A Certain Justice

There was a brief silence, then the reply, curt and formal. 'I thought I explained that adequately to Mr Hardy.'

Glitsky could feel the spirit of cooperation slipping away. The lawyerly tones were kicking in, the defense vs. the prosecution, and Glitsky was with the prosecution. Hardy had become Mr Hardy. Glitsky was going to lose Farrell and therefore Shea and everything else if he didn't rein in the general antagonism that was threatening to overcome him, the frustration.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm afraid I haven't had any real time with Hardy. His message to me was that you'd talk to me. That's all we got to. I'm glad you are.'

Another pause, Farrell perhaps considering his sincerity. 'So what's your idea?'

Now it was Glitsky's turn to hesitate. How much did he dare tell? 'I've spoken to Senator Wager,' he said. 'Alan Reston is her protegé and he's our stumbling block, yours and mine. She promised me she'd talk to Reston, convince him to cut Shea the slack he needs, guarantee him some safety.'

'You talked to the senator personally?'

'Yes.' Then, feeling he needed to explain: 'We went to college together. We know each other.'

'That's a fortuitous relationship. And she said she'd do it?'

'She said she'd talk to Reston, yes. She seemed confident she could convince him to soften up some, make some guarantees, which is all Shea needs, right? That hasn't changed?'

'Not as far as I know. But that's his minimum, Lieutenant. He still wants to come in, get his story heard. I should tell you, though, I'm going to try very hard to get this whole indictment quashed. It's bogus.'

Glitsky figured now was as good a time as any to cement the newly wrought alliance. 'You need me to give my two cents to anybody, Mr Farrell, I'll say what I think.'

'And what's that?'

'I don't think your boy did it. I don't think the evidence says he did it. He may even have been the hero here. I think he ought to walk.'

Glitsky heard the sigh of relief over the phone wire. 'I appreciate that,' Farrell said.' Can I ask you another question?'

'Sure.'

'You got any leads on who might have been behind it, the mob, the lynching?'

Glitsky decided he could share that information, such as it was. 'A couple. Nothing firm, but yes, there are some things, some other people we're looking at.'

'I wanted to hear that.' Dead air. Then: 'So when are you going to hear back from the senator? Or Reston?'

'I'd expect by tonight sometime, morning at the latest. Loret- the senator couldn't reach Reston at the office and left a message for when he got home. No one knows when that's going to be but she said it was urgent. He'll call her.'

'I should probably get an answering machine,' Farrell said out of left field. 'But that timing works. I'm talking to Shea at nine in the morning.'

'I should have heard before that. And you'll be around? This number?'

'I'm not leaving. I'll be here.'

'Okay. I'll call you.'

'All right. And, Lieutenant?'

'Yeah?'

'Thanks. This is above and beyond.'

'It shouldn 't be, it should be how it works.'

'Yeah, well,' Farrell said, 'if my uncle had wheels he'd be a wagon.'

Glitsky cut it short at the Hardys'. Something in their domestic bliss, so obvious and unforced, wrenched at his insides tonight. He didn't know if he was pulling away from the memory of Flo and the life they'd shared, so similar in many respects to the Hardys', or experiencing a kind of foreshadowing of the loss he was bound to feel with Loretta.

No question about it – the two of them would never sit, legs casually intertwined on the couch they'd bought after much discussion with the money they'd saved for it. He knew they would never live in her house together – in the mansion Dana Wager had built in Pacific Heights. Nor she in his, with the boys. Loretta was a United States senator and her husband had been one of the developers who had helped refashion San Francisco's skyline into what it was today – high-rises and pyramids and glass monoliths to the edge of the famous bay.

Glitsky was a working cop.

It wasn't going to last – no sense pretending it was, and he'd been doing that. Perhaps seeing the Hardys dosed him back up with reality. He and Loretta had now, but they had no future. He knew he had to face that, prepare for it, accept it – he simply wasn't ready to just yet.

He climbed the darkened twelve steps and let himself into his house. After turning on the light in the hallway he went to the closet, removed his flight jacket, hung it up. The thermostat on the wall read sixty-one degrees – without his jacket on it felt like ten below. He moved the heater lever all the way to the right and within moments heard the heater kick in, felt air begin to move around him. The furnace had a distinctive smell when it hadn't been turned on in a while and it kicked in now, dusty and stale.

He stood as though rooted in front of the thermostat for a long time. Something had stopped him dead. It wasn't a specific thought, or a thought at all. He just didn't move. There was nothing to move for – if everything stopped now, nothing would ever get worse.

Or better.

He was in the kitchen, more lights on, getting more tea – habits, habits. He didn't want to drink any more tea, but, all alone now, he found himself afraid – no, not afraid, nervous - that if he stopped doing things he would just stop, period.

The water wasn't boiling yet. He went back into the kids' hall and checked the two rooms, the closets, the lock on the back door. In his bedroom, the photograph of Flo was still turned down on his bureau and he picked it up, staring at the once-so-familiar face for a long time.

The light on his message machine was blinking and he walked over to it, pushed the button.

'Dad. Hi. It's Isaac. Grandpa says he thinks we should stay down here another couple days and we were thinking… like if you've got the weekend, it's not that far, I mean you could be down here in a couple of hours.' A pause. 'If you want. I mean, we'd like it. Okay?'

Something rushing up at him, Glitsky pushed the stop button, sat down heavily on his bed, his back bent, holding his forehead in his hands.

He talked to all the boys – Isaac, Jacob, Orel – hearing the difference in the way they talked. Only two days with his father and they were back to the way they used to be with him and Flo, back before he had begun to think only in terms of their protection. He had to stop thinking like that. Had to.

His father Nat came on. They were having a great time. They'd gone to the Aquarium again, a minor-league baseball game, bought eight Dungeness crabs…

'Eight?'

…and shelled and eaten them on the breakwater.

'… not kosher I know, but, Abraham, I tell you, crabs like these, Solomon would have eaten these crabs, believe me.'

Tomorrow they were going to temple in the morning, 'since I don't think these boys, they're going so much, am I right? It can not hurt them.' Did Abe think he could make it down to Monterey? It was the boys' idea – they missed him. Nat lowered his voice. 'Even Isaac,' he said, 'he misses you.'

He would try. If he could clear up the Kevin Shea thing by, say, noon, there was a chance…

Some more tea wouldn't be so bad after all. Get some sleep, big day tomorrow. Back in the bedroom with the steaming mug – no porcelain daintiness this time.

He pushed the answering-machine button again.

'Lieutenant, this is Chief Rigby and this is an official call. I don't know what the hell you've been doing, but I thought I'd made it clear to you this morning that you were relieved of your duties in the Kevin Shea matter. So imagine my surprise when I just now got a call from Alan Reston' – Rigby's volume was going up – 'and he tells me he has unimpeachable evidence that you're working with Kevin Shea's lawyer, that you're offering Kevin Shea immunity from prosecution, that you've even volunteered to testify on Kevin Shea's fucking behalf. Unimpeachable evidence, do you understand, Lieutenant?'