The Dismas Hardy Novels

by John Lescroart

  The inspectors killed an hour at the building housing the Tenderloin Task Force, talking to the Patrol Special liaison to see if any information had surfaced on the beat or with any of the regular patrol cops during the day. Nothing.

  Then, calmed slightly and primed to finally get a word with John Holiday, they came back, yet again, to the Ark. It was full dark outside and the place had six paying customers. Terry and Wills were gone and a man fitting the description of Holiday was behind the bar. Before they’d even sat, he had napkins down in front of them.

  “Good evening, inspectors,” he said. They hadn’t even started and he was ahead of them. “What’re you drinking?”

  “We’re not,” Cuneo said. He put his badge on the bar and sat on his stool. “We’d like you to answer a couple of questions.”

  “Sure,” he said, then smiled. “Give me just a minute, though, would you?” He walked down the bar, had a word with a customer and pulled a bottle of beer out of the refrigerator. After he’d opened and poured it, he was back in front of the inspectors. “It’s bad luck in the bar business to let your customers get thirsty.” Another smile. “You sure you don’t want anything? It’s on me.”

  Cuneo had gotten himself seated. The fingers of both hands were already tattooing the bar. “Enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

  A nod. “Every minute, inspector. Life’s short enough and this isn’t dress rehearsal. Now what did you say I could do for you fellows?”

  “You can answer some questions,” Russell said. “Like where were you last Thursday night?”

  Holiday clucked as though he were sorely disappointed. “Oh, that kind of question. This is about a crime, isn’t it?”

  “You know what it’s about,” Cuneo snapped.

  “Actually, I’m not sure,” Holiday said. “I was working here last night when Matt Creed got shot, so it’s not for that. But if it’s about any crime at all, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”

  “Last Thursday night,” Russell said again.

  “Darn,” Holiday said. “It’s sad, too, because I know the answer to that one and I think you’d like it. But my lawyer told me he’d kill me if I answered questions from you guys about any crimes without calling him first.”

  “So you talked to your lawyer?” Russell said. “Why’d you do that?”

  Holiday had his smile stuck in place. “We’re close friends,” he said. “We talk all the time. He’s a great guy, really. Dismas Hardy. You know him?”

  “And he told you not to talk to us?” Cuneo asked. “Why was that?”

  “I had some legal troubles a while ago. He just found it a better policy. Your lawyer’s not there, some policemen take advantage. You wouldn’t believe.”

  “So call him,” Cuneo said. “Tell him to come down.”

  “I would, but it’s Date Night. He and his wife, they go out every Wednesday. He says it’s the secret to his happy marriage. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway—if he came down—he wouldn’t let me talk to you. He’s really strict about it.”

  “How much money did you lose at Silverman’s?” Cuneo asked.

  Holiday sighed. “Can’t say. Question. Oops, look at that. Another customer with an empty glass. Back in a New York minute. Don’t go away.”

  Holiday went down the bar again, took two drink orders. As he was pouring the second, the inspectors filed past him on their way out.

  “Nice talking to you!” he called after them. “Have a nice night!”

  13

  Date Night might have been the key to the Hardys’ marriage, but they weren’t having a happy one.

  It had started, naturally, with another stop at the hospital. Hardy hadn’t wanted to go again—it would be his third visit there today—but Frannie insisted that she wanted to see David. Before she’d seen the damage, she had some sense that in some way she could help. Make him more comfortable, maybe bring him cookies tomorrow. Something.

  She’d heard the word “unconscious,” of course, but the concept and reality of deep coma hadn’t yet struck home. She confessed this forty minutes later to her husband, before she’d even gotten her glass of wine, while she was silently crying in their back corner booth at Fior d’Italia. “I couldn’t even see him, really. I’ve never seen anybody so bandaged. His whole face . . .” Her eyes pleaded with him, as though somehow hoping he could make any part of it better.

