The First Law (10 page)

“He did seem a little nervous,” Cuneo said.

“I would have been, too.”

“Why’s that, Roy? You think he did it?” Russell asked. “Terry?”

Roy gave it a second. “Was it true what you guys said about the shooter being a big guy? You didn’t just make that up to spook him?”

Russell nodded. “That’s what Mr. Creed said. Three of them. One of them big.”

Roy looked back and forth at the two inspectors. “Clint’s not little,” he said.

“No, he’s not.” Cuneo shot his partner a glance, came back to Roy. “What about this Randy? Clint’s boyfriend. He with Holiday, too?”

“They’re all buds,” Roy said. “Lowlife.”

“Would Mr. Creed know Terry?” Cuneo asked.

“On sight. Sure.”

“I’m wondering if he could ID him as the shooter. Get him in front of a lineup.”

“It’d be worth checking out,” Russell said.

“We could find out pretty quick,” Roy said. He looked at his watch. “He’s on the beat in ten minutes. He’ll be at the station checking in now. You want to walk down, I’m on my way there anyhow, to check out. It’s like four blocks.”

Matt Creed was in fact at the station, signing in to come on for his night’s work with the Patrol Special liaison. He greeted Roy perfunctorily, then glanced at the men with him and recognition hit. He spoke first to Roy. “This is Silverman, then, isn’t it?” Then to Cuneo, “Are you inspectors having any luck yet?”

“Getting a few ideas,” Cuneo said. “Roy here says you might know Clint Terry.”

Creed’s brow contracted in a question and Roy answered it. “Bartender over at the Ark?”

“Oh, yeah. I got him,” Creed said. “Why?”

“You said last night that the shooter was a big man. Mr. Terry’s a big man.”

The idea played itself across Creed’s face. “You think he shot Silverman?”

“We don’t know,” Russell said. “We’re open to the idea. Do you remember seeing Mr. Terry at the Ark last night when you walked your beat?”

Creed shook his head. “I didn’t even look in,” he said. “They’re not on the beat anymore.”

“But you passed by the place, right?” Cuneo asked. “Couldn’t have been five minutes before you got to Silverman’s. Do you remember if it was open?”

The young security guard tried but finally shrugged, frustration all over his face. “The door’s closed, the window’s boarded up. If they were open, they weren’t having a party, but beyond that, I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t see anybody go in or come out, but I couldn’t tell you I really looked.” He met Cuneo’s eyes. “You really think it might have been Terry?”

“You’re the one who chased him. We were hoping maybe you could tell us.”

“You said the shooter was big,” Russell added. “As big as Terry?”

Creed closed his eyes for a moment. “Maybe. But it happened fast and it was dark. Plus, I was shitting in my pants at the time. I don’t think I could pick him out of a lineup, if that’s what you mean.”

This was disappointing news, and both inspectors showed it. Cuneo, however, bounced right back. “All right. But you wouldn’t eliminate him is the point.”

“No. I suppose it could have been him.”

“There you go,” Cuneo said.

“But who were the other guys?” Creed asked. “You must be thinking Randy Wills and John Holiday?”

Cuneo started making a little clicking sound. “I’m thinking it a little more right now,” he said. “What made you think of them?”

“They hang out a lot. You see them around together.”

“Holiday was at Silverman’s poker game,” Russell said.

Roy Panos was nodding through a deep scowl. “He lost six grand.”

Cuneo was still making the clicking noise. “Anything about the other two guys you saw make it impossible it was them? Holiday and Wills?”

“No. But they didn’t stay around to talk. The other two could have been anybody else.”

“But it also could have been them. Am I right?” Cuneo didn’t want to lose his focus.

“Yeah. Sure. Or them.”

The clicking stopped. “Okay, then.”

Dismas Hardy was listening to his wife’s voice on the speakerphone in his office and taking notes about what he might want to pick up at the grocery store on his way home if he wanted to be the perfect husband and save her a trip. Ordinarily, she would have just walked over herself. The Safeway was only a couple of blocks down around the corner. But now with the rain, she’d have to drive, which meant finding another parking place possibly even farther from their house than the store was. “Not possibly, definitely,” Hardy said. “I do a little victory dance whenever I get closer than Safeway. So what’s on the list?”

