Glitsky 01 - Certain Justice, A

by John Lescroart

"That may be so. But I can arrest you for murder without a warrant. When I book you into county jail, the press will be there, and they'll ask me why and I'll tell them. And then Alan Reston will either have to prosecute or explain why he doesn't, which he can't do. And even if he doesn't, okay, then you get away with murder, but I've done my job.' Glitsky took a step toward her, his hand outstretched. 'Now either use that gun or give it to me.'

  It took her a long moment, but finally she turned it barrel in and handed it to him. As he put it into his pocket, she asked him, 'What do you really want, Abe?'

  'The same as I've always wanted, Loretta. I want to arrest my suspect. I want some protection for Kevin Shea.'

  'And what do I get?'

  Her singularity of purpose continued to impress him. It never ended. 'There's always a deal, Loretta, isn't there?'

  She waited.

  'You think I'm about to let you walk on a premeditated murder?'

  'I don't know what you're going to do, Abe.' She stood in front of him. 'I'm telling you what I need, that's all. It's your decision.'

  'Either way,' Glitsky said, 'you're dead politically.'

  'Maybe.' Her eyes rested on him. 'You're such a fool,' she said, 'but we could have had it all.'

  The doorbell rang, followed by a knock at the door. Another. 'Senator?' The limo driver.

  'Do we have a deal, Abe?'

  Another knock. 'Senator, we're running a little late here.'

  'I need your word, Abe.'

  Glitsky, in spite of his official administrative leave, was still the nominal head of homicide, and a cop inside out. He had known she would probably try something like this devil's trade, but there was still the moment before it was irrevocably done. The temptation to let it go – he didn't have to take it out all the way . . .

  He suddenly felt clammy, sick with the portent of it.

  'We'll talk about the possibility of a deal later, but no guarantees. I want you clear on that. You either go with me to Kevin Shea right now or I take you downtown. And if I do that, it's beyond the control of either of us. You're charged with murder and it can't be undone. Or' – he pointed a finger – 'or I take you out to Kezar Pavilion, where you might do a little good. It's your decision, Loretta. You decide.'

  Her bluff called, she hesitated, took in a breath, then crossed the foyer to the door. 'I'll tell him I'm driving over with you.'

  Glitsky went to make his phone call to Wes Farrell.

  72

  In response to the four outbreaks of interracial scuffling and five serious injuries in the last half hour, the National Guard had moved into positions of closer conformity with the proposed march route, and the trucks with their troops had closed off all traffic and were lining the streets on either side of Golden Gate Park. New arrivals wanting to join the march were going to have to leave their cars blocks away and breach this wall and its security measures as they walked in, and hundreds were doing just that. In the park's panhandle the tent city took up the center and the tide of people would in theory flow around the roped-off living areas.

  Special Agent Margot Simms – who had elected not to act in concert either with the San Francisco police or the National Guard – had her driver pull to the side of the road only four blocks from Kevin Shea's apartment. She looked down the hill at the flood of people moving toward Kezar, the troops, the stalled traffic.

  How to get through that? Well she was with the FBI, that was how. She wasn't going to put her own men at risk, and she was going to do her job, which was apprehend Kevin Shea, by force if necessary. She gave the order to circumvent the sawhorses that closed off the streets and head down, past the Pavilion, to her destination. She did not give a good goddamn what, or who, might be in the way. She knew that Wes Farrell, the lawyer, was going to be facing the same problem she was, and he would have no identification to flash to get him by this hurdle.

  They were still ahead.

  The car crept through the pedestrians, several of them whacking the roof, the hood. Two blocks in three-and-a-half minutes – then they were stopped by a couple of teenaged National Guardsmen, rifles out and jittery.

  Simms got out of the front seat, held up her badge, identifying herself. The two boys – one with a black nametag reading 'Morgan,' the other a thin, hawk-faced boy whose tag read 'Escher,' looked at one another, and Morgan said, 'Yes, ma'am?'

  'My colleagues and I need to breach your line here.'

  Again, the silent consultation. Morgan said, 'I'll have to get permission, ma'am.'