  Hardy knew that she was trying to find a place to order her impressions, but they’d assaulted her too violently for that. He put his hand over hers on the table. She just needed to talk. “It didn’t even happen to me and I feel so violated,” she said. “I don’t know how this kind of thing can even happen.”

  “That’s almost exactly what Gina said.”

  “And poor Gina. And after the whole wedding . . .” She stopped while the sensitive waiter, delivering their drinks, averted his own eyes from her. Hardy had ordered Pellegrino. The waiter took their meager orders—they were splitting the antipasto and then a plate of carbonara. Sensing that it wasn’t the night either for a sales pitch on the special, or for glib, he retreated.

  “No appetite,” Hardy said. “Except for maybe killing whoever did that to David.”

  “You think that would help?”

  “I don’t see how it could hurt.” Hardy wasn’t speaking ironically. He had no humor left in him. With his jaw set, staring fixedly ahead, he slowly turned his glass of water in the circle of its condensation. “Sons of bitches,” he said. “If they think this is going to soften me up, they’re making the biggest mistake of their lives.”

  “Who is? I thought nobody knew anything about who did this.”

  “Nobody does.”

  “So who’s trying to soften you up?” Clearly, he’d let slip something he’d have preferred to hold close. His mouth twisted in a slight grimace. Frannie knew his looks, and in his rage he was very close to losing control. “Dismas?”

  He picked up his glass and drank it all off. “I don’t even know how to find out.”

  “Find out what?”

  “How to prove it.” He hung his head in disgust. “I should just go shake their tree.”

  “That is definitely not a good idea. If they did this to David . . .”

  “And of course that’s what they’re counting on. Everybody’s scared and nobody does anything.”

  She leaned in toward him. “Do you really think you know who did this?”

  “I’ve got some idea. I might be wrong, but I bet I’m not.”

  “Well, then. Tell the police. I know they’ll look. They know you.”

  “Uh-uh. You and I may remember me as the cop I once was, or the hard-hitting prosecutor I became, but that’s all ancient history. Now I’m a defense attorney. I’m not on their side anymore. . . .”

  “There’s no side. Whoever beat up David . . .”

  But he was shaking his head. “According to the cops’ best guess, whoever beat up David is probably either a bunch of kids or a well-coordinated band of random muggers, neither of whom stole anything. Do either of those theories make even the tiniest bit of sense to you?”

  “No.”

  “Which leaves what?”

  “Somebody with a reason.”

  “Exactly. Somebody who stands to lose thirty million dollars if David takes him to court, for example.”

  “The man in your lawsuit, what’s his name?”

  “Wade Panos. Good guy. Private cop. Pillar of the community.”

  “He’s not beating people up, Dismas. That doesn’t make any sense, either.”

  “He doesn’t have to do it himself, Frannie. He’s got people.”

  “So we’re back to where we were. Tell the police.”

  Hardy calmed himself with a deep breath. “No, now we’re back to where we were, I’m a defense attorney.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you, Susie Citizen, can have something bad happen and you go to the cops and give them some reasons why your suspects might have d
one it and they’ll listen to you with something like an open mind. Whereas, I, defense cretin that I am, I say something and first it’s got to make it through the prism of doubt. And especially when I’m accusing somebody who’s facing me in court. You, knowing me as the caring human being that I am, possibly can’t see that in reality every word out of my mouth is a self-serving lie and every act of kindness is a cynical manipulation.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating.”

  “Not by much.”

  “Abe doesn’t see you that way.”

  “Maybe not all the time, but you’ll recall we’ve had our bad days. And even with Abe, it’s always been over this same issue, this inherent lack of credibility. When I walk in the door, first it’s what’s my agenda? What am I really doing? The idea that I’ve got something to give them for free that might help in some way just never occurs to them, and they wouldn’t believe it if it did. And besides, Abe’s not really a cop anymore.”

  She frowned at that characterization. “I bet he’d help you with this if you asked.”

