Bill Pronzini: Breakdown

“Coleman confirms it,” I said. “Eberhardt and I talked to him an hour ago.”

“So. If Pendarves was wrong once in making a ‘positive’ identification, he could just as easily be wrong twice.”

“It’s a nice legal point, anyway.”

“Mmm. It almost makes me wish Pendarves had filed a police report. Which he hasn’t yet, or I would have heard about it.”

“You don’t really want it in the public record, do you?”

“Only if it can be proven beyond a doubt that there wasn’t a deliberate attempt on Pendarves’s life. I find it hard to believe that Mr. Lujack would hire someone to run down Pendarves with a car, but a jury might not. Juries are unpredictable, especially in a homicide trial.”

“I don’t see any way of proving it now,” I said.

“No, neither do I.”

“I take it Pendarves hasn’t tried to contact Thomas since last night?”

“No.”

“With any luck, he won’t. What was Thomas’s reaction when you told him about the incident?”

“Shock, dismay, anger. He sounded genuinely upset.”

“He won’t do anything rash, will he?”

“I warned him against it.”

“Then Pendarves is the only one we have to worry about. He may just let the whole thing slide, but I wouldn’t want to bet on it.”

“Would it do any good for you to talk to him?”

“I doubt it. But I’ll give it a try tonight.” I glanced at my watch; it was twenty of four. “There’s something you should know before Thomas gets here,” I said, “something Eberhardt found out today from a coworker of Pendarves’s named Antonio Rivas. I don’t know that it has anything to do with Frank Hanauer’s murder, but it’s a possibility.” I went on to tell him about the illegals situation at Containers, Inc.

Glickman had one of those unreadable courtroom faces, an attribute that helped make him a good trial attorney, but I could tell from the clipped way he said “Mr. Lujack should have seen fit to tell us that himself” that he didn’t like the news any better than I did.

“His brother claims they kept quiet because it couldn’t have any bearing on Hanauer’s murder. The real reason is they were afraid it would leak out to the INS.”

“If it becomes a matter of public record now, it could have a prejudicial effect on our case.”

“Unless it relates to the homicide in a way that proves Thomas innocent.”

“Do you think it might?”

“Too soon for me to say. How would you’ve handled the illegals thing if the Lujacks had owned up in the beginning?”

“Advised them to turn themselves in immediately,” Glickman said. “And to issue a statement to the media that they were doing so voluntarily, as an act of contrition. The public approves of voluntary confessions of minor sins, if they’re done at the right time for the right reasons; it would have helped Thomas’s credibility. Going public at this late date would have the opposite effect, I’m afraid. The prosecution would see to it if the case does go to trial.”

“So how do you handle it now?”

“That depends. On what Mr. Lujack has to tell us, and whether or not you can establish a link between the illegals matter and the death of Frank Hanauer.”

Thomas Lujack showed up ten minutes late and full of apologies. “Traffic’s snarled on the Bay Bridge,” he said. “People drive like idiots in bad weather.” He pumped my hand, pumped Glickman’s, hung his damp London Fog trench coat on an antique clothes tree, and plunked himself down on another of the visitors’ chairs.

He was a couple of years younger than his brother, and far more stylish in his appearance and dress. Longish fox-brown hair, swept back on both sides in thick wings; silky-looking mustache that partially concealed a weak mouth. Wearing a Harris tweed sport coat today, over a mint-green shirt and designer jeans, with a couple of flashy gold chains looped around his neck. He made me feel rumpled and outmoded by comparison. He even managed to make Glickman look stuffy and bourgeois, like a Capitol Hill Republican.

Usually he had an easy, breezy way about him that may have been natural and may have been calculated for effect. The past couple of times I’d seen him, though, he’d been as fidgety as his brother. Today he couldn’t seem to keep his hands still; they plucked at the creases in his trousers, touched his face, touched his hair, drummed at the arms of the chair, fiddled with the gold chains.

He said to me, “I guess Paul’s told you I was at Coleman’s until nine last night.”

“He told me,” I said. “So did Coleman.”

“Ah? You talked to him? Well, good, good. Then you know I had nothing to do with what happened to Pendarves. If anything happened. I doubt it, myself.”

“You go straight home after you left Coleman’s?”

“Sure. Straight home.”

“I called your house at a quarter of ten. There was no answer.”

“Quarter of ten last night? That was about when I got there. You must have just missed me.”

“Uh-huh. Where was your wife? Coleman said you called her before you left his place.”

“At a friend’s. I picked her up on the way. I’ve been using her car since … well, since December fifth. She’s got a rental but she doesn’t like to drive much.”

I watched his hands dip and flutter. The nervousness didn’t have to mean anything. Hell, if I were facing one vehicular homicide rap, and had just been accused of another by the star witness in the first case, I wouldn’t be sitting still either.

I said, “You have any contact with Pendarves in the past three weeks? Any kind at all?”

“Christ, no. You think I want anything to do with that schmuck?”

“You might have tried to talk to him, see if you could convince him he was wrong about what he saw.”

“Uh-uh. No way. Paul warned me against that.”

“Suppose Pendarves tries to talk to you about last night. How do you handle him?”

“I don’t,” Thomas said. “I steer clear of him.”

“And if he makes any overt threat or action?”

“I report it to Paul immediately.”

Glickman’s hard steady gaze was fixed on his client. After a few seconds he said, “Now then, Mr. Lujack. We’ll discuss your practice of hiring illegal aliens.”

Thomas sat still for a couple of beats, showing no reaction. Then his hands began to move restlessly again, and he smiled in a wry and self-deprecating way. “So you found out about that.”

“Did you think we wouldn’t?”

“Well, I hoped not. It’s not something I’m proud of.”

“Why didn’t you confide in me?”

“I didn’t see any reason to. Neither did Coleman. Why open up a can of worms if you don’t have to?”

“If it’s opened publicly now,” Glickman said, “it won’t help you in court.”

“I know. But it’s not going to get opened publicly, not if we keep it among ourselves.”

I said, “What makes you so sure?”

“The INS hasn’t tumbled in six years. Why should they now?”

“Is that how long you’ve been employing illegals? Six years?”

“About.”

“Whose bright idea was it in the first place?”

“Does that matter?”

“It might. It ever occur to you that maybe there’s a connection between the illegals and Hanauer’s murder?”

“Oh, come on. What possible connection could there be?”

“You tell us, Mr. Lujack.”

“None. None at all.”

“Was it Hanauer’s idea?”

“To hire illegals? No. It was Coleman’s.”

“You and Hanauer approve it right away?”

“More or less. We were still on shaky financial ground in those days and it was a way to save ourselves thousands of dollars a year. Hell, like it or not, undocumented workers have become a common business option-”