'Some other dude did it,' Gerson said. 'Hey, maybe the other dude was this guy Sephia. All Hardy needs to get to is reasonable doubt. If he can make the jury believe Sephia shot at him and his client…'
'Scumbag,' Cuneo said. He was one man, but he spoke for the whole group.
Unanimously.
John Lescroart
Hardy 08 – First Law, The
Part Three
Holiday had borrowed Michelle's car and was riding south through the city on surface streets. Hardy had ordered him that no way was he even to consider going outside until this thing had gotten settled. The arrest warrant on him was still in force. Glitsky evidently was going down to make the arrests on the others that would somehow clear Holiday; then he'd present the DA and even the homicide detail with a fait accompli. Glitsky said he had the evidence he needed. It was going to happen. Holiday just had to wait.
Except that this was Holiday's fight, far more than it was even Glitsky's or Hardy's. Fuck if he'd let someone else fight it for him. They'd already killed two of his friends, tried to kill him, set the police on his ass. Hardy could say what he wanted, but after everything that had happened so far, nobody doubted that if Holiday got into custody, they would find a way to get to him. Panos was connected inside the system. Enormous sums of money were at stake-they had killed to protect it and they would kill again. As often as they needed to, wherever it needed to be done. Even in jail.
Holiday looked down at the gun on the seat next to him, what was left of the box of old cartridges. Reaching over, he picked it up, felt the heft of it, put it back down. He wiped his hand across his forehead. He was sweating. He rolled the window down an inch. Outside, it was cold, overcast and windy. He lowered the window further. Kept sweating.
He knew he could just keep driving south. Michelle wouldn't be home until late so nobody would even be looking for the car. He could zip over to the freeway and be out of the Bay Area within a couple of hours, out of the state easily by nightfall. Maybe even out of the country. It wasn't yet 1:30. If he pushed it, he could cross into Tijuana well before midnight. And, after Glitsky and Hardy had fixed things up for him, after the authorities had come to believe that it was Sephia and his friends after all, he could simply come back, reopen the Ark, continue as before. It was his fight, sure, but did that mean he had to be in it? Wasn't that the sucker play?
And what about Michelle?
Holiday for years had been playing himself as the tragic figure who didn't commit. He was too bruised by life, too battered by love and loss. The women had always understood, as Michelle would come to understand. He felt his pain too deeply, he was too sensitive. The idea that his broken heart would ever heal just wasn't really on the table.
Was he really ready to abandon that charade for good?
He was. All the running around, the scoring, the drinking, the moving on from woman to woman hadn't given him one minute of true happiness. But Michelle had. By the same token, Dismas Hardy had taken him into his life, endured his jokes and visits and hangovers, made him part of the family-God knew why. So Diz and Michelle, were they just to be more sacrifices that he'd burn on the altar of his pathetic self-pity?
He'd come to his last turn if he wasn't going to get on the freeway. He didn't take it. Suddenly putrid with fear, he realized that he wasn't going to Mexico or anywhere else except Pier 70, where Glitsky was going to need all the help he could get. Hardy had never said anything definite about going himself-in fact, he'd outright denied he would be there. It was police business, he'd said. Civilians didn't belong, would be out of place.
But Holiday knew Hardy. He would be there.
When they got this cleared up, Holiday would start taking care of the Ark, of Michelle, of the rest of his business. His life.
19
On Saturday afternoon, Vincent Hardy opened the 'front door of his house and stood in the entrance to his living room where his father and Abe Glitsky were speaking in measured tones, having a serious discussion. He wore a long-sleeved Jerry Rice 49er T-shirt, tennis shoes and calf-length baggy shorts; mostly, though, what he wore was mud. Hardy looked at him with a wary expectancy, but mostly with a poorly concealed lack of patience.
'Dad,' he said without preamble, 'I need a chainsaw.'
Glitsky, not really in the mood for it, nevertheless broke a rare smile. 'As who does not, Vin? As who does not?'
'A chainsaw?' Hardy's back was still sore and he was reclining, feet up, in his reading chair. 'A chainsaw?'
'Everybody needs one sometime,' Glitsky said.
Vincent didn't get the joke. 'Maybe, but I need one now. We really do, Dad.'
'What for?' his father asked.
'To cut stuff.'
'There,' Glitsky said, the question settled for all time. 'What did you think he wanted it for, Diz? To cut stuff. You can't do much else with a chainsaw, can you?'
'I saw some guys juggle one down at Venice Beach one time,' Hardy said. 'A chainsaw, a bowling ball and an egg. It was awesome.' He whipped on his son. 'What do you want to cut, Vin?'
'Some trees, over in the park.' He pointed vaguely outside. 'They're hanging over the sidelines at the football field.'
'What football field?'
'Just at the end of the block. Where we practiced for Little League.'
Hardy grimaced as he came forward slightly. 'There's no football field down there.'
'Yeah, there is. We're making one.'
'That's why they need the chainsaw,' Glitsky said. 'Obviously.'
Hardy knew the Little League practice area well. It was a small plot just to the left of the entrance to the elegant and majestic Palace of the Legion of Honor, one of San Francisco's premier tourist destinations. Hardy had been one of a contingent of local dads who a few years before had gone down to the Parks Commission and requested that they be allowed to bring in a backstop for baseball so that the kids could have a flat, grassy place to practice. The commission finally agreed, but only under the condition that it would be a revocable permit, good for a few months in the spring, and that the lot should otherwise remain pristine. And now, judging from his son's appearance, the place was at best a mudhole, and they needed a chainsaw to clear more land.
After Hardy had finally, with much gnashing of teeth, made the sad truth clear to Vincent, and he'd gone down to break the news to his friends and teammates, he lay back in his chair, covered his face with his hands briefly, let out a deep breath. 'So where were we?'
'Do you realize that none of my three sons ever said those words to me?'
'What words?'
'Dad, I need a chainsaw. It kind of choked me up.'
'It is a beautiful phrase.'
'Every dad should hear it at least once. Well.' Glitsky let out a theatrical sigh. 'At least I got to hear your kid say it. That's some consolation. When the guys in Venice juggled it, was the chainsaw going?'
'Yeah.'
'With a bowling ball and an egg? Was the egg hard-boiled?'
'I don't know. I'd assume so.'
'But if it wasn't, imagine? I would have loved-'
'Abe.' Hardy held up a hand. 'Please.'
Glitsky's mouth turned down. 'Okay, but I think I've got a chainsaw in my garage, if you change your mind and want to borrow one.'
'I won't. Can we drop the chainsaw?' Then, reading Glitsky's mind, Hardy said, 'Don't.'
