“She was positive. I was there all day. She hoped that was the right thing to say.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That it was the truth. How could it be wrong?”
Overtime was being had by all.
At 10:30, Lanier was out at his desk in the detail. He might have just been named the provisional and nominal head of the unit, but he wasn’t going into Gerson’s office for a good long while, even if it got announced officially. Cuneo and Russell both wore hangdog looks as they sat there, and Lanier couldn’t say he blamed them. Something about their investigations must have gotten seriously out of whack early on, and now in the wake of today’s slaughter they both seemed lost and confused.
Cuneo had it all going tonight, playing the whole invisible drum kit—snare and kick drum, riding the high hat, the occasional crash of cymbal. Lanier wondered what track he was using in his brain, because part of him obviously had no idea that any of this percussion was going on. “What I can’t figure out is why Thieu would have even thought to look at Holiday’s. I mean, what did he know that we didn’t know?”
“The question is, Dan, what do we know now?”
“About what?”
“About the fingerprints at Holiday’s house, for example. What do they mean? Were these guys friends, or what?”
“They played poker together at Silverman’s,” Cuneo said. “But otherwise, did they hang out together? No, I’d say not.”
“But they’d both been to Holiday’s place.”
“I doubt it.” Cuneo was upping the tempo. “No. I can’t see that.”
“Wait a minute, Dan, wait a minute,” Lanier said. “I wasn’t asking if they’d been to Holiday’s. We know they went there. The prints were there. The question is why.”
“Maybe they played poker there, too, once or twice.”
“But why, if they weren’t friends?” Lanier focused on each of them in turn. “I don’t know anything more than you do, okay? In fact, I know way less on these cases. I’m asking you both to think why these fingerprints might have been enough to get Paul killed, if somebody killed him. What they might mean.”
Blanks, until Cuneo suddenly stopped all his frenetic movement. It was like a vacuum in the room. When he first spoke, it was almost inaudible.
“What’s that, Dan?” Lanier asked.
Cuneo looked up, let out a long sigh. “It means they did plant the evidence,” he said. “It’s like Mrs. Silverman thought . . . if they did plant . . .” He stopped again, stared across Lanier’s desk.
“If they did plant what, Dan?” Marcel said.
“The evidence at Holiday’s,” Cuneo said. He gripped his temples and squeezed so that his ringers went white. “Man oh man oh man.”
Michelle sat in the big chair by her picture window that afforded no view of the black night outside. The reading light glared next to her and reflected the room back at her, her own pitiful image in the glass of the window. She’d cocooned herself into a comforter that offered little comfort, huddled into as small a position as she could get herself. Next to her on the light table there was an untouched glass of white wine and an envelope. In her hand, she held what had been the contents of the envelope, two pages of her own personal stationery—no letterhead, no border, just five-by-seven heavy rag, not quite white, bits of pulp throughout.
She’d been sitting, empty now, unmoving, for the twenty minutes since she’d finished reading the letter for the second time, and now her eyes had cleared enough to read it yet again.
Dear Michelle: (she read)
As you know better than anyone, it’s been my tendency to want to come across as the world’s most easygoing guy. It keeps the expectations low, both mine for myself, and my friends’ for me. I don’t ever promise anything other than perhaps a good time in the here and now, and since I don’t pretend to have any depth or seriousness, no one can be disappointed in me when I don’t deliver, when I flake out, when I get drunk or loaded and do any one of the many stupid and embarrassing things that have cost me friends and self-esteem.
When I think back on the time that I was married to Emma, especially the few months after we had Jolie, I sometimes wonder what happened to the person I was then. Where suddenly for that short time it was okay to feel like things mattered.
Like everything mattered, in fact.
It was strange, but I found I actually wanted Em and Jolie to have expectations for me, to want the best out of me. When before I’d always run from that, telling myself that I was just a clown, deep as a dinner plate. Maybe also, though, because I was afraid that if I tried to be more, I’d fail. It’s a true fact that if you don’t try, you can never fail. Foolproof.