  “It’s funny you should say that, because just this afternoon I did, and he didn’t.”

  The frown grew deeper. “What did you say, exactly? Maybe he didn’t realize it was personal.”

  Hardy raised his shoulders an inch. “He knew it was David. That’s close enough. He knows the lawsuit is my case now. He’s even the one who got me really considering Panos.”

  “Well, that’s helping you.”

  “Okay, as far as that goes. But he’s not intervening with any other cops, I’ll tell you that. It was loud and clear. Not his job.”

  Frannie was swirling her own glass. “So who’s investigating what happened to David? Have you talked to him?”

  Surprised, Hardy sat back in his chair for a moment. Sometimes the obvious solutions could be the most elusive. Everything he’d told Frannie about the police prejudice against defense attorneys was absolutely true, but just that morning he’d actually encountered a great deal of cooperation from Hector Blanca. Maybe the General Work inspector would be the exception that proved the rule.

  In their conversation back then, Hardy hadn’t even mentioned Panos in the Freeman context because it had been the barest wild notion on his part, with nothing to support it. But since then he’d learned about Matt Creed and his undeniable connection to the Patrol Special. It wasn’t much, but if Blanca in fact wanted to find David’s assailants—not a sure bet by any means—Hardy thought that with suitable up-front disclaimers, he might get him to listen.

  “What?” Frannie asked. “What are you thinking?”

  “Just that sometimes you’re a genius. You’re right. Freeman’s guy—his name’s Blanca—he might look.”

  “Why wouldn’t he, Dismas? It’s his job, isn’t it?”

  “Yep,” Hardy said. “Sure is. And guess what? It’s still his job, whether he does it or not.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, it means he’s got a guy beating his neighbor up, let’s say, or there’s a fight in a bar. Both cases, and most of his other cases, he’s got a victim and a suspect who’s got a motive. With an apparently random mugging case like Freeman, and leaving me and my ideas out of it, the odds are good to great that they’ll never, no matter what, get to base one about who actually did it, so every minute Blanca spends looking is potentially a pure waste of his time.”

  Frannie stared disconsolately at the tablecloth between them. “And even if they find him, it doesn’t help David, does it?”

  At the truth of that, the futility of the entire discussion, Hardy blew out heavily.

  The waiter returned with their plates to a silent table. Picking up the mood, he said nothing as he checked the basket of bread and placed the antipasto platter between them—olives, red and yellow roasted peppers, anchovies, salami, caponata. The restaurant was one of their favorite places and the antipasto a long-standing traditional beginning to their meals here, but neither Hardy nor Frannie reached for a bite. After a minute or so, Frannie sighed and took a tiny sip of her wine. “It seems a shame to come to a great place like this and not want to eat. Should we just pack it up and go home?”

  But they didn’t get to go straight home.

  They’d found a parking place three blocks straight up the hill, in a dark stretch of Union Street above Grant. The wind was cutting into them, even huddled together, and they leaned into it as they walked. Neither really looked up or paid much attention until they came up near their space.

  Hardy drove a five-year-old Honda on which he had long ago disconnected the alarm, since alarms only went off by mistake, anyway, never to alert you of anything.

  But this time it might have been worth having.

  The front windshield had been completely and thoroughly smashed. There were four or five obvious impact points—two of them had pierced the safety glass. The rest of the window was a network of web-like fissures—white lines in the distant dim light from Washington Square down the street.

  “Oh, God!” Frannie said, her hand over her mouth.

  Hardy didn’t hear her. He was caught up in his own reaction, a veritable flash flood of unleashed obscenity. Spinning all the way round in frustration and anger, he whirled again and threw a vicious backhand fist up against the windshield, spraying more glass inside the car and onto the street. Another spasm of swearing overtook him as he was cupping his bleeding hand against himself, and again he lashed out at the windshield. The immediate anger spent now, he leaned heavily with his one good hand on the car’s hood, ragged and desperate gasps punctuated by staccato exhalations.

