A Certain Justice

Word was getting around, all right.

Farrell knew Hardy slightly. He had known him since the days when Hardy had bartended at this very bar. Now he assumed that Hardy, another defense lawyer with a growing reputation on newsworthy cases, was churning the water, angling to get a spot on whatever high-profile murder trial Kevin Shea was going to have. Well, he could go and talk to him – his day wasn't exactly overbooked. Kevin had promised him that he was going to lay low for at least twenty-four hours, so there was no immediate crisis with him, so far as he knew.

Besides, Hardy said he was buying.

So here they were, Moses McGuire coming over from the bar with two pints of Gui

Neither of the two men – Hardy in his rugby shirt and Farrell in a Pendleton – looked much like lawyers at the moment. They clinked their glasses and Farrell asked Hardy what he could do for him.

'I've heard Kevin Shea is your client.'

'Glitsky?'

So much, Hardy thought, for not bringing up Abe in the first couple of minutes. 'Yeah, Glitsky mentioned it to me.'

'That guy is a shithook.' Hardy was silent. Farrell quaffed some stout. 'I go down with an offer to bring in Kevin Shea, who by the way is as i

'You know this for a fact?'

'Let's say to a moral certainty. It's the only thing that could have got me back doing this, believe me.'

'So what happened with Glitsky?'

'Glitsky and I have a nice talk. He seems receptive, says he's going to go sell the idea of special protection to the DA, meanwhile keep it all between us.'

'And?'

'And next thing I know I'm in my apartment and there's somebody downstairs with a search warrant to look for Kevin Shea. Glitsky had me followed home.'

Hardy killed a little time with his glass. 'That doesn't sound much like Abe.'

'You a friend of his?'

'We talk from time to time.'

'He tell you about this?'

'About what?'

The tail, the warrant, any of it?'

'No. We were talking, he mentioned you had Kevin Shea. I thought it sounded like a good case.'

This was the reason Farrell thought Hardy had called in the first place. Though it might turn out he could use some help if things ever did come to trial – and Hardy might be a good choice in that eventuality, he was starting to get a reputation as a good man in front of a jury – Farrell didn't want to send any false messages. 'I'm not sure about that. There's no pockets.' Meaning that the defendant had no money.

Hardy shrugged. 'Sometimes there are other considerations. You never know. I gather Shea wasn't there, at your place.'

'I thought he was at the time. He was there when I went out to meet Glitsky. He sent his girlfriend – you know about Melanie? the getaway girl – they got what I thought at the time was a dose of paranoia, except it turns out it wasn't. Now they're someplace else. I really don't know where.'

Hardy took it in. On its face it didn't make sense. Glitsky would not – in fact, Hardy was 'morally certain' he didn't – order anybody to follow Farrell home. Glitsky had known nothing about any of this – if he had, he wouldn't have asked Hardy to step in and find out why Farrell wasn't talking to him. He would have known.

Not only that, Glitsky knew, morality aside, that this kind of backstabbing did not produce results. It just wasn't Glitsky's style. If Abe had given his word, it simply hadn't happened as Farrell saw it.

'You sure it was Glitsky?' he asked, repeating that it just didn't sound like him. 'What would be his motive?'

'Get the collar, the fame of it, maybe even claim the reward. Hell if I know. But he was the only one that knew I was with Shea, and he told me flat out he'd keep it right there.' Farrell put a hand to his heart, then drank some more stout. 'The guy lied, that's all.' Hardy swirled his own glass. 'The warrant was for Shea himself, not documents or papers?'

'It was a search warrant for the premises.' Farrell's face twisted in distaste. 'Sergeant Stoner was very thorough.'

'Sergeant Stoner?'

'Yeah, that was it. I remember I thought the name was a bit… ironic.'

'Stoner's not with the police department,' Hardy said. 'He's a DA investigator. I used him when I was a DA. The District Attorney's office in San Francisco has its own staff of detectives that aren't under the jurisdiction of either the SFPD or the county sheriff.' Typically, the role of the detectives was to locate witnesses, although occasionally they were used for other purposes.

'So?'

'So it would be odd – to say the least – for Glitsky to assign a DA's investigator to serve a warrant.'

'So he told the DA-'

'That's not Abe.'

Farrell looked at Hardy. 'He sent you down to talk to me, didn't he? You guys are pals.'

Hardy nodded. 'He didn't know why you wouldn't talk to him. He really didn't know.'

'Well, he must have leaked it somehow.'

'Maybe not. It could have gone down another way. But the point is, he doesn't think Shea did it, either. He thinks he can still help you.'

'It might be too late for that. If the DA-'

'He wants to talk to you. I think he's got an idea.'

'And what's your part in it?'

'My fee is a can of chili.' Hardy put down the remainder of his stout. 'Private joke,' he said, rising from his chair. 'Get you another one?'

Special Agent Simms was back in Alan Reston's office, the door closed behind her, standing at ease in front of his desk. 'The subject was one Dismas Hardy, another lawyer in town, do you know him?'

Reston shook his head.

'He mentioned Kevin Shea and the two of them met at a bar out in the Avenues called the Little Shamrock. We followed Farrell there and both men drank two beers, then went back to their domiciles afterward. No sign of Shea.'

Reston was nodding to himself. 'Probably just the vultures figuring how they're going to split the pie.'

'Yes, sir. That's what we've come to. In any event, it's all we've got to this point, but we're still on-line. I just wanted to keep you informed. We'll get him.'

Reston sat up, eyes clear, back straight. 'I'm sure you will.'

61

Art Drysdale was back at work in his office, juggling his baseballs in a convincing display of sangfroid. 'I've weathered that whole racist storm before, Abe. It comes and goes. Fact is, I've got no ax to grind here and everybody I work with seems to know it.' He smiled genially. 'You ought to see what some of our female colleagues have to say about me.'

'What for?'

'I took an early public stand against using the word "fore-person". You know, like injuries, the foreman. I thought it would be needlessly confusing, poetically uninspired, and – well, how can I put this? – stupid. Let's face it, I can't be trained. I'm sure I'm a menace on some level. Next it's the women's caucus, I'm sure.'

The preliminaries completed – they were allies again – Glitsky sat back comfortably. Drysdale actually had upholstered chairs in his office. 'I just wanted to stop by to tell you I've got two inspectors assigned to Chris Locke. I'm afraid with everything else I didn't jump on it as quickly as I could've.'

Drysdale stopped juggling, squared himself around in his chair, all attention now. 'You finding anything?'

Glitsky explained the little that Griffin had come up with, and then went over his plans for the evening – more interviews, more legwork. The talk wound down.