  Simms stiffened. 'I'm giving you permission, son. This is the Federal Bureau of Investigation and we are in a hurry.'

  'Yes, ma'am.' But neither man moved.

  'Well?'

  'Well, our orders are to keep vehicular traffic out of the parade route...'

  'I'll go check.' Escher ran off. Morgan made a gesture. 'It won't be long,' he said. 'Five minutes.'

  Farrell, more familiar with the city than Simms, figured the rally would be a mob scene, so he went the back way over Portola and Twin Peaks, thinking he would wind up on Ashbury and then park. He could walk the rest of the way, which he supposed he'd have to do in any event.

  The beeper went off as he was passing by a gas station on 17th. He pulled in, ran to the pay phone and punched numbers.

  'You've got the senator with you? Herself?' Farrell couldn't believe it.

  Glitsky was curt. 'Give me the address. I don't have any time.'

  Farrell did, and Glitsky said, 'That's right in the middle... that's where the march is starting.'

  'You got it, and I hear on the radio they've closed off the park. Where are you coming from?'

  'Pacific Heights.'

  'You're going to have to come around the back way, maybe up Judah.'

  Glitsky thanked him. 'Take me ten minutes,' he said.

  'Don't bet on it, and by the way, your idea of getting out of it if I'm there before the feds...'

  'Yeah?'

  'I don't think so. Not today.'

  Simms was talking to another man with another nametag – Florio. The stripes on Florio's sleeve indicated he had some rank. She explained her position – the Guard would have to let her through the park, they had an arrest to make. Federal warrant. Most Wanted List. Florio raised his eyebrows. 'Kevin Shea?' he asked. At the mention of Shea's name, both Morgan and Escher snapped up.

  She looked right, left, then back to Florio. 'No comment on that,' she said. 'Can we get through here?'

  She was back in the car and it started moving again through the pedestrians, Morgan walking on one side, Escher on the other, escorting them.

  'He should be here,' Kevin said.

  'He got caught in the traffic.'

  He couldn't stop looking out the window, pulling up the shade, glancing down. Melanie came over to him, moved the shade back. 'Sit down. Come on, Kevin. Looking out isn't helping anything.'

  'Sitting here isn't helping anything.'

  'Sitting here is waiting for Wes. He'll be here.'

  Kevin started snapping his fingers, his nerves eating him. 'We should have—'

  'Hey.' She touched a finger to his lips. 'We're doing it.' She leaned over and kissed him. 'I love you. Just wait, Wes will be here. It'll be all right.'

  He was reaching for the shade again, going to look down on the Park. The downstairs doorbell sounded. 'There he is,' Melanie said, crossing to the buzzer that unlocked the lobby door. She was about to push it when Kevin jumped up from his chair. 'Wait!' and went to one of the side windows. Opening the shade a crack, he looked out and down. 'Okay,' he said. 'It's him. I think ... I've never seen him in a suit.'

  'Kevin, who else would it be? Nobody knows we're here.'

  He gave her a look. 'Famous last words,' he said.

  As directed by their supervisor, Morgan and Escher remained at their new positions as escorts of the FBI vehicle, which had pulled to the western curb at Page and Stanyan, across the street from the apartment.

  Simms sent one man with
a field telephone and a suitcase into the park to find a reasonably elevated spot from which he would have a clear shot at the fourth-floor front window of the apartment building across the street from them – a tree or a telephone pole – should it be necessary, should the order be given. (Their backup unit was on the way but, with the traffic problems, she didn't want to have to wait for them. They might not encounter a Florio who would cooperate.)

  Simms took her two other men and they made their way through the pulsing crowd onto the street, eventually into the open courtyard that faced the park, and to the front door of the apartment. She rang the entire bank of doorbells for the first floor, and someone buzzed open the outer door.

  'Cake,' she said, holding the door for her men.

  Out in the street Morgan and Escher were guarding the car, the only one parked on Stanyan. People kept washing by, around it. Someone's amplified voice came ringing over the distance – the rally was getting underway.

  'Whose car, man? I been walkin' ten blocks, my dogs be achin'. Thought no cars allowed in here. They was, I woulda brung mine.'