But a funny thing happened. I found out with my girls that the more I acknowledged how much I cared about them, the better my life became. I started trying all the time in a hundred different ways and stunned myself by succeeding. I was faithful, for example, and wanted to be. Suddenly I didn’t need women on the side as a backup position if Em dumped me because I didn’t deserve her. Or if she cheated on me. I just knew that wouldn’t happen, ever. I believed in all of us, pathetic though that may sound. Some of my core bedrock had shifted and settled and now I could take down my guard and breathe. And enjoy.
I don’t know what it was about my hardwiring that had made me fear commitment so much before that, but gradually the life I was living with them became the only thing I really wanted. Me and Em and Jolie. The whole world.
Which of course ended.
And then what a massively gullible fool I’d been, huh? To believe in all that? To think it could last? Talk about pathetic. Talk about stupid.
Well, none of that was ever going to happen to me again, ever. The goal was get a nice buzz, keep it going, risk your money and your job and everything else because then you really could fail completely. You could get to zero hope, rock bottom, which was pure freedom. And none of it mattered anyway, right? Take every single opportunity for physical pleasure and make sure it was purely physical, nothing more. Happiness was a moment and that was all it was. Any thought that a life could take on a shape and be fulfilling was out of the question.
So why am I writing this now?
Because something has shifted inside me again. Knowing you has changed me. Once and for all, I really feel as though I’ve laid those awful ghosts to rest. I don’t know where you and I are going exactly, but I wanted you to know that suddenly I want you to have expectations of me; I want to find my best self, and be that person. I want to try and try and keep trying even if sometimes I do fail. It’s all in the trying.
Does this make any sense?
Now, this afternoon, there’s something else I’ve got to do. Another commitment, a matter of honor if that’s not too overblown a word. It seems all of a piece, somehow. Expectations and responsibilities. And suddenly I’m okay with them. I even welcome them.
If you’re reading this, I didn’t come back. This time, it’s because I can’t, not because I didn’t try. But whatever happens to me, I want you to know that life is good and that I left this apartment today as happy and filled with hope for the future as I have ever been in my life.
I love you with all my heart.
EPILOGUE
32
In late November, a high-pressure front settled in off the coast, and the last three days set records for the cold, with highs in the low forties. Newscasters were saying that with the windchill it was equivalent to the mid-twenties.
Vincent Hardy was the first one up on the holiday morning. They’d used the living room fireplace the past few nights, and all he had to do was crumple up yesterday’s Chronicle and blow on the embers to get a flame. By the time his father came downstairs at a little after eight, three oak logs crackled. Vincent sat Indian style on the floor four feet or so in front of the blaze, staring into it.
His father, barefoot, wore jeans and an old gray sweatshirt. He had his coffee in a mug and put it on the floor when he sat down.
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“Good fire. Nice job.”
“Thanks.”
“Happy Thanksgiving.”
Silence.
“The Beck sleeping?”
“I think so.”
“On the floor in your room again?”
“Yeah.” Then, “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“No. I know. You’re a good guy.”
Hardy picked up his mug, stared at the flames. Vincent moved over a few inches. Hardy put an arm around him, drew him in for a minute.
“She’s just afraid, you know. She keeps seeing that picture. . . .”
“How about you?” Hardy asked.
He felt his son’s shoulders lift, then drop. “I don’t think about it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
With a sharp crack, the fire spit, flared, settled. Hardy stole a sideways glance at his boy. His hands were clasped. He appeared mesmerized by the fire.
“ ’Cause if you do,” Hardy finally said, “if you’re worried about anything . . .”
Vincent shuddered, then shook himself away, was suddenly on his feet. “I just don’t think about it! Okay?”
“Okay, Vin. Okay.”
His son looked down at him, eyes threatening to tear. He started to walk away, out of the room.
Hardy stood, turning after him. “Hey, Vin! Wait. Don’t go running away, please. It’s okay. C’mere. It’s all right.” Vincent stopped and turned to him. “Come on back over here. Please. Give your old man a hug.”
