A Certain Justice

'I'm still having a hard time with it.'

Glitsky nodded. 'Yeah, I know.'

'He was… he had a lot of flaws, Chris did. Everybody knows about the woman-thing…' Even aside from his bombshell discovery of the morning about Locke's relationship with Elaine Wager, Glitsky was not so subliminally aware of Locke's many sexual conquests. 'But I think his heart was in the right place where the law was concerned. He understood the ones we could win, when he had to drop one. He didn't want to waste everybody's time.'

A eulogy on Chris Locke by Drysdale was going to be wasted on Glitsky, but he could listen politely if it made Drysdale feel better. Art had done the same for him enough times. The first months after Flo…

'Even the tough calls,' Drysdale went on. 'Hell, Jerohm Reese. You think it didn't kill Chris to let that scumbag go? But what was he going to do? He had no witnesses. He wasn't going to get a conviction, so what was the point? Waste the people's time and money?'

'That was a tough call.' Glitsky at his most diplomatic. He really had not liked Locke at all. But the man had been a chameleon – to Drysdale he had remained the loyal friend, the good lawyer, the able administrator. The office had run smoothly, and that was what counted to Drysdale.

'Damn straight, and it wasn't the only one.'

Glitsky knew that, too. Locke hadn't been too bad as District Attorneys went – certainly he would not now be pulling the idiocy Alan Reston was attempting with Kevin Shea.

Drysdale was juggling the baseballs again, calming himself. Glitsky was about to get up and go when something else occurred to him, something he hadn't meant to discuss here, but Drysdale's mention of the light evidence on Jerohm Reese had triggered it. Drysdale had been the chief assistant district attorney for almost twenty-five years, since long before Chris Locke's first term. He would have been around. 'Art, you ever do any work on the Pacific Moon case? White collar? Maybe fifteen years ago?'

Again, the balls stopped. Drysdale's brow wrinkled in concentration. He prided himself on never forgetting a case. 'It go to trial?'

'I don't think so, but I believe it got talked about down here and then dropped. Not enough evidence.'

'The Pacific Moon?'

Glitsky nodded. 'Restaurant out on Balboa. Got hot for a while with white collar, then died.'

'Money laundering.' Drysdale had placed it.

'That's the one.'

'What about it?'

'Nothing. I don't know exactly. It's come up lately.'

Drysdale gave him a look. 'It's come up lately – that's a good answer.'

'The real answer is I just don't know, Art.' He took a beat, then realized who he was talking to. Once he'd brought it up, Drysdale would look over the old files, put out feelers, get it back into the grapevine on some level and Glitsky didn't want that. Better to be up front with him now. 'With Loretta Wager in town now, there's been some-'

'That's it! 'Art snapped his fingers. He had it now. 'Sure, I can't believe it took me this long. It's come up a couple of times with the elections.'

'Probably.'

'No probably – it has. People digging for dirt. You can imagine.'

'So you've reviewed it? I heard some figures kicked around that are… provocative. Huge.'

'I'm sure you have,' Drysdale said. 'I remember it clearly now. The numbers were always getting wildly exaggerated.' He thought a minute longer. 'Because of the profile – black woman, U.S. senator – Chris took it himself. He was the original prosecutor assigned, I'm talking now back in prehistory. The case didn't have any legs then, doesn't now. That was another one, though,' he added enigmatically.

'Another what?'

'Another one of the tough calls for Locke.'

'What was tough about it?'

'Well, this is between us now, Abe, but Chris did some fancy steppin' getting his hands on that one.'

'He wanted the case?'

Drysdale nodded, remembering. 'It was mostly black people, the investors, although I believe Dana Wager, of course, was one of them. Anyway, Chris was new, wanted to prove he didn't have a color barrier. He badly wanted this indictment, make his bones against the brothers, prove he could be a DA for all the people. But believe me, I remember him coming to me about this indictment, asking my opinion, my help – but there was nothing to get it on.'

Glitsky let out the breath he'd been holding. 'I heard the figure of three million dollars.'

Drysdale just shook his head. 'My recollection, Abe, is that's not even in the ballpark. I don't think it was even one million back when Chris was looking at it. Somebody got lucky with an investment or something if I recall…'

'And it's not ongoing? Not anymore?'

'I haven't even sniffed it, Abe, and I think I would have. And then, of course,' Drysdale continued, getting back to his theme, 'what made it a tough call for Chris is that when he had to drop it, he had to take the flak for dropping it because it was mostly a black enterprise. And he couldn't very well come back out swinging, defending himself that he wanted to indict these people. Not if they hadn't done anything wrong, and it finally didn't look like they had.' He sighed. 'The world, huh, Abe?'

'The world,' Glitsky agreed.

Loretta was downtown in her City Hall office. It was nearly eight o'clock in Washington DC, Friday night, the end of the week. If deals were going to get cut, now was the time. They always said 'close of business,' meaning five o'clock, but in the Capitol the close of business lasted at least three hours. Nobody went home until everything that could be done was done. Still, she thought, checking her watch again, it should be about time.

She was confident. The reports she had gotten during the day – both from her own office and those of her senate colleagues – indicated that the president's chief of staff had been working and lobbying around the clock to facilitate the transfer of the Hunter's Point Naval Reservation by executive order to the Federal Parks Program, with the stipulation that the land be dedicated to Loretta's idea of a camp for underprivileged youth, and administered by an African-American.

Evidently (as Loretta had both hoped and expected), the president had seen it as she had – this was a monumental political opportunity, a no-lose situation that for maximum effect should be done immediately, as a symbol of the president's ongoing commitment to civil rights and in the interests of continued racial harmony. The telephone buzzed and she forced herself to wait through two full rings, picking up on the third. It was her secretary calling from one of the public phones at the Old Ebbett Grill, a few blocks from the White House.

'… and I think we can say that congratulations are in order. The president's going ahead with the order.'

'For sure?'

'He's scheduled the signature for noon tomorrow, our time. Nine o'clock out there. It ought to be ideal for you.'

'That is perfect,' Loretta said. She had spoken again to Alan Reston. He was confident that with the FBI's help they'd have Kevin Shea by then. That would de-fang Philip Mohandas and his march on City Hall, which Loretta knew stood a good chance of getting out of hand. And she didn't want that to happen – not now, not when a real solution was so close.

With the apprehension of Kevin Shea and the timing of the executive order, she was sure things would calm down. The city would return to normal, or some semblance of it. And she would be at the crest of the wave of peace and harmony – a hero to the community at large, not to any racial segment within it. She had fought for – and won – concessions for her own people, but she had also proved again that she was more than willing to work within the existing white, predominantly male power structure. She was a pragmatist with ideals intact, she told herself.