  Morgan wasn't supposed to talk to the crowd except to answer informational questions and give directions, but this big guy had one of those immediately friendly faces, a big smile, a wife and kids in tow, here to support the cause. But he wasn't trouble.

  Everybody wasn't on the warpath.

  'FBI,' Morgan said, then added. 'They got Kevin Shea tree'd in that building. Bringing him in.'

  'Hallelujah,' said the man, his smile brightening. 'Don't got to walk so far now, all the way City Hall. Ought to just park my dogs here.' Then, turning to the crowd behind him, spreading the good word. 'Hey, you all hear this? They got Kevin Shea.' Pointing. 'Yeah, right over yonder.'

  Upstairs, the deadbolt thrown again, Kevin, Melanie and Wes had decided that, even with the crowd outside, their odds were far better facing it than an armed, trigger-happy and belligerent FBI.

  No one except possibly the FBI knew they were anywhere within miles of here. They'd be an all-but-anonymous few white faces in the crowd, and Wes assured them that there were a lot of others, more than he would have thought. Everybody with a placard, a message, or a cause had come to the party.

  Kevin could wear his ski cap. They could get away from the heat here and then wait for Glitsky's call on the beeper when they got to a safer spot.

  In the apartment's lobby Simms spoke by walkie-talkie to her sharpshooter and decided she would give him the extra few minutes he needed to get into position before she took her two other men upstairs with her to make the arrest. With the crowd, he had found it difficult to blend in, find a spot, get set up. She told him she would give him ten minutes max – call her if it was going to be sooner.

  In the interim the three of them would split apart to check the layout of the building, identify any potential hidden exits, back doors, fire escapes. Make it air-tight.

  They would meet back here in the lobby, then go up and take him.

  '... and we have just received an unconfirmed report that Kevin Shea has been located at a building not five blocks from where we are standing right now at the Kezar Pavilion. Philip Mohandas has left the podium, almost at a dead run, and is leading the marchers – it's a tremendous and very angry crowd and I'm sure you can hear them chanting Shea's name over my voice – he's leading the way out toward the edge of the park.

  'We'll be trying to follow Mohandas as he ...'

  Glitsky had pulled his siren and flasher and put it on the roof. Loretta was sitting next to him, silent and withdrawn as they careened through the narrow streets, now south of the park, almost there.

  Glitsky felt he'd been awake for days. He had the AM radio on, had heard the latest reports. Somehow – how did these things happen? – somehow it had gotten out.

  Now Philip Mohandas and a crowd estimated at between five hundred and several thousand had converged on the Stanyan Street apartment building. The FBI was, reportedly, inside the building, but so far – according to the news reports – had not moved to make an arrest. In actual fact, no one seemed to know for certain what was transpiring inside, or whether Shea was there at all, or if anyone was with him.

  Except Glitsky. Glitsky knew.

  He had to keep turning away to get closer – Lincoln Boulevard was closed so he came east a few blocks on Irving, then had to jag up Judah, which turned into Parnassus. Finally, he stopped a few blocks short of Stanyan – even with his siren there was no moving through the masses. He turned to Loretta, jerked open his door. 'Let's go.'

  Loretta was recognized immediately, hailed and surrounded by the mostly adoring throng. They loved her, arriving at the moment when it was all coming down. Of course she was here – she'd led the charge all along ...

  The charisma had switched back on – her face was alive, her eyes bright. Glitsky had his badge out and did not let go of her arm as they were swept along into the heart of the crowd. 'It's Senator Wager! Out of the way! Give the woman some space! Let her by, let her by ...'

  As the focus of the greatest intensity became recognized, as the flow began to move in the direction of the apartment, Florio got an urgent call from Morgan on his field telephone that ordered him, Escher and three hundred other National Guard troops to mobilize in front of the building, to try and keep the courtyard clear if they could.

  They had moved out double-time, beating Mohandas and the bulk of the crowd by no more than five minutes, getting deployed, breaking out their heavier gear.