The boy sighed deeply, eventually came forward. He was soon going to be fourteen years old. His dad still had a foot of height on him. When he got close enough, Hardy reached out and put an arm around his shoulders, quickly kissed the top of his head. “It’s okay,” he said, one last time.
Then he let go of his son and walked out the door and over the frost on the lawn to get the morning paper.
Dinner was the classic turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and brussels sprouts. Treya brought her famous marshmallow candied yams, green beans with almonds; Susan her spinach salad with mandarin oranges; Abe some macaroons for those who didn’t like pumpkin pie. Even Nat chipped in with creamed onions, a surprise hit. They’d extended the table out with all its leaves so that it took up the whole dining room and half the living room and could accommodate fifteen people.
McGuire was there with Susan and the girls. The Glitsky contingent included not only Abe, Treya and the baby, but also Nat and the older kids home for Thanksgiving—Orel and Raney from their respective colleges, and even Abe’s eldest, Isaac, made it up from Los Angeles where he’d gotten on—temporarily, he said—with a construction crew. The only missing Glitsky was Jacob the opera singer—he was touring, perennially, somewhere in Europe.
After dinner they’d closed the table back up. The older kids had pitched in on the hundred and fifty dishes while the adults had more coffee or, for some, drinks in the living room. Now almost everybody had gathered at the front of the house, and they were playing games.
Games, Hardy thought, were good. Talking—the stories and jokes the whole time they ate—that was good, too. Throwing the football around all afternoon out in the street—great idea. As was the communal cooking. The daily things, the simple things.
No reason to mention Wade Panos, or the fact that he was still very much alive, possibly even more of a threat than he’d been. Everyone was aware of that every waking minute, sometimes during sleep. Hardy, drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, had jolted himself awake more than once. Frannie and the kids cried out, between them, every night the first week, a couple of times since.
Although now, a couple of weeks into it, Hardy had privately begun to consider that maybe their show of force had made Panos, at least, cautious. At best, they’d scared him off. But Hardy wasn’t going to say that out loud. Not yet.
After dinner, the games had started with several rounds of St. Peter/St. Paul, and now they had moved on to charades. Abe was trying to pantomime “Peter, Paul & Mary” and it wasn’t going very well. Unless he was lucky, it would be a while before he was through.
Hardy took the opportunity to get up and walk back to the empty kitchen. The high-energy laughter from the game in the living room still rang through the house, and Hardy found he’d run out of tolerance for it. He opened the kitchen’s back door, which led to his tool and workroom, and was surprised to find Moses there, sitting alone on the countertop, nursing a drink. “Hey,” Hardy said, “you’re missing a great show—Abe’s trying to emote. It’s something to see.”
Moses raised his eyes. “You’re missing it yourself, I notice.”
Hardy closed the door behind him, took a hit from McGuire’s glass, handed it back to him. “How you holding up?”
A shrug. “Good.”
“You sound like my son. One syllable per sentence. ‘Good.’ ‘Fine.’ ‘Great.” ’
“Okay, maybe I’m not so good.” He drank an inch of scotch. “I worry about it, and don’t say, ‘about what?” ’
“I worry, too. Is Panos done? Are the cops going to put us there?”
McGuire nodded. “There you go.”
“Okay, so the answers are one, maybe he isn’t, and two, maybe they will. So what?”
“So I’m having some issues with it.”
“Guilt?”
This seemed to bring McGuire up short. “No,” he said, “no guilt.”
“Me, neither. It had to be done.”
“No question. But all this having to pretend nothing happened . . .”
“Who’s pretending that?”
“Oh, nobody,” McGuire said. “Just everybody at dinner here today. Every day at home.”
“So what do you want?”
“I don’t know. I wish it had never started, that’s all.”
“You mean you wish there wasn’t evil in the world?”
McGuire drained his glass, brought his bloodshot eyes up to Hardy’s. “Yeah, maybe that.”