  Frannie had found that she’d backed herself against a building. Shivering in her heavy coat, she couldn’t have said whether it was the biting wind or the chill of fear. Her husband’s reaction struck her as more upsetting and in some ways almost worse than the vandalism itself, the violence and obscenity so unlike him. Under normal circumstances, something like this—a car window smashed—would make Dismas mad, of course; he’d be scathing in his wrath for a while, and probably funny about it. But that was nothing like this, nothing close to how she’d just seen him. Whatever this was, it had rocked Dismas to his core.

  Coming forward tentatively, she reached out and touched the windshield briefly—it crinkled almost like cellophane as some glass chipped off onto the dashboard inside. Involuntarily, she backed away a step, another one. “Dismas, what is this?”

  His face was as grim as his words. “This,” he said, “is a warning.”

  “Against what?”

  “Me. The lawsuit.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. He was obviously reeling from David. Of course that would occur to him, but she didn’t think there was any way he could be certain. But this was no time to argue, or even discuss. He was too wrought up and, obviously, in pain. Moving close next to him, she put a hand on his back. “Is your hand all right?”

  It was Frannie who took control, getting the passenger door for her husband, helping him inside. Eventually, they were both inside the car against the wind. They turned on the engine for the eventual heat to kick in. Now her husband sat beside her, unspeaking, cradling his injured left hand. She finally ventured a suggestion. “We ought to call the police.”

  It didn’t call for a reply, and none came. Frannie got out the cell and reported their problem and location, then called her brother at home to ask if he’d like to come and get them. All the while, Hardy sat ramrod straight, well back in the passenger’s seat. He stared straight ahead through the kaleidoscope of broken glass.

  Since they were patrolling in North Beach anyway, the squad car got there in under ten minutes. By the time Hardy saw the red-and-blue lights turn up at the corner, he felt he could face another human, talk with some semblance of reason. He and Frannie opened their doors and were standing out in the street as the two uniformed officers—Reyas and Simms from their name tags—approached them.

  It was obvious enough what had happened, and the office
rs took their statements with professionalism and even sympathy. While Simms went back to his car to call the towing service, Reyas began walking around the car with his flashlight. He hadn’t gotten very far when he stopped and leaned over for a closer look at the hood. “This looks like blood here,” he said.

  “It is,” Hardy said. “It’s mine. I lost my temper and popped the windshield.” He held up his hand. “Not my finest hour,” he added, “or my smartest.”

  Reyas nodded, shifted his attention to Frannie. “Mrs. Hardy,” he asked, “you two haven’t been fighting, have you?”

  The question surprised her and instinctively she threw a look at Hardy before coming back to Reyas. “No, sir. We were just coming back from dinner, as we said. At Fior d’Italia.”

  He appeared to be considering something. Coming back around the front of the car again, he sprayed his beam over them both. “Mrs. Hardy,” he said. “Would you mind accompanying me for a minute over to the squad car?”

  Again, she looked at Hardy, and though not happy about this development, he nodded once. “It’s okay.”

  He turned and watched them walk away. Hardy knew what was happening here. Officer Reyas wanted to get Frannie alone so she could answer a question or two without interference or coercion from her husband. He also wanted some better light—the squad car was parked directly under a streetlamp—where he could observe her more closely to see if she had any visible bruises. If it seemed that the broken windshield was really part of a violent domestic disturbance, Hardy knew they’d handcuff him and take him downtown. As well they should, he thought.

  But they wouldn’t find anything to indicate that.

  His hand was throbbing now. Looking down, trying to make it into a fist, he realized that he might have broken a bone in his little finger. The blood had mostly dried by now, but even with the cold, the swelling was substantial. The pain and this inconvenience to him and to Frannie struck him as being a two-pronged and just sentence for having been such an idiot.