He wrote as she finished reciting. “Coffee, cottage cheese, cherries, Claussen’s, celery.”

“Goods beginning with ‘c,’ I got it. Anything else?”

A short silence. Then Frannie said, “Oh, and some copper clappers.”

“Got it, Clara. See you in an hour.”

Hardy hung up. He moved the newly framed picture of his wife to front and center on his desk and gave it a moment. The planes of his face softened, the edges of his mouth tickling at a smile.

It was a head and shoulders shot he’d taken recently in their home on an Indian summer Saturday morning. For the first time ever, Rebecca and Vincent had both spent the night with separate friends. Frannie was turning away from rearranging the caravan of glass elephants on the mantel over the fireplace in their front room. In the picture, Frannie’s eyes were full of mischief, her own smile about to break. The unseen story was that they’d just finished making love on the living room floor, by no means a daily event. The camera had been sitting next to Hardy’s reading chair and he’d grabbed it, called her name, and got her.

“Mooning over your wife again?”

Caught in the act. “We are having a bit of a renaissance.”

“Good for you.” David Freeman stood in the doorway, a large wineglass in each hand. He schlumped his way across the office, put one of the glasses on Hardy’s desk, and pushed it across. “Chateauneuf du Pape, Cuvée des Generations, nineteen ninety. It’s just too good not to share and the pups downstairs are all working.”

“Maybe I’m working, too.”

The old man shook his head. “Not likely this time Friday night. I know you. You’re done.” He had come around behind Hardy. “New picture? That
is
a good one. Though I’m surprised she’s letting you display it in public.”

Hardy feigned ignorance. “What are you talking about? Why wouldn’t she?”

Freeman gave him a knowing look. “Maybe because under that innocent and pretty face, she’s not wearing anything?”

Hardy had long since given up being surprised at Freeman’s perspicacity. But even so. “How in the world . . . ?”

“Completely obvious to any serious connoisseur of naked women, one of whom I pride myself on being.” Freeman pointed. “Taste the wine. Tell me what you think.”

Hardy did as commanded. “It’s pretty good and I think you may actually be mythically ugly. And I’ve only got about five minutes if you’re really here on business and the wine is a ploy.”

Over at the couch, Freeman lowered himself into a sit. “The wine is genuine largess on my part, but as a matter of fact I did hear from Dick Kroll on the Panos thing.”

“I’m starting to love the Panos thing.”

“I’m still a little more in the infatuation stage myself. Especially with your recent input.”

“That wasn’t through much effort on my part, David,” Hardy said. “That was Abe and John Holiday.”

Freeman made a face.

“Okay, you don’t like him. But you’ve got to admit he’s doing us some good.”

This was, and both men knew it, quite an understatement. Holiday had come to believe that some of the WGP guards had played undercover roles in his own sting and arrest, and he was out for vengeance. In the past four months or so, he’d brought in no less than seven disgruntled WGP clients and/or victims to Freeman’s offices, out of which four were on board with causes of action ranging from fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress to assault and battery. Named defendants in the lawsuit included Wade on all the causes of action, of course, but also his brother, Roy, his nephew Nick Sephia, and nine other WGP current and past employees.

By the same token, common scuttlebutt at the Hall had made Glitsky realize back when he was still in homicide that Panos was a bad egg, his organization fairly corrupt. His “rate increase” of the year before had been nothing more than a thinly disguised protection racket. Glitsky knew that several businesses had at first elected to drop out of Thirty-two only to sign back up after windows had been broken or goods stolen. Two men had been mugged. One storefront cat killed. All of them had filed complaints with the PD, only to drop them. Glitsky, up in payroll, found it entertaining to chase these paper trails and identify potential plaintiffs for his friend Diz. Was he doing anything else worthwhile? Eventually, he had turned all of these names over to Hardy, and most had joined the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Hardy thought it was starting to look pretty solid for the good guys. “So what did Mr. Kroll want?” he asked.

“He wants to talk some more before the next round of depositions.”

Hardy shrugged. “Did you tell him that that’s what depositions are all about, everybody getting to talk?”

“I believe I did. Told him we could talk all we wanted starting Tuesday, but he wants to put it off, maybe till early next year.”

