John Lescroart - The First Law

"Hey, Mattie." Creed hated the diminutive, and had committed the cardinal error of mentioning it once to Roy, thereby assuring that he'd forever be Mattie, or Little Matt, or Mataroni. In any event, it was hard to stay mad at Roy, who was always hale fellow well met and tonight so much so that Creed wondered if he'd been drinking. Or maybe he was nervous. "I was just telling the guys here-you know Nick and Julio… no? Julio Rez, Matt Creed."

Creed reached across the table and shook hands with a very well-dressed, overshaved, alert and unsmiling Hispanic with a little less than half of his left ear. "Nice," he said as though adding "to meet you" would have been excessive.

Creed had a quick impression of danger, of suppressed energy, maybe of cocaine. He wondered if Nick, who'd moved into the stratosphere of security positions transporting diamonds, now had his own bodyguard. When Rez had leaned across to take Creed's hand, his coat had fallen open, revealing a shoulder holster and the butt of an automatic.

But this was the observation of a split second. Roy was back carrying the conversation. "I was just telling these guys about you. I mean, here I've been doing this work, what, fifteen years, and it's shine the flashlight, see nothing, go to the next window and do it again. Mattie here, he's on less than a year, he comes round the corner-blam! blam!-couple of rounds right at him, guys running, him chasing, the fucking Wild West. Awesome action."

"Anytime you want, I'll trade you," Creed said. "I took the job for the flashlight work."

"You don't like gettin' shot at?" Sephia asked. "I love it, you know that, swear to God. Makes me horny as hell."

"Anything doesn't make you horny, Nick?" Roy asked.

Sephia considered briefly. "Nothing comes to mind," he said.

But Rez turned to Creed. "Roy said you fingered those assholes at the Ark," he said. It wasn't quite a question. It sounded more like a challenge, but then Rez had made the single word "nice" sound the same way.

"Fingered might be a little strong," he said.

"He's being modest," Roy said. "He set 'em all up to go down. Holiday, Terry, his little girlfriend, what's his name?"

"Randy Wills." Rez didn't have to think. He had it all in his head. He might have been an accountant.

"Wills, Terry, Holiday, all of 'em," Roy repeated. "Not only does the kid get himself shot at a few times, he solves a murder before his first anniversary."

"Not exactly that."

But Roy pushed it. "Hey, it's true, Matoosh. After your ID the other night, those guys are going down for a long time."

"Yeah, well…"

"You don't seem so happy about it," Rez said. He leaned in across the table, a tight smile fixed under a glassy cat's-eye stare.

Creed felt a line of sweat forming at the back of his neck. "The thing is, it might not have been them."

Roy snorted, half laughing. "What are you talking about? Of course it was them. You're the one who saw them, didn't you? How could it not be them?"

But now, having gotten it out, Creed continued in a rush. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Do you know a Lieutenant Glitsky?

"

Roy nodded. "Sure. He used to run homicide. What about him?"

"Well, his father was a friend of Silverman's and they were by there tonight."

"Who was by where?" Rez asked.

"Glitsky and his father. And Silverman's wife. At the shop."

"Doing what?" Sephia's color was suddenly up.

Creed shook his head. "Nothing, really. They never got to it. They were going to do an inventory, but barely got started before Glitsky got there and cleared them out."

"There you go," Roy said, as though he were satisfied with the answer. "So Glitsky's working the case now? What's that about?"

"No. I think he was just there because of his father. But outside, after, I asked him what if I wasn't as sure as I sounded about the three guys with the other inspectors."

"And what'd he say?"

A shrug. "He said just to tell them. Not a big issue. They'd be glad about it."

"Wait wait wait, not if…" Sephia said.

But Roy raised a hand-firmly. Made eye contact across the table. "Exactly right!" he said. Then, in a milder tone. "Exactly right." He smiled a shut-up warning at Sephia and Rez. "No way they want to spend all that time chasing the wrong guys." Back to Creed. "But you're sure this time? You seemed pretty certain the other way the other night."

Creed shook his head miserably. "I don't even know that. It still could have been them, I suppose. I just didn't want them-the inspectors-thinking I was positive, basing their case on what I said

…" He scratched at the tabletop.

Roy nodded in full agreement. "Hey, bottom line is Glitsky's right. You got to tell them. In fact, I'm meeting up with them later tonight down at the Hall." Roy tapped his own pocket. "Wade's little PR moment for our good friends among the police. Forty-niner tickets, fifty yard line. You want, I'll pass the message on for you when I see them."

Creed felt a wash of grateful relief and it showed. Roy Panos was far better with people, especially with city policemen, than he was. Roy could phrase Creed's ambivalence about the ID in such a way as to minimize the idiocy factor, maybe even give it a rosy gloss. Certainly, Creed himself could avoid the embarrassment of having to face the inspectors and admit that in his zeal to be a help, he'd screwed up. "You sure?" he asked Roy. "You'd do that?"

Roy smiled and took a pinch of Creed's cheek. "Hey, anything for my little Matooshka. Huh?"

Creed took this as his cue to leave. He slid out of the booth and said good-bye all around. But he wasn't completely out the door to the coffee shop when Nick leaned across the table. "He can't take back that ID, Roy." He was whispering, but with great intensity. "That's the thing that's keeping the inspectors busy."

Roy picked up his coffee cup, sipped at it. "He's not taking back the ID," he said.

Sephia hit the table for emphasis. "Hello. Roy? He just told us he was."

Roy finished his sip, slowly put the cup down. "I don't know if you heard me, but I said I'd tell the two inspectors. And I'm going to forget."

"Not enough," Rez said.

"It would still screw it all up," Sephia said.

"He still knows." Rez methodically turned his own mug around and around on the table.

Roy shook his head. "Look, guys, Creed doesn't know anything. Don't go all paranoid around this. Even if he somehow gets back himself with Cuneo and Russell and says the ID on Terry isn't positive, so what?"

"Maybe he gets them thinking," Rez said. Still spinning the mug, never looking up.

"It's not going to happen, especially since I'm not passing it on."

"I still don't like it," Sephia said.

Rez nodded in agreement, finally looked over at Sephia. "Creed's a problem," he said.

"Creed's not a problem! He thinks it might not have been Terry. That's all."

"But if he can't talk at all, it doesn't even get to that," Sephia said.

"Don't you guys be stupid," Roy said. "This is under control; I'm telling you."

Rez slowly brought his empty gaze around across the table to Roy. He nodded his head once, a dismissal. "Oh, okay," he said.

"Is this the same man who prides himself on living According to John Kennedy's old motto of never explain, never complain? I've only heard you say those words about a hundred and fourteen times now."

"I'm sure I meant them every single time, too."

"Well?"

"Well, this particular fine day"-and it was, the good weather continuing as they drove together into work-"I'm going to have to do some explaining before I can succeed in doing some real good."

"The explaining part will neither be appreciated nor understood. And neither will the real good, if in fact that's what it is."