John Lescroart - The Vig

He touched the corner of her mouth with a finger, lifting it as he would do to a baby. "A little smile," he repeated.

She tried, and he pushed again at her lip, playfully. The smile, when it came, nearly broke his heart.

He would have to deal with Johnny LaGuardia.

Flo Glitsky and Frannie Cochran were doing dishes together. They watched Dismas and Abe walking in the small playground that bordered the backyard the Glitskys shared with their neighbors downstairs. They had moved into the duplex when O.J. was born, unable then, as they still were, to afford their own house on Abe's salary in San Francisco.

Now, of course, there was no chance at all, but the duplex was rent-controlled and they paid less than most everybody else they knew. Her own house was one of the dreams Flo wasn't going to get, but she had her three healthy boys and her man who loved her, and if that was the trade, she'd take it any day.

"Are you really leaving?" Frannie asked her.

It was all that had been on Flo's mind for the last two days. She had never seen Abe this down. He had actually applied to the Los Angeles Police Department and was talking about moving there as if it were settled. All Flo knew about L.A. was that if Abe thought housing was high here, they wouldn't stand a chance there. And she'd heard the public schools there were in bad shape-the teachers mere truant officers whose jobs were to keep kids off drugs and off the street until three o'clock. And not only didn't Flo believe in private schools, she knew they wouldn't be able to afford one anyway. And her boys were all smart.

Flo shook her head. "I'll let Abe work out what he has to, and then I guess we'll make some decision."

"That's how you do it, isn't it?" Frannie said. "That was always it with me and Eddie. What he wanted and what I wanted, back and forth, until we got somewhere together." She wiped at a soapy plate. "I've gotten out of that habit. I miss it, I think."

Flo took the plate from her, starting to dry it. "How long has it been now?"

"Four and a half months."

Flo, like the other cops' wives Frannie knew, didn't let herself think too often about losing her husband. It was a possibility that came with the territory, and you accepted it and went on if you wanted to stay together.

"You're holding up better than I would," Flo said.

Abe kicked at the tanbark under the swing he and Hardy were on. His arms were looped around the chains and as he kicked he rotated from side to side, facing Hardy then turning away.

"How are you gonna be a good cop anywhere if you don't care?"

"How many guys care?"

Hardy waited on the rotation, until Abe was faced back toward him. "I think about four, but you were always one of them."

Glitsky, spinning now on the swing, shook his head. "Now I'm a professional policeperson. I go where they pay me to. Enforce the law."

"And the brass decide?"

"Correcto."

Hardy did a pull-up on the A-frame of the swing. He did another one, the two big guys playing on the monkey bars.

"Besides," Abe said, "Lanier is handling it. They'll pass off my cases to McFadden 'cause he's the other solo, and Baker will go down like he should. Order will be restored to the cosmos."

Hardy was hanging full-length from the frame. "You reading Shakespeare again?"

Glitsky stood out of the swing. "Criticism. The Tragic Fallacy by Krutch. You ought to check it out. Says there can't be any tragedy unless there's a Zeitgeist of ultimate order that can be destroyed and then restored."

"Zeitgeist," Hardy said.

"Kraut word. Means the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era, such as our very own, for example."

"I know what the fuck it means, Abe. I'm a college graduate."

"So that's why we don't have any modern tragedy. We don't believe in the importance of any one individual anymore. Since nobody screwing up can destroy the order of the cosmos, then nobody getting enlightened can restore it, see?"

"I was just thinking about this yesterday."

Glitsky cast a sideways glance at his friend. "So how'd we get on this anyway?"

"You said Louis Baker going down will restore order to the cosmos."

Glitsky nodded. "Yeah, right. Let's go get another couple of beers."

They headed back to the house, but Hardy still couldn't let it go. "But my problem is the blindside thing-it was like 'what girl?' "

"Maybe he was concentrating on Rusty so hard he didn't even notice Maxine."

"You don't notice a naked woman you have to shoot three times?"

Glitsky stopped again by the back door. They stood on a square of porch, hands in their pockets. The boys were playing somewhere within earshot, maybe around the front of the house. Hardy blew out, surprised to see a vapor trail. The chill had come in fast-a high-pressure cold that had wiped the sky almost purple.

"Okay, so he noticed her."

"But, Abe, that's my point. Baker said he had no idea what I was talking about when I said a woman had been killed at Rusty's. And he sounded convincing, even to these ears."

Glitsky shrugged. "He was lying."

"I don't think so."

"Well, that's your problem."

"And if he wasn't, it means he wasn't there when Rusty got shot."

"Diz. Listen up now. His prints were there."

"Jesus, Abe, my prints were there, too."

"A-ha!" Abe raised a forefinger. "Another hot lead in the case."

"You can laugh."

"I do laugh, Diz. Dig it. Yesterday you were the personification of outraged public crying for the head of Louis Baker. I, modestly, represented the restraining force of law in our society-"

"You got a pair of boots?"

"What?"

"It gets any deeper, I'm gonna need boots."

Glitsky put an arm around his friend's shoulder. "I am making a point. And the point is that we, we the police, aren't supposed to go flip-flopping according to the whims of the public we're supposed to protect. That, old buddy, includes you. Yesterday you thought Louis Baker was guilty of everything you could think of. Today, what? You're trying to have me check out these other suspects just after I find out-and for the first time-that Louis is finally in fact a righteous suspect? Prints at Rusty's. Puts him there. Now he's got a motive. He's got opportunity. Now he's a suspect, and now you want me to drop him? There is some irony here."

"I don't want you to drop him. I just thought in your thirst for justice you might want to be completely thorough-"

Glitsky blew out through tight lips. "I'm the one who has been thorough here all along. I continue to be. But several things have changed since just yesterday. One, Louis got himself a gun and did some B and E. This makes his rehabilitation in prison somewhat suspect-at least to me. Second, he was in fact at Rusty's. We knew neither of these things yesterday, and knowing them now moves old Louis up several rungs on the maybe-he's-guilty ladder. I really would like a beer."

But Hardy didn't move when Abe pushed at the door. Glitsky sighed. "Okay, what?"

"You've looked at Medina already. Who is Johnny LaGuardia? Where does Ray Weir fit into all this? There's just things you as a cop can do that I can't."

"Thousands."

"Well, shit, Abe. Do a few of them."

Abe shook his head. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because I am out of here, Diz. Gone. Los Angeles may need me and that is another jurisdiction. These aren't going to be my cases and I don't need the aggravation. Plus, I think there's a good chance that our Louis Baker in fact did all this, and there's enough to bring him in on it, and after that it's up to the D.A. and twelve of Louis's peers, if they can find them." He pushed at the door again. "It's no longer police business and certainly not mine. Now, you want a beer or what?" But he stopped again. "Besides, why do you care? Baker is off the street. Go back to work. Let the wheels of justice grind fine, why the hell don't you?"