The Vig dh-2 Page 7

  She stared across the table at the worried face, so different than Eddie's had been. Hardy's face had lines and creases and whole chapters of his life on it. She thought now it was more interesting than handsome. But he was like Eddie-or Eddie had been like him-both worried so much about doing the right thing, about good motives. Dismas would never put it that way, but Frannie knew him, and that's what it was.

  Now someone was trying to kill him, and he didn't want to suspect him for the wrong reasons. She got up and went around behind him, putting her hands on his shoulders. "You and I both know you're not a racist," she said. "Not even close."

  Hardy shrugged. "I don't know. I don't think of it as an issue anymore. Maybe that means I don't care about it. All I know is that Baker was an animal ten years ago, and we put him in a cage and he swore when he got out he'd kill me and Rusty, and Rusty is dead and gone the day he gets out. What would you think? How much more evidence would you need?"

  She thought a moment, then leaned over and kissed him on the top of the head. "I don't think much."

  "That's the right answer," Hardy said.

  Abe Glitsky, returning a little late for work, parked in a space behind the Hall of Justice and went in through the back door, nodding to the pair of uniformed officers who stood by the metal detectors. He turned left by the booking station and went around to the elevators, stopping to pick up an early morning candy bar.

  There were six elevators in the bank, and he waited, by his watch, three and a half minutes for the first door to open. During this time he spoke to no one and munched his candy bar, thinking about Hardy's problem, deciding he probably had one. He owed it to his friend to talk to Louis Baker-at least talk to him, see where he had been two nights ago.

  It was dead quiet on the floor. For a moment he thought there must have been a sick-out or some other protest a little more formal than golf clubs. He stuck his head in Investigations and found no one around. No one.

  He had been around when Dan White killed Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, and the Hall had the same feel it had this morning. He opened the door to Homicide, passed through the small reception cubicle, which was empty, and opened the door.

  The wide-open room was jammed with what looked like every investigator-homicide, robbery, white collar, vice -in the department. The chief himself, Dan Rigby, was talking in front of Lieutenant Frank Batiste's office.

  No one even acknowledged Glitsky's arrival. He leaned back against the doorpost he had come through and folded his arms, listening. Rigby was speaking very quietly.

  "… persons responsible for this will be let go. You got a message to give me, any of you, you come deliver it in person, or you want to memo it, that's fine, too. But this, this…" He paused and Glitsky saw the vein standing out on the side of his neck. "These insulting, demeaning, unprofessional acts not only won't be tolerated, they will be investigated with the whole weight of the department, and the perps here will be charged with criminal trespass, criminal contempt"-he was hammering the word criminal-"destruction of city property, vandalism and anything else me and anyone on my staff can think of."

  Rigby stopped talking. A couple of guys had come in behind Abe, catching only the last words. One of them said "What's up?" which everyone ignored. Several people were smoking in the room, and even through the smoke Abe could detect a locker-room smell beginning to rise. People were nervous, moving in the few seats, shifting from foot to foot.

  Rigby looked around the room, making eye contact with everyone who had the guts to meet it. It took a long time, and nobody else said a word.

  "So," he said finally, "I'm giving you perps-and I know you're in this room-one chance this morning to own up. You come to me, to my office…" and at this a couple of people snickered. "You think it's funny?" Rigby bellowed. Even Glitsky jumped. The snickering stopped.

  Rigby went back to his near whisper. "You come up to see me, wherever I am, by noon. Save the department the time and expense of finding out who you are and you'll get to keep your pension. If we're forced to launch a full-scale investigation to find you, you're out of the department, you lose your pension and if I have any clout at all with the D.A., and I do, you'll do time."

  The guy behind Glitsky whispered again. "Somebody get killed? What'd I miss?"

  Rigby was coming through the massed bodies in the room, following one of his aides. Glitsky moved from the doorway to let him pass. Others started streaming out behind him.

  Frank Batiste had been standing next to Rigby and now motioned to Abe. He threaded his way around the outer wall, overhearing snatches of people's remarks: "Guy can't much take a joke, can he?"