“If I were him, I’d want that, too. What’d you tell him?”

“No, of course.” Freeman cleaned out his ear for a minute, his eyes somewhere in the middle distance. He picked up his glass and swirled it, then took a sip. “My gut is he’s feeling us out for a separate settlement.”

Hardy was about to take a sip himself, but he stopped midway to his mouth, put the glass back down. “We’re asking for thirty million dollars, David. Rodney King got six and he was one guy. We’ve got fourteen plaintiffs. Two million and change each. What could Kroll possibly offer that would get our attention?”

“I think he was having a small problem with that question as well. I got the feeling he’d been chatting with his insurance company, which won’t pay for intentional misconduct. To say nothing of punitives, which we’ll get to the tune of say six or eight mil, and again there’s no coverage. So if we win, Panos is bankrupt.”

“Which was the idea.”

“And still a good one.”

“Did he actually mention a number?”

“Not in so many words.”

“But?”

“But he’s going to propose we amend the filing so Panos gets named only for negligence, no intentional tort. This leaves his insurance company on the hook for any damages we get awarded.”

“And why do we want to do this? To help them out?”

“That’s what he wanted to talk about before the depositions. I predict he’s going to suggest that he rat out the city, give us chapter and verse on the PD and their criminally negligent supervision of his people, which strengthens our case, and in return he gets insurance coverage on any judgment we get.”

“What a sleazeball.”

“True. But not stupid,” Freeman said. “If we were equally sleazy, it’s actually a pretty good trick.”

“Let’s not be, though. Sleazy. What do you say?”

“I’m with you. But still, it’s not bad strategy. And it could be even better if he thinks to suggest settling directly with us for say a quarter mil per plaintiff, which puts three and a half mil in the pot, a third of which comes to you and me, and his insurance pays for all of it. Panos comes out smelling like a rose. We make a bundle. The city’s self-insured so they’re covered. Everybody wins.”

Hardy liked it, but shook his head. “I don’t think so, though. His insurance would have to agree, and why would they?”

“Maybe Panos has got it himself. In cash.”

“That’s not coming out smelling like a rose. That’s down three plus mil.”

“But at least then he’s still in business. We settle, sign a confidentiality statement, he raises his rates, he still wins.”

Hardy nodded grimly. “It’s so beautiful it almost makes me want to cry. And all we have to do is change a word or two?”

“Correct.”

“Just like guilty to not guilty. One word.” For a brief instant, Hardy wondered if Freeman were actually considering the proposal, which Kroll had never actually voiced and may not even have thought of. “Are you tempted?” he asked.

Freeman sloshed his wine around, put his nose in the bowl, took it out, and nodded. “Sure. It wouldn’t be a worthwhile moral dilemma if I wasn’t tempted. But it’s half your case and I’m duty bound to admit that I believe it’s a solid, pragmatic strategy, and not overtly illegal. If we don’t do it, it’ll be way harder to win.”

Hardy took the cue from Freeman and swirled his own glass for a minute. “So it’s my decision, too?”

“Got to be,” Freeman admitted.

“Give me a minute,” Hardy said. “How much do I clear?”

“Well, Kroll never gave me a specific number. But if I’m even close to what he’s thinking at three and half million, say, and I bet I am, you personally bring in close to a half million before taxes.”

Silence gathered in the room. “Couple of years work,” Hardy said.

“At least.”

Hardy’s mouth twitched. He blew out heavily. “For the record, I’m officially tempted.” He put his glass down, walked to the window, pulled the blinds apart and stared a minute outside at the street. When he turned again, his face was set. “Okay,” he said, “now that that’s out of the way, fuck these guys.”

5

F
or a wealthy man, Wade Panos kept a relatively low profile.

He didn’t need flashy clothes, since he wore a Patrol Special uniform every day at work. The Toyota 4Runner got him wherever he needed to go. The three-bedroom house on Rivera that he shared with Claire blended with the others in the lower Richmond District. He mowed his own lawn every Saturday, took out the garbage, talked over the fence with his neighbors. To all outward appearances, Wade was a regular guy.

He’d started working as an assistant patrol special in Thirty-two when he was just out of high school. It was his father’s beat. George ran a tight ship in those days, providing basic security for his two hundred clients, patrolling the beat on foot.