John Lescroart - The Vig

"How's business?" he asked Dorothy, planting himself on a corner of her desk.

Before she could answer, Locke called from the other room. "Art!"

Drysdale shrugged. "We've got to do this more often," he said to Dorothy, then whispered, "do me a favor, love, and keep the phone quiet for about two minutes." He went back through the doors, closing them behind him.

"What?" Locke said. He was studying a file on his desk and didn't look up.

"That's why they keep electing you," Drysdale said. "The warm, charming exterior. The man behind the office."

Locke sighed, shaking his head, keeping it down. "What?" he repeated.

"You owe me a buck," Drysdale said.

It took a second, but then Locke stopped reading and brought his eyes up to meet Drysdale's. "Get out of here," he said.

"Swear to God."

"Gubicza agreed to it?"

"With conditions."

"What? That we don't ask any questions?"

"Nothing about Raines and Valenti."

"So what'd you do?"

"I agreed, of course."

"So what are you gonna do?"

"I said, and I quote, 'On my mother's grave I will never mention those names or anything about those cases.' "

"So how are you going to bring them up?"

Drysdale sipped at his coffee. "Well, I thought I'd have the polygraph set up downtown here. That way I'll avoid the temptation to go stand on my mother's grave, may she rest in peace. Which is where I said I wouldn't bring up the murder raps."

Samson wasn't really in Dido's class, or Louis Baker's. He had this sloppy way, heavy, not tight, with long dreadlocks none too clean, and didn't put out the kind of vibe Dido had done, where when it wasn't business he was okay. Dido could laugh and shoot a hoop or two. He bought Lace his shoes. Like that.

And even Baker, you could talk to him. Stuff about the cut, this an' that, the paint, the Mama. If Dido had to go, Lace could have maybe gone in with Louis-at least until Louis killed Dido. Then maybe not. But if Dido had just died, or moved on, 'stead of Louis having done it…

Yeah, but that hadn't gone down at all. Now they was both of 'em clear of the cut, and Samson was a whole different breed of badness moving in.

Like here Monday not yet noon, cold as the landlord, Lace and Jumpup only sitting at the curb and he come by just to show 'em and kick 'em into the street. Now what's that shit?

"This my cut now," he say, and they watch him walk, one end to the other, couple of his troops tagging.

Where they- he and Jumpup- s'pose to go now?

Nat Glitsky was seventy-two years old and spent most of his time now (since Emma had died) in the synagogue at Fulton and Arguello, which was where his son Abe had picked him up.

They drove north up Park Presidio through the city and took Lombard over to Van Ness, then to Broadway through the tunnel and into North Beach. Nat had a fondness for big Italian lunches, and if his son was paying you couldn't do better than Cap's, which had been serving the same meals since he was dating Emma. It had been one of the few good restaurants he could take her to that didn't mind having a black woman eating with the whites. Hard to remember those times, especially now when there was every kind of humanity seated at the tables.

Nat kept his yarmulke on but hung his jacket on the back of his chair. The waiter came and he said he'd have a Negroni-Campari, bitters and gin.

"How can you drink that medicine?" Abe asked after he'd ordered his iced tea.

Nat patted the hand of his only child. There certainly was a lot of Emma in him-she hadn't much cared for Negronis either. He wondered if maybe it was something about being part or all black. Negroni. Would he try to develop a taste for a drink called a Hymonie or a Kiker?

But his son was thrashing in deeper waters. All during the ride over here they'd been talking about Abe's projected move to Los Angeles. Nat wasn't for it. What was he going to do without his family around? But he didn't bring that up yet. No sense in getting all riled up about a maybe. And Abe was still just talking-he hadn't made up his mind. At least Nat didn't think so. Not yet…

And if Nat knew Abe, it wasn't so much even the move to L.A. that he needed to talk about. That was just a decision and Abe had never had a problem with decisions. At least, not to talk to his father about. What Abe had trouble with sometimes was lining up the crosshairs so he could get his bead on the real issue. Well, everybody had that problem, Nat thought. Decisions tended to make themselves once you had everything else lined up. Most people just didn't take the time, acted impulsively, made the wrong moves.

Not Abe, though, not usually, anyway. Which was why they were sitting here now.

Their drinks arrived and they clinked their glasses. "L'chaim."

Nat sipped, put the glass down and made a kissing sound two or three times, savoring the taste in his mouth. At least Abe looked well rested. And why not? He had Flo, the great kids, the important stuff worked out. But he listened while Abe kept repeating himself about his job this, the job that, nobody cared, some friend of his-Hardy-with a problem. Finally he held his hand up.

"So what are you saying here?" he asked, then shrugged. "The job isn't good? So change the job. You don't have to do the same job somewhere else."

"But I'm a cop, dad. It's what I do."

"You do something else. You're a man first. Am I right?"

"Yes, but…"

"Of course I am. Now you listen to me. How old are you? Not a child, okay? So. You know a job. A job is the same I don't care where you are. You telling me a cop in New York or Tel Aviv is different than a cop in San Francisco? Or Los Angeles? No. I don't believe it. More, I know it. Look at me. I am-before I retire-by the grace of God I have a trade. I can fix things. First I'm a kid in Delaware-Delaware! I know you know this but listen. I'm fixing bicycles and sewing machines in Delaware. I go to school. I can do things with engines and now they start calling me an engineer and I get a job in California in a little shop. So the shop gets bigger and they sell it to somebody else. I don't like how they do business. I move on. Another shop. Two, three. All the while I'm raising you and trying to keep your mother happy, which you and I know is some kind of full-time endeavor. And you know what I find? The job is a job. I don't care if it's old Mr Levine's shop on DuPont Street or Lockheed down in San Carlos. You do your job and you get paid so you can live your life. But your job is not your life."

Nat lifted his glass again, puckered, shook his finger at his son. "You should know this, Abraham. This is not nuclear physics we're discussing here."

Abe grinned, tightening the scar through his lips. "Okay. What else am I gonna do?"

"What do you wanna do?"

"I want to be a cop."

"You can't be a cop here in San Francisco?"

"What have I been telling you?"

"Tell the truth, I don't know. Some people are making gold bricks. Some others taking the easy way. So what? What does that have to do with you?"

"It affects how I do my job."

"Why is that? You tell me why that is."

"Come on, dad. There's all kinds of cooperation needed to finish a case, any case."

"Baloney. Excuse me, Abraham, but kosher baloney."

Abe shook his head. "You don't know."

"I don't know? You telling me I don't know?" He reached over the small table and rested his hand over his son's. "Look, twenty years ago, you're in school, your mother's starting to get sick, they hire a new supervisor they call a vice-president at the Ford plant over to Fremont, you remember the place. So the new man tells me-I am quality control manager at this time-he tells me we have to cut costs, don't spend so much time checking everything. I tell him cut costs doesn't mean cut corners. He looks at me like I'm from Mars. We got to cut costs, he says. Bottom line. So. It's my job. I can't quit. I mean, I can, but is it worth it for the trouble to you and your mother? No, it's not."