  Impersonating Rigby's whispered voice: "Criminal trespass, criminal criminal…"

  "At least he'll get out of his office for a while, maybe see what's going on around here."

  "… my office by noon. Right. Like noon some day next month."

  Laughter. And some people making noises under their breath as they left the room, sounding like cluck cluck cluck.

  "Jesus. What happened, Frank?"

  Batiste motioned Abe inside his office and closed the door behind them. "Just tell me you didn't do this, Abe. Please tell me that."

  "Do what?"

  "Come on, Abe."

  "Swear to God, Frank. I just walked in this morning to this. I have no clue what's going on."

  Batiste searched Glitsky's face for some sign that he was lying. Perhaps satisfied, he went around his desk and sat down wearily. "Last night somebody let themselves in Rigby's office with about four chickens."

  Glitsky had been to Rigby's office a couple of times. There was a rug on the floor that had been a gift to the city from the Shah of Iran; a heavy, stunning mahogany desk; several pieces of leather furniture that, Glitsky guessed, cost about what a patrolman made in a year. It took a moment for the significance of the chickens to sink in, and when it did, he smiled. "Pretty clear message," he said.

  "It isn't funny," Batiste said. "The room is floating in chicken shit."

  "You don't think it's funny?" Abe said. Then, at Frank's scowl, "No, sir, me neither. That sure isn't funny."

  "Rigby doesn't think it's funny."

  Glitsky bobbed his head. "I picked that up. I'm a trained investigator."

  "Abe, your ass is in a major sling if you did this. I mean it."

  Glitsky rolled his eyes and came back to his lieutenant. "Frank, what in the world makes you think I had anything to do with this? There's a hundred-odd people in this department."

  "Yeah, how many of them are applying to L.A.-?"

  "Thinking of applying-"

  "Okay. But who just happened to use the phrase 'chicken shit' the day before this-this fiasco?"

  "I think I used 'horseshit,' Frank."

  "Horseshit, chicken shit, same difference."

  Abe was fighting back his laughter now, wanting to get into the difference with Frank, but feeling it wasn't really a good time, maybe never would be a good time. Instead he said, "If somebody'd trotted a horse in there-"

  But Batiste had had enough. "Get the fuck out of here."

  Back at Glitsky's desk, Marcel Lanier was waiting. "So the judge says, 'Farmer Brown, you are charged with the most heinous, of crimes, the crime of bestiality, of having sexual intercourse with animals…' "

  "Not now, Marcel," Abe said.

  But Lanier continued. " 'Specifically, you are charged with carnal knowledge of horses, cows, sheep, dogs, cats, chickens.' Just then Farmer Brown holds up his hand and says, 'What kind of pervert do you think I am, your Honor? Chickens? Yuck.' "

  Glitsky found the paper he'd been looking for, making sure of what he had written under 'Reason for Leaving Present Employment.' He wondered if it was strong enough.

  Hardy had fond feelings for the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. When his father returned from the Pacific Theater after World War II he had spent his first night back in the States in a VIP room the hotel had reserved for returning POWs. Later he and Hardy's moth
er had the honeymoon suite; it was possible that Hardy had been conceived there.

  But the great hotel, a block north of Union Square in the heart of downtown, had not so much fallen upon hard times as it had been victimized by the boom times.

  The San Francisco Hardy's father had returned to had been the City That Knew How. It had a vital port, a refreshing year-round climate, great food, neighborhoods, a tiny downtown with an accessible feel. In fact, it had much of what corporate America wanted. Men who had been in the war and passed through the city on their way home were now running businesses and did not see why they had to slave away, freeze in the winter, sweat the summers out in Cleveland or Detroit or Omaha when they could have a corner building on Russian Hill.

  And these men, the first generation, knew what they had and did not much want to mess with it. San Francisco's lack of a skyline was part of its charm. The city did not need big buildings to make a big statement. If you wanted to take a moment to look around at this twinkling clear gem of a city spreading before you, you could go to the Redwood Room high atop the Fairmont Hotel. You could hit the Top of the Mark, or Coit Tower. Or, downtown, you could go to the Starlight Room of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. Forty years ago.

