John Lescroart - The First Law
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- Название:The First Law
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"Yes."
"Well, if I could stop it before it could get to you, if it got to that…" He didn't finish. "I'm speaking hypothetically, now, Beck. But there's absolutely no way I'd let anybody hurt you."
Her tentative question nearly brought him to tears. "So what are we going to do?"
"I'm not completely sure yet, hon. But your mother and I, we're going to take care of you, no matter what. Maybe," he said, "if I can get myself to abandon John Holiday…"
"But you can't do that. He's your friend."
"Right." Out of the mouths of babes, Hardy thought. "I know. But maybe I can make them think I stopped." He stopped himself again. He was about to say, "Then set some kind of trap for them." "But look," he did say, "let's believe for a minute there's a really pretty decent chance that in a day or two they'll have these people in jail."
"And then they won't be after us?"
"No." He chucked her gently under her chin. "But they're probably already not after you now, not really."
She looked up at him hopefully. "Promise?"
Hardy hesitated. They had a rule about a promise being a promise, sacred and unbreakable. "I really don't think so," he finally said.
He felt a small shudder pass through her. "That's not a promise."
"No, I know," he said. "But close."
29
Hardy pushed open the street level door to the Freeman building. He crossed the foyer and got to the top of the staircase, then stood still a moment where it opened into the reception lobby. For the first time since the attack on David, he felt some sense of life here again. A half dozen people in the Solarium appeared to be taking depositions; three of the associates and a couple of paralegals stood by the coffee machine, deep in conversation; the steady whine of the copying machines filled in the background noise. Maybe he'd just happened upon a flurry, but the telephones kept Phyllis's head down and hands busy.
"Mr. Hardy. Dismas." Suddenly Norma appeared at his elbow. "We missed you yesterday. Is everything all right?"
He didn't know the answer to that. Certainly everything didn't feel all right. His family was still in hiding at McGuire's. He was going on less than four hours' sleep. Freeman was still unconscious. He hadn't heard that Sephia and Panos had been arrested.
"I mean, you never came in," she said. "Some of us were worried."
"I had some work out of the office," he said. "It hung me up all day." Smiling politely, he pointed across the lobby to the other set of stairs that led to his office. "I don't even want to look at the clutter on my desk, but I'd better get on up there."
"Of course, but I… I wanted to thank you."
"For what?"
"For your inspiration the other night." She gestured vaguely around the lobby, the steady hum of industry.
"Well." In truth, after Hardy had finished his little speech on Friday night, the Solarium hadn't exactly exploded into wild applause. He'd told everybody good night and gotten out of there as quickly as he could, slightly embarrassed that he'd gotten caught up in the moment and exposed himself so openly as basically uncool. He felt sure that he'd given some of the younger people, especially, but also a few of the more cynical associates and paralegals, fuel for the fires of ridicule. He could easily imagine the snickering after he left. All in all, he wished he hadn't done it at all, or failing that, that he'd thought of something light and gotten everybody laughing.
But now Norma had her hand on his arm. "You shouldn't be modest. Look what that did for everybody here."
Hardy couldn't deny that the buzz was better, but… "I don't really think that was me."
"Well, be that as it may," Norma said, "everybody else does. And I just wanted to thank you again, to tell you how much it meant to me. And to the firm. It was the perfect note. You can see the results for yourself. Look around."
Hardy had already seen enough, and it did gratify him. With David in the hospital, though, and so many other problems hanging fire, he wasn't quite ready to do cartwheels. Still, he gave the lobby a last glance. "Well," he said, "I'm glad I could help. And now"-he pointed again-"the grind awaits."
He crossed over to the reception area, looked a question at Phyllis, who held up a finger, asking him to wait. After an impressive trifecta of "Freeman and Associates, would you please hold," got the switchboard under control, she looked up and actually smiled as though she were happy to see him. New ground. "Lieutenant Glitsky has already called three times this morning. He says it's urgent."
Glitsky had found out about Thieu when he opened the morning paper and read about his apparent suicide. It didn't much convince him. Or rather, it finally did convince him of what he'd begun strongly to suspect. He decided on the spot that he wasn't going into his office again today. A sworn policeman with a clear duty, he was going to do some real police work at last, on his own if need be. Hardy had already talked to Holiday, continuing in his counsel that the client should stay out of sight, don't worry, they'd found strong evidence that might clear him before too long. He should just remain patient. By the time Gina Roake called, Hardy was on the other line with his second judge of the morning, Oscar Thomasino. The first one, this week's magistrate Timothy Hill, had shot him down about quashing Holiday's arrest warrant almost before Hardy got the question out. "Surrender your client, Diz. Then we litigate. That's the process and you know it."
And Thomasino, who'd known and respected Hardy for many years, told him he didn't see what he could do. He'd be happy to put in a good word to Jackman or Batiste on Hardy's basic trustworthiness, even Glitsky's, but didn't think it would serve much purpose.
When he finally got back to Gina at her office, filling him in about her talk with Hector Blanca, specifically about the helicopter to Nevada, she was in a clear and quiet rage. The General Work inspector had told her that he'd really like to help, but that the consensus among his superiors, and he tended to agree, was that the supposed attack on Hardy and John Holiday never took place at all.
As to David Freeman, Blanca had just checked with the hospital this morning and he was very, very sorry-maybe Ms. Roake hadn't heard?-but Freeman seemed to be going into renal failure. His kidneys hadn't produced more than a teaspoon of urine overnight. Blanca liked Roake right away, and was possibly more straightforward than he would have been with someone else. Very probably, he told her, this would soon be a murder case, and hence outside of Blanca's jurisdiction. But by all means, Gina should bring her suspicions to homicide.
Hardy took her phone call as an opportunity to bring her up to date and she heard him out. She'd really been unaware of the escalations- the threats to the families, the probable murder of Paul Thieu. It seemed to galvanize her somehow, and when she heard that Glitsky would be at Hardy's office to discuss possibilities, she told him she was coming, too. Something had to be done and she wanted to be in on whatever it was. Hardy told her to come right on up.
So at a little before noon on a blustery and overcast Wednesday morning, Glitsky, Roake and Hardy had all gathered and now they sat in varying degrees of unease around the coffee table in Hardy's office. Hardy had put on a pot and two of them were drinking coffee.
Glitsky, of course, had his tea. Facing Hardy's office door, he was explaining that after he read about Thieu this morning, he had finally been driven to speak to Special Agent Bill Schuyler of the FBI, who had expressed interest in Abe's theory, but who said it would take at least a couple of days to arrange any kind of task force, and that's if he could get his field director's approval. Was Glitsky really saying he believed the head of homicide was involved in cover-up and murder? This could be a lot of fun, Schuyler agreed, but it was going to take a degree of manpower and some time.
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