John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

Tosca lowered his voice. ‘It was his shop. He built it up.’

‘And how big was it? Not just Russo’s, the whole thing?’

‘Dollar volume? Thirty, thirty-five.’

‘A month?’

Tosca shrugged, agreeing. ‘People like fish. Everybody’s worried about cholesterol. Me’ – he pointed down at his plate – ‘I like this. I don’t worry about it.’

Marcel put his fork down. ‘I don’t feel good about Pio dying just now.’

A smile. ‘I bet he don’t either. And it’s not now. It was last week.’

This really set off warning bells. Like all veteran cops Lanier set little store in coincidence. ‘They do an autopsy?’

‘Why? It was a heart attack. Guy’s sixty-two. Probably didn’t eat enough fish.’ Tosca speared some meat. ‘But you ask me, it’s all genes anyway. You get your time, then you’re dead.’

‘You’re a philosopher, aren’t you, Dan?’

Another shrug. ‘Part time. Look, if it makes you feel better, I can tell you, this has nothing to do with Sal Russo and his one truck of fish. Pio was doing vans , he’s got a fleet. He’s doing Half Moon Bay up to Tomales seven days a week.’

‘So who’s doing that now? Who’s taking that over?’

Tosca’s eyes twinkled. ‘I don’t think that’s all settled yet.’ He reached over the table and patted Lanier’s arm. ‘A vacuum like this comes up, there’s always a little power struggle. It’ll work itself out. But I guarantee you this has nothing to do with Sal Russo.’

If it was all fish, Lanier could believe that, even at the enormous volumes they were discussing. But if it was anything else… ‘You would tell me if you’d run into drugs, wouldn’t you?’

Tosca put his fork down. ‘Marcel, this is not how dope is handled. You know this. You got your Koreans, your Vietnamese, the Chinatown tongs, your longhairs. Bunch of guinea Pescadores go up against these hard-ons? I don’t think so. Besides, I thought you told me you were arresting the boy, his son.’

‘We are.’

‘And wasn’t there some magazine story he admitted it?’

‘Yeah.’

Tosca spread his hands. ‘So what’s the problem?’

Sarah wasn’t sure whether it had been her idea or Graham’s, but somehow they’d decided they would spend a last weekend together, after which Graham would turn himself in.

But it wouldn’t be in San Francisco, where the risk was too great. Sarah already felt so compromised that she barely considered what difference another day or two would make, especially over a weekend.

Graham had a Saturday tournament across the Bay. If his team won, he would have more money for his defense, which he would need. So at nine-fifteen Saturday morning they parked at the tournament site, a multidiamond complex in a valley surrounded by oak-strewn rolling green foothills. Graham was pulling his bat bag from his trunk when a trim man in a designer sweatsuit, gold chain, sunglasses, came jogging up. ‘I can’t believe it, I can’t believe you’re here.’

Graham turned. ‘Hey, Craig, how you doin’?‘ A bounce of the shoulders. ’We got games, I’m here.‘ Graham’s macho pose was kicking back in. Sarah saw little sign of the man she’d been with for the past week, for whom she was sacrificing everything. This untouchable athlete needed no one. It was an unsettling moment.

But this man, Craig, was going on. ‘You’re having some week, aren’t you? I know some important people, let me tell you, and I don’t know anybody who’s ever been on the cover of Time .’

‘It’s just stuff around me,’ Graham said. ‘I’m here to play ball, that’s all.’ He put out his hand to include Sarah, bring her up to them. ‘This is a friend of mine, Sarah Evans. Sarah, Craig Ising, our sponsor.’

Shaking hands with him, Sarah was struck by his relative youth. He wasn’t much older than they were, certainly not over forty. From Graham’s description of him – really from what she knew he must be worth – she had expected someone in his fifties, at least.

Half an hour later Sarah was eating a Sno-Kone, watching the teams warm up. Ising appeared from somewhere and sat next to her. ‘So, you been seeing my star a long time?’

‘Couple of weeks,’ she said.

‘You live in the city?’

‘Yeah.’ She glanced out the side of her sunglasses. ‘How’d you find Graham?’

‘I knew his dad.’

‘Sal?’

‘You knew him too?’

‘Graham talks about him a lot.’

‘Yeah. Hell of a funny guy. Was, I mean. Shame about that. He had some great jokes. Anyway, Graham was in Triple A and got cut, and Sal told me I ought to try him out. I’m glad I did. Kid’s made me a bundle.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘He’s mature, you know, a leader.’

She smiled. ‘I like him already, Craig. So what was it? You bought fish from Sal?’

‘Naw.’ He lowered his voice. ‘He had protection, you know? He was good luck.’

Sarah felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. ‘What do you mean, protection?’

The game had started and the shortstop for the Hornets took a hit away from the first batter, going deep into the hole. When Ising sat down again, Sarah repeated her question.

‘I’m just curious. Protection from what? This kind of thing fascinates me.’

Ising, impressing the pretty girl, unraveled the mystery for her. ‘He was connected, I don’t know. Somebody way up there. He looked like a bum and nobody touched him.’

‘So how did you meet him?’

‘One of my friends. I do a little betting, maybe Graham told you, these games, other things. So sometimes cash moves around downtown.’

‘You’re saying Sal carried this cash?’

He playfully hit her lightly on the knee. ‘Hey, you got a knack for this, Sarah, I’m not kidding you. Yeah, you give Sal a paper bag and a bill and off he goes. He stopped lately. He must have known he was getting forgetful, didn’t want to lose track of anybody’s money.’

All those names , she was thinking, all those numbers . They weren’t the people who supplied his fish to him. Could it be they were gamblers – high-stakes gamblers? ‘Did Graham know about this?’

‘I don’t know, you ought to ask him. Hey, by the way.’ He was fishing in his pockets for something and came out with a business card – his name and a number. ‘Don’t take this wrong, but it wasn’t real clear. Are you and Graham an item?’

She shrugged. ‘Close. Kind of.’

‘Well’ – he handed her the card – ‘if it doesn’t work out, give me a call. I have a pretty good time.’

‘I can see that,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘I’ll keep it in mind.’

Right after Hardy got up Saturday, he’d called Glitsky to apologize again and the nanny told him the lieutenant was busy. She didn’t know when he’d be available. He asked her to make sure and give him the message that his friend Hardy was a horse’s ass, but he wasn’t sure she’d deliver it verbatim.

Then, while he was telephoning, he’d tried Graham Russo’s home for the fun of it and gotten the expected result. Nothing.

Then Frannie reminded him that the kids had arranged for some school chums to come over and play, and Frannie was going to her Saturday jazzercize class, so Hardy was in charge.

She’d told him! Didn’t he remember? Of course he did, he had told her, although this was a lie. He said he was just teasing her.

So for three hours Hardy had baby-sat. Although, as his wife never tired of telling him, he shouldn’t think of it as baby-sitting. They were his children. He wasn’t merely watching them. He was their father, responsible for their guidance and development.