  Hardy sat there now, at the bar. It was just after eleven in the morning, and he looked through the streaked windows to the other Francis across the way-the Saint Francis Hotel, which dwarfed the Drake. A few blocks further north, the Bankamerica building threw its fifty-six stories' worth of shade around the surrounding ten blocks of downtown; the Transamerica Pyramid, the Embarcadero Center Towers-in their fashion as symbolic, Hardy thought, as the spires of medieval cathedrals. Just a different god.

  Hardy took his coffee and walked across the faded rug of the nearly empty Starlight Room. Except for due south, which afforded a view of the shipyards and Hunter's Point, every direction was blocked by highrises.

  Hardy had danced up here with Jane, had stood with his arm around her at the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking down all around them at their city. It had been a genteel place, a spot to touch base or regroup, out of step with the hipness of the rest of the city. Even then it had been, from Hardy's and Jane's perspective, where 'old people' of forty or fifty drank Happy Hour doubles and danced to a combo, not a rock band.

  Now Hardy felt like one of the old people himself. A voice behind him said, "They gotta get to these windows."

  Hardy spun around, jittery. For a moment he had almost forgotten he was being hunted. "It doesn't really matter," he said, "there's not much to see anymore."

  Hector Medina was a short, squat man with a square face and thinning hair. He wore a brown business suit and black shoes, which were not shined. He showed Hardy his security-cop's badge and they went back to the bar, where Hardy had his coffee refilled and Medina ordered a glass of plain water, no ice, no lime. "

  "This must be my week for cops," he said. "Memory lane."

  "I'm not on the force anymore," Hardy said. "The message I left…"

  "Yeah I got it. Ex-cop, cop. I'm an ex-cop. I still feel like a cop."

  "You're chief of security here, aren't you?"

  Medina coughed. "Yeah. Some Japanese tour lady loses her purse and I get to investigate and find it under her bed. A farmer from Kansas finds out the hooker he picked up is a guy and has a fit. Tough cases." He sipped at his water. "Shit, what am I talking about? It's a good job. But don't mistake it for real police work." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "So how can I help you?"

  Hardy wasn't sure how Medina could help him. It wasn't entirely clear to him why he'd even come down here, but it was better than sitting at Frannie's with a loaded gun and a head full of questions. He'd thought he might as well get some of them answered. "It's about Rusty Ingraham."

  Medina picked up his glass again, then put it down. "You know, I had a feeling."

  "Why's that?"

  "You know Clarence Raines?"

  The name sounded familiar but Hardy shook his head.

  "The department is fucking him over. Him and his partner."

  "Is he one of the guys they're bringing up-"

  "Yeah, yeah. Those guys. So Clarence came to see me to ask about…"

  "… because something like this happened to you?"

  "Something exactly like this. Except they didn't wind up killing their suspect, what's his name, Treadwell. They should have. At least my guy couldn't talk."

  "So what'd you tell Clarence?"

  "My advice? I told him, him and his partner both, to go into business."

  Hardy didn't get that.

  "Business, you know. Sporting goods, insurance, something out of the line, 'cause their police careers are over right now. Once you're charged…" He finished his water.

  "That's what happened to you?"

  "Ingraham," Medina said.

  "He brought the charges?"

  "No, no. He's too clean for that. Too hands off. He just pointed the finger and sicced the dogs on me."

  "But you got off."

  "Cause the D.A. knew a good cop when he saw one. He knew the asshole I killed was a dirtbag. Scum of the earth."

  "Who'd tried to kill you anyway, right?"

  Medina looked over Hardy's shoulder, silent. Then, "There was a gun in his hand. It never went to trial."

  Hardy fiddled with his coffee cup. A man could say a lot saying nothing, admitting nothing. Hardy might never know the story, but it was becoming clear to him that maybe Ingraham had been onto something with Medina-the accusation might not have been all air.

  "So you wouldn't say Ingraham and you were close?"