“Well, there is,” Hardy said. He rested a hand on McGuire’s shoulder. “I guess we’re going to have to get used to it.”
33
City Talk
BY JEFFREY ELLIOT
SHOCK WAVES ARE STILL RIPPLING through the various Halls of the city over the raids yesterday by local police and federal marshals on several upscale homes in various San Francisco neighborhoods as well as on downtown’s Georgia AAA Diamond Center, and the disappearance of its chief executive officer. Dmitri Solon, the young Russian immigrant with a penchant for fine clothes and a luxurious lifestyle, had in a very few years become just as well-known as an art aficionado and political contributor. He had well-documented and close ties with many highly ranked (and now plenty embarrassed) city officials, including the mayor and District Attorney, and his Russian-built helicopter had become a familiar, albeit annoying, presence over the city’s skyline as it ferried jewelry and gemstones to and from the airport.
This reporter has learned that yesterday’s raid, which netted over $1.5 million in cash and nearly thirty pounds of cocaine and heroin, followed a six-month investigation into alleged money laundering and drug trafficking activities occurring out of several homes in the Mission, Diamond Heights and St. Francis Wood neighborhoods, activities financed by diamonds from Georgia AAA, which in turn had been smuggled out of the Russian treasury by that country’s own minister of Precious Gems and Metals, and delivered here to San Francisco in diplomatic pouches carried by commercial airliners.
Also implicated in the scheme, and arrested in yesterday’s raids, was Wade Panos, another influential political donor, whose company, WGP Enterprises, Inc., provided formal security for Georgia AAA, as well as the pool from which the Diamond Center selected its drivers. Mr. Panos’s drivers allegedly coordinated and executed the actual deliveries of contraband among the various drop houses.
Sources with the police and FBI confirm that the initial investigation into irregularities at Georgia AAA commenced last November
when Lieutenant Abraham Glitsky inadvertently stumbled upon two of Mr. Panos’s drivers acting in a suspicious manner. On a hunch, he followed them to several addresses. When local authorities, many the recipients of Panos’s political contributions, declined to act, Glitsky forwarded the information to federal authorities.
On a related front as the story grows, and in light of the principals involved, Lieutenant Marcel Lanier of homicide expressed concern and interest in reopening the investigation into the so-called Dockside Massacre of last November. Two of the victims in that gunfight, Nick Sephia and Julio Rez, had been couriers for Georgia AAA and a third, Roy Panos, was employed by his brother at WGP. Speaking on condition of anonymity, highly placed police sources have opined that these two men, Sephia and Rez, were the security guards who originally attracted the suspicion of Lieutenant Glitsky. Additionally, Sephia was a nephew to Wade Panos.
The FBI believes that several of the employees of Georgia AAA may in fact have been recruits from organized crime syndicates within Russia, and that the intimate and perhaps conflicting connections between the Panos group and these people may have played a significant role in the Pier 70 gunfight where five men, including homicide’s Lieutenant Barry Gerson, were killed. Police have theorized that as many as seven more people, besides the five victims, took part in the battle. None have been arrested to date, and Lanier does not dispute the possibility that they may have used some sort of diplomatic immunity—and the Diamond Center’s helicopter—to perpetrate the slaughter and then leave the country.
Finally, lawyer Dismas Hardy has asked that the police reopen the investigation into the death of Sam Silverman that led to a warrant for the arrest of John Holiday, who was a client of Hardy’s and one of the men killed at Pier 70. Hardy is confident that the evidence upon which his client’s murder warrant was issued was planted by Sephia and Rez. Hardy could not explain Holiday’s presence at Pier 70, but noted that Lieutenant Gerson’s presence has been equally confounding to authorities. Hardy offered the possibility that, in possession of evidence linking Rez and Sephia to the crimes for which Holiday had been charged, Holiday had arranged his surrender to Gerson, and that the Panos group had somehow been tipped to the plan, and ambushed them.
The Dismas Hardy Novels Page 139
