John Lescroart - The First Law

"They're both Panos, Jeff."

"I'm not saying they're not. I'm perfectly willing to believe that they are. Just tell me how, that's all."

Hardy slumped back in the chair, drew a heavy breath and started at the beginning. Ten minutes later, he'd laid it all out. He brought his right hand up to his forehead and squeezed at his temples, sighed a last time, looked across at Elliott. "Don't think I don't realize how bad this sounds, Jeff. But it's not John. He didn't break my windshield. He didn't hire some stooges to take shots at both of us. This is Panos and his gang." He lifted himself from his slump, came forward urgently. "And I can't get a soul to believe me. How am I going to stop them before they try it again?"

Elliot held his coffee still on the arm of his wheelchair. He'd given up all pretense of note-taking. Now, to buy himself another few seconds, he sipped at the cup. "Here's the thing, Diz. I believe you. Just so that's out of the way between you and me. Okay? Okay. Absolute belief. You say it, I buy it. Good enough?"

Hardy nodded.

"Good. But that said, the question now becomes what can I do to help you? Which I would love to do if for no other reason than it's a terrific story."

"So write it up. Crime boss bamboozles city hall. You'll win the Pulitzer Prize."

"That'll be fun," Jeff said. "But first I need one little thing that an objective party, such as my editor, might take as evidence that there is something real here, and not just the wild conjecture of a defense attorney who wants to get his client off. No offense."

"No. Of course not. None taken."

"But we're talking murder here, Diz. Multiple and very ugly murder. And Wade Panos isn't some small-time gangster. If I print any part of this without some show of proof… well, you know this."

"What do you need?"

"Not much," Elliot said. "But you've got an enormous big edifice going here. It's going to need at least a little tiny foundation in unassailable fact."

Hardy took another run at it, pointing out the various holes in the police case-the planted rings at Holiday's, along with Sadie's testimony and Cuneo's interpretation of it; the slightly off-size, fashionable Italian shoe; Thieu's checkup on and belief in Holiday's alibi.

At the end of it, Elliot was frowning. "None of which, I'm sad to say, rises to the level of proof."

Hardy had gotten out of his chair, was creaking around the office. Elliott's words stopped him over by the dart-board. "They can't have done this so well. If somebody searched their places…"

But Elliot was shaking his head. "Who? And why? You need something to start with." He closed his notepad. "Maybe next time they'll make a mistake."

"Maybe next time will be me, Jeff. Or Abe. And maybe next time they won't miss. I don't want any next time."

"I hear you." Elliot looked toward the window. Dusk had settled. He looked at his watch. "I don't mean to run, but I've got to go. Dorothy batters me horribly if dinner's done and I'm not home."

Out at the elevator, Hardy pushed the button for the basement, then stepped out in the hall. As the door started to close, Jeff wheeled forward a couple of inches and stopped it. He looked up at Hardy. "The first thing you do, the first bit of real evidence you find, you call me, hear?"

Thirty people, more or less, had gathered in the Solarium. Some, like Graham Russo and Amy Wu, were Hardy's friends. Some of the others-Phyllis and Norma, for example-had been at best politely adversarial. The rest comprised a pretty decent microcosm of the adult world. The ages ranged from perhaps twenty to Phyllis's sixty-something. A quick glance around revealed every major ethnic configuration, about half men and half women. Hardy thought it ironic that Freeman, who found San Francisco's endemic, runaway political correctness as offensive as affirmative action of any kind, had staffed his own firm with such an incredibly diverse talent pool.

As Hardy came into the conference area, stooped and drained, he gathered some sense of the room's expectation. He might be an outcast in the other professional aspect of his life, but here he felt a strong and unexpected acceptance, mixed with a real pride that he was affiliated with this quality group of individuals. He wasn't really part of them, yet clearly he had their respect-everyone had gathered to hear him. Someone closed the door behind them all and after a minute, the room was silent. Hardy stood at the head of the oblong table, made eye contact with Norma, Graham, Amy, some others, and in his natural voice, began.

"We've all been attacked," he said. "We feel violated, angry and victimized. We're all of us afraid of what's going to happen next, whether it's tomorrow or next week, or even beyond that. We've all been working hard on projects and cases that may now have to be abandoned, and we're wondering what will have been the point of all those hours and all that work. All I can say is that the value of the things we do lies in doing them as well as we can, and that what we continue to do does matter.

"I know that we are all hoping and praying that things here will return to normal. But we must face the possibility that they may not.

"So the real question is how we, all of us, deal with this uncertainty and this changing order. My only suggestion is that we take solace and comfort in our families and friends, our faiths if we have them, and our work. If it all ends here tomorrow-and it might-then we'll at least have had the satisfaction of knowing that we've done everything we can to preserve a great legacy with integrity and class. If things do change, we'll be no less ready to deal with that change for having kept up our spirits. If on the other hand life here returns to normal, how proud we'll all be of the fact that when everything looked the darkest, we held our course."

Treya and Abe Glitsky sat in their car where she'd parked it near their place. Her last few comments sounded like she was defending Clarence Jackman and Abe wasn't much in the mood to hear it. "So he accuses me and Diz instead?"

"He's not under the impression that he did that."

"Then he wasn't paying attention."

"Well," she said, "he's politically bound. Don't look at me like that; I'm completely with you on this. I'm just explaining his position. And for the record, I think it stinks. I'm well into serious anger myself. What else does he expect you to do?"

"That's easy. Stay completely out of it."

"Can you do that? Do you want to?"

"I don't know," he said. "I keep telling myself it isn't my case. It has nothing to do with me."

"Except that they shot at Diz."

"And beat up Freeman. And maybe had something to do with this prostitute who hanged herself. And nobody seems to be trying to stop them."

"Which still doesn't make it your job, does it?" She reached over and touched his leg. "That's not a criticism. It's a real question."

He put his hand over hers. "Okay, here's where we are then, it seems to me: Diz tells me the lawsuit is pretty much over. The attacks on Freeman and Aretha and maybe Diz worked. Let's say it is Nick Sephia and his pals. They're done on that score, right? Nobody caught them, but the threat's over. They don't need to do anything else. So I can let that go, clear conscience, not my job. You with me?"

"All right."

"But the other side, where's Holiday in the picture? That part's not over, not even close. Even leaving out whoever killed everybody in the line leading from Silverman, meaning Creed and Wills and Terry, they've still got to take out Holiday if they want to be able to rest easy. And maybe knock off Diz."

"And maybe you, too."

Glitsky pulled at an ear. "Okay, maybe that. But it doesn't change the fact. They're going to have to try to get to Holiday. And maybe Diz after him. So, given that, if there's some way I can help stop them, I don't see how I can keep out of it."