  Medina grunted, smiled. "You could say I'd like to kill the son of a bitch, frankly."

  "You won't have to."

  Medina blinked, his look going over Hardy's shoulder, then back. He seemed to settle back on his stool, as though some tension he had been holding in a long time was finally releasing its grip. "My luck keeps holding," he said.

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means I haven't seen Ingraham or talked to him in maybe five years, and last week I called him up and this week he's killed. Somebody will probably check his phone records, put it together and want to talk to me about it."

  "You called him up?"

  Medina sighed. "Clarence coming to see me, talking about his situation, it got me stirred up."

  "So what did you say to him?"

  Again that guttural grunt. "That's what's funny. I didn't say a damn thing. I heard his voice and realized I didn't want to prove it, that's all. It was over. If I want to do something, I'll work with Clarence's hand. Mine's folded."

  Medina lifted the glass to his mouth, saw it was empty and still tried to suck the last drops from it. "I gotta get back to work. Nice talking to you."

  He got to the elevator button, pushed it, then walked back to Hardy. "If I wanted to kill Ingraham, and believe me, I thought about it, I would've done it seven years ago when it would've done some good, and there wouldn't have been any evidence there, either."

  The elevator door opened and Medina turned a half-step toward it.

  "Nobody says you killed Ingraham," Hardy said.

  "Somebody will," Medina said. "You watch. You get accused once, you're in the loop."

  Medina made it to the elevator as the doors were closing. If he was putting on an act, it was damn convincing.

  Hardy, checking in with Glitsky from the pay phone by the men's room, heard, "No body yet, Diz."

  "It's out in the bay somewhere, Abe. He must have fallen or been thrown overboard and the tide took him out."

  "I don't know if it's that strong. The tide, I mean."

  "How about if you guys check that?" Hardy heard a crunching in the phone. Glitsky was chewing ice again. "You know, your teeth are all going to crack and fall out."

  "We dragged the canal, Diz. We can't drag the whole bay."

  "Isn't the blood type enough?"

  Glitsky had told him that the second blood stain, from the bed out t
he door to the pool by the rail, was B negative, fairly rare. Ingraham's old records confirmed that had been his type.

  Ice crunched in the phone's earpiece. "Means somebody with B negative bled. Doesn't mean Ingraham died." Crunch crunch. "Necessarily."

  "Sure, Abe. Probably somebody just had a nosebleed. The bullet hole in the bed must have been there before."

  "Hey, we're going on somebody was shot, probably Ingraham. But we have a real live dead person, Diz. Maxine Weir. And her husband's got means, motive and no alibi for opportunity."

  Hardy was losing his patience. "I'm telling you, Abe, Louis Baker did this. He killed them both-"

  "Why would he kill the girl?"

  "She was there. I don't know."

  "You just said it. You don't know. Look, to make you happy I'll go see Baker today."

  "Thank you."

  "But no promises. The man is out on parole. He checked in with his parole officer. He is following the rules. I have no reason to think he even saw Rusty Ingraham, much less killed him. I'm sorry if you're paranoid about it-"

  "This is not paranoia, Abe. Don't you think Rusty getting it the day Baker gets loose is a pretty big coincidence?"

  "Coincidences happen, and I hate to keep reminding you, but Rusty isn't officially dead." Glitsky's voice changed. It was starting to get him wound up. "And dig it. Diz, I do have a murder victim here-Maxine-who you don't care about but I'm supposed to. Plus I got a full caseload, like four other current homicides, to say nothing about a file full of oldies but goodies still outstanding. I'm doing you a favor-a favor, you understand?-to even see Louis Baker. Technically, it's a pure hassle of a guy on parole, but I'm gonna do it 'cause you're not always as full of it as you are right now."

  Hardy figured he'd pushed hard enough. "Okay, Abe, okay."

  "You want to do something worthwhile with your time, find me a body, or give me a reason we haven't found one, something to make me believe Rusty's dead. Then you've got me on your side."

  "All right, I'll do that."

  He could hear Glitsky's breathing slow down. "All right," his friend said, "you do that."

  Chapter Seven