John Lescroart - Dead Irish

He dictated a memo on that, then put the handheld tape recorder into its holder on the dashboard. That was enough business. And it had been a good day.

Until that fellow Hardy had come back. And thinking of that, he almost got mad again. Why had Jeffrey told Hardy he had known Ed Cochran? And how had he, Cruz, then been so stupid as to deny it? The day before, he’d told the other inspector, Giometti, that they’d been business acquaintances. Well, that’s probably what Hardy had come back for, about that inconsistency.

Cruz would just say-now that he’d examined it-that he thought Hardy had been talking about a personal relationship between him and Cochran. That would take care of it. But in any event, he had to clear up the misunderstanding with Jeffrey.

He turned his car left onto Market, lowered the visor against the setting sun. He should have taken care of it today, but with Jeffrey coming back, he’d been so happy, it had just slipped his mind. That wouldn’t do, he thought. That kind of carelessness.

He would have to watch it. And, uncomfortable though it might be, he would have to talk to Jeffrey about it again. But this time it would be when he was relaxed. And he wouldn’t be angry -he’d simply explain it all very clearly so that all the nuances would be understood. Then, if Hardy or Giometti came around again, they’d be ready for him, and the questions could stop.

That was all he wanted, really. That the questions stop.

Hardy opened the door to Schroeder’s, an old-fashioned German restaurant downtown, and was nearly overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu. It had been a favorite haunt back in his post-cop days as an assistant D.A., before the divorce with Jane.

He realized he hadn’t been in the place since that time, maybe eight years before. He wasn’t at all surprised to find it hadn’t changed a bit. What was atypical, he knew, was how he felt-he actually wouldn’t mind casually running into someone. Almost anybody. And Schroeder’s had been that kind of place back then -off-duty cops, other D.A.s, reporters, attorneys who weren’t corporate and didn’t want to be. People hanging out, mingling, schmoozing over a few beers.

Tonight, if it worked out, he might get back in touch with the city he lived in. Or not. He thought it sort of interesting that he considered it.

Afterward, he wasn’t sure about the order of the two jolts. He had just gotten his Dortmunder and was looking around, enjoying the feel of things, when his ex-wife Jane stood up not forty feet from him across the room. That was the first one. Then came the sharp first tremor of the earthquake.

Hardy stood up and made his way through tables, away from Jane, until he got to the hallway leading back to the rest rooms.

It was a good shaker, perhaps a five or six, and it continued rolling as he walked. The restaurant became quiet as everyone held their breath. The chandeliers swung heavily and several glasses fell from the back of the bar. Hardy stood, in theory secure under a beam, and waited.

The tremor stopped, and after a round of nervous laughter, the room went back to being itself. Hardy watched Jane walk directly toward him.

She looked, after eight years, impossibly the same. Now thirty-four, she could have passed for twenty-five. Her face was still as unlined, unmarked by the passage of years, as a baby’s. That made sense, Hardy thought. It’s what lack of a sense of guilt could do for you.

She was still unaware of him, and he couldn’t help taking her in. Tall, slim, radiant dark hair casting highlights even in the dim room. Looking down slightly as she walked-graceful, serene. The face again, he kept coming back to the face, with its slightly Oriental cast, though no one knew where that had come from. It was really only a heaviness in the eyelids, but with the wide cheekbones, the rosebud lips, there was a geisha air. She was elegantly dressed, as always. Gold earrings. A blouse in pink silk, pleated dark blue skirt, low heels.

Now ten feet away, she finally looked up, and there it was, that million-dollar slow smile that had completely changed his life.

She stopped, looked, let the smile build just slowly enough to work on him. And it did. He found himself smiling back.

“Small world,” he said, his first words to her since he’d left their house.

Of course she would kiss him, hug him. But not gushing. Slow and savoring. An old, old and very dear friend. “You look wonderful,” she said. “How have you been? How are you? What are you doing now?”

He had to laugh. “I’m good, Jane. I’ve been fine.”

She touched his arm, smiled into his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m seeing you.”

She stopped, impulsively hugged him again.

Some sense-memory made him remember why it had been so hard to consider someone, anyone else. His whole being just responded to her. It wasn’t a social thing. He just looked at her and smiled, his life full and complete, like a moonstruck teenager.

But a half-dozen-plus years don’t, after all, go away without a trace. Whole new synapses had been created, and the warning janglings that he felt had become a part of his makeup were sounding like crazy.

“Who are you here with?”

She still held his arms, just above his elbows. “Just Daddy and some friends.”

Daddy. Judge Andy Fowler. The doyen of the San Francisco bench-who’d gotten Dismas his first interview for D.A., who’d been, during the troubles, a surprising confidant.

Then that sly look. “Why do you want to know?”

He told himself to stop smiling, dammit, but standing here so close to her, looking into her amused eyes, even now catching a whiff of the perfume…

“I thought maybe a drink would be nice.”

She nodded. “I’d like that.” Then, “If you want.”

He laughed, shrugged. “I don’t know if I want, to tell you the truth.”

She kissed him again, quickly. “Let me go pee and dump Daddy.”

“No one?” she asked. “Didn’t you wish you could love anybody?”

She drank Absolut now, rocks. She had given up smoking. He told himself she couldn’t possibly care about his nonexistent love life.

“I don’t know anymore if love’s a feeling or an attitude.”

She laughed, throat extended, looking up. “Dismas,” she said when the laugh was all finished. She sipped her drink. “That is such a Dismas thing to say.”

Why didn’t that annoy him?

“Well, the point is, I never felt enough, you know, to make any decisions.”

“Decisions?”

“Not decisions, really. I guess commitments.” He swallowed the rest of his scotch and signaled the bartender for another round.

Jane covered his hand with her own. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you.”

“I know.”

She squeezed the hand gently, not coming on. Not consciously coming on.

“Anyway”-leaving his hand on the bar covered with hers- “there hasn’t been anyone. Where there was anything going on, I mean.” He didn’t like the way that made it sound-as though he’d been pining away for Jane. “But it’s been no big deal,” he said, “one way or the other.” There, that put it in perspective. “How about you?” he asked.

To his surprise, she’d been married and divorced again.

“It wasn’t very serious,” she said. “It was more a rebound thing.”

“Being married wasn’t serious?”

She sighed. “It seemed serious for a while. I guess I was just lonely, confused, you know. It wasn’t long after”-she hesitated, perhaps wondering what it would sound like-“us.”

The new round came, and she moved her hand. Hardy watched it tap the bar once, then settle into her lap. He reached over and held it.

Holding her hand in her lap.

“I don’t care,” he said, not sure what he was referring to.