  Now the soldiers – helmets on, batons and riot shields up – had the place tightly surrounded, keeping the crowd back, but it was an insecure toehold. The multitude was everywhere, the air thick with shouts, screams. The blaze that had started on Divisadero had grown. Smoke from it was drifting low, blinding and acrid.

  Sirens moaned in the distance.

  The chant rose and fell, moving through the masses, never stopping, never losing its tenor of rage and urgency. 'We want Shea! We want Shea!'

  They had been ready to get out when they started hearing the chant. Wes Farrell moved to the front window, cracked the shade, looked out, let it fall back, and then turned. 'This doesn't look too good.'

  Melanie was holding Kevin's hand by the door. 'I love it when you talk like that,' she snapped at Farrell.

  'The place is surrounded, Melanie. Look for yourself.'

  'So now what?' from Kevin.

  'Now we hope Glitsky shows up in time with the senator.'

  'He is coming?' from Melanie.

  'He said so.'

  'And then what?' Kevin said.

  They could hear the chant clearly up here. It wasn't going away.

  'What about the FBI?' Melanie asked. 'I thought they were—'

  'Except,' Farrell said, 'they're going on the assumption that you're armed and dangerous, so if we do hear from them, probably the first we'll know of it is they'll come shooting through this door

  'God, Wes, you are a fount of good news.'

  'I didn't make it,' he said, 'I'm just reporting it.'

  'So what do we do?' Kevin asked for the third time.

  'You want to go out there?' Wes said. 'Face that? No? Then we wait.'

  Florio was looking at a sweating, breathless man in full uniform who was identifying himself as San Francisco's chief of police, Dan Rigby. He was outside the line of troops with a few of his uniformed men. Florio waved them through inside to the courtyard.

  'Is Kevin Shea in this building?' Rigby was already moving, jogging to the building's entrance. 'Do we know this? Who else is here? Is the place secured?'

  Inside, the lobby doors hanging open, Rigby went up to Special Agent Simms, who had just returned to the lobby and was planning to begin her assault upstairs.

  But she couldn't do that, he told her. Not now. Not without more reinforcements. It was turning into anarchy out there in a hurry. If she came out with Kevin Shea, tried to get through this mob, what did she thing was going to happen?

  Simms was beside h
erself. How had this developed so fast, gotten away from her? She had her men with her, she had her warrant – she should just tell this local yoohoo Rigby that she was going up to make the arrest and let the chips fall. But now – after first exploding at her for not informing the SFPD of her intentions and movements – he was trying to claim some jurisdiction of his own.

  'What I'm saying is that I think we've got a bigger problem than you're acknowledging,' Rigby told her. 'How the hell are you going to get him out of here if you do pick him up? You have any idea what's going on out here? Where is he anyway? We need more people here. Jesus Christ.'

  The other FBI agents and the city policemen were warily circling each other in the lobby, which was also now backfilling with residents of the building. Saturday morning, everybody home and wide awake.

  Simms and Rigby – the knot of authority – had to move just outside the lobby doors, into the well of the courtyard.

  'He's my prisoner,' Simms said. 'Let that be my problem.'

  Rigby wasn't having that. 'It's in my city. Like it or not, it's my problem. What's happening right here' – he motioned out in front of them – 'is my problem. I'm not having another lynching in one week. We try to take Kevin Shea out through this, that's what we're going to have.'

  Simms caught sight of something over the crowd. 'Who the hell's that? Somebody's on top of my car!'

  Rigby turned. Philip Mohandas had a bullhorn in his hands, trying to get the crowd's attention. 'Get that lunatic in here!' Rigby barked at one of his men. Then, to Florio: 'Be nice, invite him in here if you have to.'

  Then something else. Another noise, a further disturbance off to the left, one of the troops running up. 'Sir,' he said to Florio, 'there's a policeman here – no uniform – who says he's got a U.S. senator—'

  But before he could finish, the crowd had been pushed aside and the line had given enough to let Glitsky and Loretta Wager through.

  Simms took the field telephone from her hip. She nodded, looked up at the fourth floor, said 'hold on' into the phone, spoke to Rigby. 'They're lifting the shades. My man could take them out.'