thing he would do when he got to Holiday was have the billing conversation. Friends or no friends, he was going to get a retainer up front before doing any work for John Holiday. He couldn't afford to work for free anymore. He was going to charge his top defense fee and three times that for every minute he spent in the courtroom. Holiday could sell his bar or his duplex to cover his costs for all Hardy cared. He was done with charity.
Fortunately, the phrase 'Big Dick' meant something to Hardy besides the standard reading-it was Holiday's name for Coit Tower, the phallic landmark and vista point at the apex of Telegraph Hill. Hardy had worked himself up to a fine fettle by the time he serpentined up the winding streets and reached the parking lot. This spot with its mounted binoculars all along its retaining wall, was premier sightseeing turf-Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito and the Marin headlands, seemingly a stone's throw across the Bay.
At this time of day, normally the lot was cluttered with vacationers and tourist buses. But as Hardy pulled into one of the parking spaces and opened his car door-he'd had his windshield wipers going from halfway up the hill-he marveled at the sense of desertion. The place was wrapped in a thick, bone-chilling gauze of cloud and drizzle. He could barely make out the tower itself, looming there right behind him. He was completely alone up here today, his car the only one in the lot.
Leave it to Holiday, he thought. Why couldn't they meet at some restaurant, or even his new girlfriend's house? Hell, anyplace else would be more convenient and comfortable than here. But of course, Holiday hadn't given Hardy any chance to argue, or suggest an alternative.
And now there was no sight of him here, either. Hardy looked again back toward the tower, out over the low retaining wall into the empty fog. 'John!' he yelled into the nothingness. He walked halfway through the lot, into the very middle of it, toward the tower. He called out again. Turned. Waited. Cupped his hands around his mouth. 'Hey, John! Ollie, ollie oxen free!'
'I haven't heard that in forever.'
'Jesus Christ!' When Hardy landed, he whirled around and found himself facing Holiday, who stood a foot in front of him, grinning. 'Where did you just come from?'
'Right here. Did I scare you? I did, didn't I?'
'No. I always levitate when the fog's in.' Hardy put his hand over his heart. 'God!'
'A little jolt like that's good for you. Clears the arteries.'
'Well, they're clear then. Now all I've got to do is start breathing again.' He looked all around. 'Great place you picked here. Especially today. Why don't we get in my car before we freeze to death? You make any decision?'
They started moving. 'About what?'
'Oh, I don't know. How about…?'
Hardy paused as out of the corner of his eye he noticed a gray sedan pulling slowly into the lot maybe fifty or sixty feet off to his right. The driver-side window, all the way down, possibly gave him some subliminal sense that something was not right, and he instinctively grabbed Holiday's arm just above the elbow. 'What?'
Before he could answer, the car suddenly accelerated and turned hard to its left, exposing them to the passenger-side window, from which an arm protruded…
Hardy could be wrong and look like a fool, or they could both be dead in two seconds. It wasn't a hard choice. 'Down! Get down!' he yelled.
Hardy crouched and pushed Holiday away, then hit the pavement rolling himself as two quick shots, then two more, exploded behind him.
He rolled again and came up, running and stumbling- his dress shoes slipping on the wet surface under him- toward the protection of the retaining wall. Behind him, tires screeched. Two more shots, deafening, in rapid succession.
The low wall directly in front of him pinged with a ricochet. He saw the gray mist of a shatter of concrete, felt a scratch across his cheek. Had the bullet hit him?
But he was still moving; he had to keep moving forward.
And then he was over the wall, rolling and sliding steeply downhill under the canopy of low evergreen and bramble.
The thick trunk of an ancient cypress stopped his free fall and knocked the breath out of him, a murderous blow high on his ribs under his arm. But he didn't stop.
Were they still up there? Had he heard another peal of rubber? Did it mean the car was gone?
Whatever, he was still exposed.
Forcing himself to roll, he half collapsed into the fall line of the slope and didn't come to rest again until he was within a first down of Lombard Street, still within the tree-line, sheltered from below and hidden from above.
He couldn't move, never wanted to move again. His ribs. Was he shot? In shock?
The silence all around him was complete, the fog enveloping but now not cold. He was sweating heavily. His breath came in gasps. The pain from his broken left finger kicked in again. Agony.
He squeezed at the skin around his mouth, took his hand away, and saw blood. He rubbed at his cheek-a faint sting, a smear of red.
Suddenly aware of movement behind him and to his right up the slope, he turned and saw Holiday traversing, half sliding toward him. But he was moving smoothly, quickly, unhurt. He was with Hardy in seconds.
'Diz? You all right?'
Hardy tried a deep breath. His ribs hurt, but he could breathe. He definitely wasn't shot. The scratch on his cheek-he'd done worse damage shaving.
Then they were both on their feet, dusting themselves off, checking back up the hill. A car passed below them on Lombard and they both froze until they saw it was a large white SUV, nothing like the gray sedan. For a moment, neither man could find anything to say.
The right arm of Hardy's suit coat hung by a thread and he shrugged himself out of it and rolled it into a ball. Under it, his shirt, too, was badly ripped at the sleeve.
Holiday reached over and flicked at the tear. 'I've got to get myself a real lawyer. Clothes make the man, Diz,' he said. 'You look like absolute shit.'
From a certain point, there was only one way up or down Telegraph Hill, and deciding they didn't like the odds of taking the only street up, where their assailants might still be lurking, they made it back to the retaining wall uphill through the trees and brush. Hardy's car was still the only one parked in the lot, right there ten feet away. Crouching, he got to the door and opened it, got his cell phone, made it back behind the retaining wall. He and Holiday moved a few yards back down the slope where they could still see any activity within the lot. But there was none.
'Okay, you've got your phone. Now what?'
'Now I call the police.'
'I don't think so. Not while I'm here.'
'So you go. But I'm reporting this.'
'Why? What are you going to say?'
'I'm going to tell them what happened.'
'And then what? They're going to investigate? They're going to find something you don't already know? And thank you for it?'
'I don't know, John. What do I already know?'
'You know somebody followed you here and tried to kill us. Your pal Freeman's in the hospital. Put it together. It's Panos.'
'I'm not arguing with you, John. I'm telling you the cops need to know it, too.'
'And then they'll move right on it?'
'That's the theory.'
Holiday shook his head. 'Man. You're hopeless.'
Twenty-five long minutes passed before the patrol car showed up.
