In that time, two tour buses had pulled up into the center of the lot, the exact spot where Holiday had surprised Hardy. Additionally, several cars had arrived and parked willy-nilly all around. It had turned, Hardy was thinking, into a goddamned tourist extravaganza. A fitful breeze had blown off the worst of the fog, revealing the usual stunning panorama. A knot of Japanese tourists in overcoats had gathered at the retaining wall where the bullet had chipped it near the front of Hardy's car. They were enthusiastically sharing the mounted pay binoculars and exclaiming over the view.
Hardy didn't even see it. His ribs throbbed. He'd turned the car's heater on so he was no longer cold, but he was still shaking.
As he opened his door and raised his hand to call the black-and-white car over, he was struck with a sense of the surreal nature of the whole afternoon, of what he'd gone through, of what he was doing now.
When he'd first returned from Vietnam, before he'd gone to law school, Hardy had been a cop, walking a beat with Abe Glitsky. He liked cops, empathized with them, generally understood their concerns, prejudices, methods. And now here were two more, twin tight ends named Jakes and Warren, and at a glance very much like the men from the other night with his windshield in North Beach- hardworking, sincere, dedicated-and most importantly, living every day in the line of fire, which tended to breed a certain defensiveness, even cynicism.
They pulled over and parked in the space next to him, got out of their car together, expressed their concern over Hardy's appearance, asked him if he needed medical attention, which he declined. Finally, Officer Warren took out a pad of paper, and the interview began.
'So what happened here? Dispatch said there was a report of a shooting? You mean right here?' Checking out the tour buses around them, Warren couldn't quite picture it.
Hardy really couldn't blame him. 'This was about an hour ago, and the place was pea soup with fog. You couldn't see twenty feet. There was nobody else up here.'
'Nobody?'
'Not a soul.' The two cops looked at each other, but Warren's expression remained neutral. 'Just myself and a client I'd come here to meet.'
Hardy knew this would be tricky, but once he'd decided to call the police, he had to tell them the truth. It was the only way the system worked. So he told them about Holiday.
But the truth wasn't scoring points. Jakes broke in to ask, 'You mean to say that this client of yours, he's wanted for murder? There's a warrant out?'
'That's right.'
'So where is he now?'
'I don't know.'
'You don't know,' Jakes repeated.
Hardy started to shrug. His ribs stopped him. 'When I called you, he thought it would be smart to leave. I couldn't really argue with him.'
'You didn't try to make him stay?' Warren asked.
'Of course,' Hardy kept it low-key, 'I told him he should turn himself in. He might be safer in jail after all. But he didn't see it that way.' Hardy met their eyes in turn. 'But the point is that he was here earlier with me. If you don't mind, I'd like to get back to what happened.'
Finally Jakes said, 'Okay, shoot.'
Hardy gave it to them succinctly in less than five minutes. 'We waited for a while down there at the bottom,' he concluded, 'then climbed back up here through the brush…'
'Wait a minute,' Jakes said. He walked over to the retaining wall and looked down. 'You came back up through that? Why didn't you use the road?'
Hardy explained, but by now no longer felt they believed him. He walked them over to where the tour buses were parked, describing the gray sedan and its course through the then-empty parking lot. Hardy had distinctly heard the tires squeal, but the pavement had been wet, and now there was no sign of skid marks. Six shots had been fired, but no one had been hit and there were no bullet casings. The chipped cement at the retaining wall could have happened an hour or a week or six years ago.
Back where he'd parked, he said, 'I know how weird this sounds. But it happened.' He indicated his own ruined clothes, his face. 'I didn't do this to myself, really. And my partner David Freeman is in the ICU right now, mugged a few days ago. That's real and verifiable. So is the fact that somebody smashed my windshield a couple of days ago in North Beach. There ought to be a report of that on file.'
'So you're saying you think you know who did this? All this stuff?' Warren asked.
'Yes, sir. His name is Wade Panos. He's a Patrol Special. You may know him.'
'And you're saying you think he's trying to kill you? And your partner?'
'I do.'
'And what about your client? Holiday? How does he fit in with all this?'
'That,' Hardy said uneasily, 'gets a little complicated.'
18
Clarence Jackman did not normally hold open of-fie hours for defense attorneys, nor for anyone else. After a long and successful career in the private sector, Jackman, a darkly hued African-American sixty-five-year-old, physically imposing and impeccably dressed, had been appointed to his position of District Attorney of San Francisco by the mayor about three years ago. Since then, he'd come to appreciate the power and influence that came with the job, to the extent that he was committed to running for election to his second term. He was now, even more so than when he'd been in the lofty reaches of the private sector, a true august personage.
But Abe as well as Trey a Glitsky, who was his personal secretary, considered him something of a friend. So did Dismas Hardy and, for that matter, so did David Freeman. All of these people, along with Gina Roake and a few others, had been regularly meeting at Lou the Greek's for a couple of years with the DA and serving as his informal kitchen cabinet.
So when Hardy had called requesting a meeting with the DA, saying he needed a word with Jackman right away, Treya cleared it with her boss and set to work rescheduling the afternoon. When he actually arrived battered, worn and dirty, and gimped his way into the outer office, sans coat, his hands and face scratched and bloody, she ushered him directly in, closing the door behind them.
After expressing his genuine concern and making sure Hardy was comfortable in one of the office's easy chairs, Jackman listened with his trademark intensity. He sat slumped at the near end of the couch, leaning heavily on an elbow, the thumb of his right hand under his chin, the ringers regularly caressing the side of his mouth.
When Hardy finished, Jackman sat still for a very long while. Hardy knew better than to interrupt his thoughts, or try to prompt him. At length, the DA straightened up slightly and looked Hardy in the face. 'Panos?'
A nod. 'Yes, sir.' Hardy knew that Jackman couldn't take this as anything like good news. It was no secret that Panos contributed to every major political campaign in the city so that, no matter who won, he never lost influence.
'You seriously believe he's behind these attacks?'
'Not personally, probably not. But some of his people, yes.'
'You'll pardon me for saying so-you're obviously upset right now, Diz, and I can't say I blame you-but that seems like just one hell of a reach. Wade's not a gangster.'
'With respect, Clarence, maybe you'd like to take a look at some of my deposition testimony. He's not exactly Mr. Clean.'
Jackman shook his head. 'Maybe not. He's in a tough field, where admittedly some of his tactics, especially with, let us say, not the cream of society, might have come close to crossing the line. But here you're talking attempted murder of regular citizens. There's a huge difference and frankly, I can't see Wade going there. Why would he even risk it?'
'Maybe because David and I, we're threatening to put him out of business.'
'And how would you do that? Do you think he doesn't have insurance?'
