumped into dead weight and they lowered him to the ground, where he lay unmoving.

  The big man knew just what he was looking for and where it would be. In two seconds, he'd unplugged the surveillance video mounted over the office door. Five seconds later, he had the maroon leather pouch in his hands and was back on his feet. He pulled his ski mask off and threw it to the floor. His accomplices removed theirs and put them in their coat pockets. "Okay," the big man said. "Vamonos."

  Leading the way, he doused the shop lights again. He was at the front door, halfway out. Somebody called out, "Guys, wait up."

  The gunman stopped and turned. Waiting up wasn't in the plan. The idea was to get the money and then get out, closing the dark shop behind them. When Silverman came to, if he ever did, they'd be long gone.

  "The fuck are you doing?"

  Their third partner remained in the back of the shop, over the jewelry case, still glowing under its soft night-light. "He's got great stuff here. We can't just leave it."

  "Yeah we can. Let's go."

  The big man had the door open and was checking the street. He turned back and whispered urgently. "We don't need it. We gotta move move move."

  The man in the back moved all right, but in the wrong direction. Now he was behind the counter, pulling at the glass, trying to lift it up. "He's gotta have a key somewhere. Maybe it's on him."

  At the door. "Fuck it! Come on, come on."

  His partner pulled again at the countertop.

  A noise in the street. "Shit. People."

  The two men up front ducked to the side below the windows as two couples walked past the shop. Directly in front of the door, they stopped. Their voices filled the shop. Would they never move on? Sweat broke on the big man's forehead and he wiped it with the back of his hand.

  He pulled the revolver from his pocket.

  Other people joined up with the first group and they all started walking again, laughing.

  The big man looked out. The street seemed clear. But at the back counter, his partner was holding something up now-a key?-and fitting it to a lock.

  "Jesus Christ! There's no time for-"

  When suddenly he was proven right. Whatever it might have been, there wasn't going to be time for it.

  Silverman must have come to and had a button he could push in the back room. The whole world lit up with light and the awful, continuous screaming ring of the shop's alarm.

  Wide-eyed in the sudden daylike brightness, the big man threw the door all the way open, yelling, "Go, go, go!" This time-the jewelry forgotten in the mad rush out-both his partners went. He was turning himself, breaking for the street, when he caught a movement off to his left. One hand to his head, blood running down his face, Silverman was on his feet, holding the side of the doorway for support.

  The big man saw the shock of unmistakable recognition in the pawnbroker's face. "I, I can't believe…" Silverman stammered, then ran out of words.

  Shaking his head in frustration and disgust-their good plan was all in tatters now-he stood up slowly and took three steps toward the old man, as though he planned to have a conversation with him. He did speak, but only to say, "Ah, shit, Sam."

  Then he raised the gun and shot him twice in the chest.

  The streetlights on O'Farrell came on as assistant patrol special Matt Creed, workin
g Thirty-two, came around the corner a long block down on Market. Though Creed had been on the beat less than a year, when he heard the squeal of the burglar alarm and saw the two men breaking out of a storefront ahead of him on a dead run, he knew what he was seeing.

  "Hey! Hold on!" he yelled into a gust, over the alarm and the wind. To his surprise, the men actually stopped long enough to look back at him. Creed yelled again and, moving forward now, reached down to clear his jacket and unholster his weapon. But he hadn't gone five steps when-

  Crack!

  Unmistakably, a gunshot. Brickwork shattered by his head, rained down over him. Creed ducked against the front of the nearest building. Another man broke from the door of Silverman's shop. Less than a half block separated them now, and Creed stood, stepped away from the building into the lamplight, and called again. "Hold it! Stay where you are!"

  The figure stopped, whirled toward him and without any hesitation extended his arm. Creed caught a quick glint of shining steel and heard the massive report and another simultaneous ricochet. It was the first time he'd been fired at and for that moment, during which his assailant broke into a run, he half ducked again and froze.

  By the time he'd recovered, raised his own weapon, and tried to level it with both shaking hands, the third man had disappeared with the other two, and there was no real opportunity to shoot. Creed broke into a full run and reached the corner in time to get a last glimpse of what seemed to be a lone fleeing shadow turning right at the next corner. Vaguely aware of pedestrians hugging the buildings on both sides of the street, he sprinted the length of the block along the cable car tracks, past the trees that incongruously sprang from the pavement near the end of the Powell Street line.