'Who's winning?' Hardy asked, trying to end it here, but Frannie wasn't having it.
'What about men who beat their wives, Moses? You think you can tell just by looking at them? You think that's not living some monstrous lie?'
Moses thought a minute. 'I think you could tell somehow, if you got to know them.'
Hardy entered. 'Yeah, like if you got married to one and he beat you, then you'd know.'
'This isn't funny.' Frannie turned on her husband. 'Don't make a joke of it, Dismas.'
'I'm not making a joke out of it, Frannie. I'm on your side here, okay? What's your problem.'
'My problem? It's not my problem! My brother says all women are liars and I don't accept that and that's my problem?'
'I didn't say all women. I said-'
'I know what you said. What I'm saying is this isn't my… god… damn problem.'
Suddenly Frannie was on her feet, half-falling over her brother and Susan, getting to the aisle, running up out of the stands. Hardy looked helplessly after her. Susan got up and followed.
Moses was shaking his head. 'What did I say?'
It was after six when, exhausted, they finally found a parking space around the corner, unloaded the sleeping kids from the car seats and carried them – one each – a half-block to the picket fence that bordered their lawn.
Phil and Tom DiStephano were sitting on their front steps. They stood up together, both in denim and T- shirts.
Hardy swore under his breath. He opened the gate and stepped in front of Frannie. 'This isn't a good time, guys,' he said. Rebecca shifted, loose and gangling, in his arms, and he bolstered her up.
'You hiding behind some babies and a girl?' Phil had been drinking. A lot. His eyes were out of focus – he was having trouble keeping his balance.
Hardy kept his voice low. 'I'm not hiding behind anything. How'd you find out where I live?'
'That's for you to know, asshole.' Tom, the son, had talked to his dad, got his attitude adjusted. When Hardy had gone down with the six-pack and interviewed him last time he'd been surly but gradually somewhat cooperative. Now – never mind the profanity – his body language said it all. He was ready for a fight, blocking the path.
Hardy gave them both a weary, practiced smile. 'Let's move on, guys. All the way off the property. We're going in.'
Neither man moved. 'You come over to my home and molest my wife? You think you're getting away with that?' Phil said.
'Put down your kid, asshole.' Tom's little mantra of 'asshole' was getting under Hardy's skin. He half-turned back to where Frannie stood, as though rooted to the ground, holding Vincent. He was about to herd them all back to the car, drive down to the Safeway on Clement and call the police. Was about to.
'Takes a brave man to hide behind his kid,' Phil said.
'You men get out of here?' Frannie's momentary shock had worn off. She started to step around Hardy but he held out a hand, stopping her. 'We're going inside,' he said. 'Follow me.'
He tried to get Rebecca to stir, to put her down, have her somehow be protected behind him, but she was dead weight in his arms. He turned back. 'I'm real impressed with a guy who beats his wife. Takes guts. A real man.'
'You put down your kid I'll show you a real man.'
'You and your son Tom here. Two on one. That's about your speed, isn't it, Phil?'
'What's your speed, asshole?'
Hardy squared away on Tom. 'That's for you to figure out.' He paused, considered, decided against anything, moving forward. 'Get out of my way. Right now. Anybody here gets touched you're going to wish you weren't born.'
'Oooh, tough guy!'
Hardy the Vulcan nodded. 'If that's what it takes,' and started walking, Frannie a step behind him. First Phil, then Tom, stepped aside and let Frannie go by, covering her back. With macho desperadoes like these, he knew a rock wasn't out of the question.
Her hands were shaking and she had some trouble with the door so he stepped in, turned the key and pushed it open. Before he entered himself, he turned around. 'The next time I look out here, you guys had better be gone. Go sleep it off before you get into real trouble.'
Phil pointed a finger at him. 'You go near my wife again, Hardy…'
Frannie got sick – all day out in the sun, the outburst at the ballpark, the tension out front. Hardy tended to her, ran her a cool bath and did all the kid stuff, getting them down before he tucked Frannie in. It was still light outside.
He went to his chair in the living room, put on some classical music – was Freeman getting to him? – and started reading the paperback of A Brief History of Time, recommended by both Moses and Abe, separately. Black holes, the Big Bang, String Theory, maybe even God.
But he couldn't concentrate.
Or rather he couldn't get the confrontation out of his mind. He was racing, the adrenalin pumped and nowhere to go. How had they found where he lived? He'd given Nancy his home telephone number, a mistake. He knew that a reverse listing, even of an unlisted number, was as close as the nearest phone-company employee, and PacBell was probably the biggest employer in the state. Stupid.
He considered options, several illegal – going back out to Phil's house with a handgun, make the point a little more strongly that he didn't want them coming around anymore. Go back without the gun. Call the police, report Phil's battery of his wife? Report tonight's disturbance and threat? But he remembered Glitsky's words – random mischief just wasn't a crime, wasn't a police matter in San Francisco anymore.
He wondered what Phil had done – might be doing – to Nancy when he got home with his own unspent load of adrenalin. After Tom left, then what?
He picked up the telephone and got the number for Park Station. It might be a dead night, some red-hot young patrol person wanting to make some bones, do a little more than the minimum. Nothing ventured… it might do a little good.
'I'm not giving a name,' Hardy said, 'and this is not an emergency, but you might want to send a car…'
At the Shamrock it wasn't dead but it was slow. Sunday night. The new man – Hardy's replacement – was behind the bar. The juke was going steadily, not too loud – the Shamrock's usual mix of mostly old rock and roll and Irish folksongs. Since the day two years before when Moses had finally removed and ceremoniously smashed the '45 of 'The Unicorn' – 'green alligators and long-necked geese, some hump-back camels and chimpanzees' – Hardy didn't think there was a loser in the box.
On his second Guinness, Hardy was in a game of '301' with one of the locals named Ronnie. Ronnie was one side or the other of thirty, a piano player in a band that had the night off. He also illustrated children's books. Ronnie was a class act, evidently talented, certainly a match for Hardy at darts. He also possessed a deal of gray matter.
'My problem with it,' he was saying, pegging his own customs at the board, 'is that I have a hard time imagining some brother or father letting their own sister, or daughter – especially daughter – get executed for a murder they committed.'
'She's a long way from executed. If she gets off the worst of it is they put her through a bad time.'
'A murder trial is some serious bad time.'
