Betrayal

Now Hardy's subconscious had rejected all of these optimistic conclusions. As he sat slumped down in his living room chair he found himself scavenging for any kind of salvageable something that could tie Allstrong-either the person or the company-to any crime at all.

If Jack Allstrong had personally ordered Nolan to eliminate the Khalils, and paid him in cash, which is exactly what Hardy conjectured had happened, he could count on there being no record of it whatsoever. Especially after all these years.

Or-Hardy corrected himself-Charlie Bowen had come up with the only evidence there might have been, and perhaps had inadvertently passed it on to his wife. But by now, whatever that had been must be gone. And similarly, the murders of Charlie and Hanna had been carried out with professional efficiency.

Even if Bracco discovered that Charlie and/or Hanna Bowen had called or gone down to visit Allstrong on the last day of their lives, what would that prove? Would it lead to a discovery of Charlie's body, which had probably long since become fish food? Or would it place an Allstrong mercenary in Hanna's garage pulling her body down to make sure to break her neck as she dropped from her stepladder?

Hardy knew it wouldn't.

And so long as Allstrong didn't confess to anything-and if there was no proof he'd ever done anything wrong, why would he?-then in the face of all the accusations in the world, he'd remain untouchable. In fact, Hardy realized, with the size of the operation Allstrong was running, by now he'd undoubtedly have surrounded himself with protection-administrative assistants, senior staff, his own lawyers-to keep him insulated from riffraff such as Hardy himself or even Sergeant Bracco who might come calling on him with impertinent questions. Hardy might never even get to talk to him.

At the sound of the newspaper hitting the porch, he opened his eyes again. The darkness outside had lessened by a degree.

It was going to be a long day.

Three and a half hours into the work portion of that day, Hardy glared malevolently at the phone as it buzzed at his elbow. He was eight pages into his brief about the Brady violation. He made a good case that the FBI's information should have been disclosed to Washburn. This would have allowed him to cross- examine the now-disappeared, allegedly ex-FBI agents on the entire question of Nolan's involvement with the frag grenades. He'd turned off his cell phone and left strict instructions with Phyllis to hold all of his calls. He needed to concentrate.

But here was the phone, buzzing at him. Hence the glare.

He put his pen down and reached for the receiver. 'This must be an emergency,' he said in a mild tone. 'Is the building on fire?'

'No, sir. But Lieutenant Glitsky said I should disturb you. Apparently somebody tried to kill Evan Scholler at the prison this morning. Lieutenant Glitsky is holding now. Shall I put him through?'

'That would be a good thing, Phyllis. Please.' He heard the click of connection. 'Is Evan all right?'

'He's alive, though he's cut pretty bad. He was lucky. The shiv hit a rib or he'd be room temperature by now.'

'So he's going to live?'

'No promises, but good chance, evidently.'

'So what happened, Abe? He get in a fight?'

'Well, finding out what really happened is always a little iffy there, but by first reports, it's starting to look like he was a target of some kind. The guy who went for him was a Salvadoran gangbanger out of L.A. named Rafael Calderon. Nobody had ever seen these two guys together before this morning.'

'So you're saying somebody ordered this?'

'I'm not saying anything. I'm telling you what I've heard so far. And I've heard that your man Evan had been an ideal inmate. No word about any enemies, or what he might have done to make them.'

'So the order came from outside?'

'Don't know. It could have been something personal we don't know about. I'd hesitate to conjecture. But maybe you've got something you want to tell me?'

Hardy, recalling his research the previous night, couldn't keep the thought from jumping to the front of his mind-Allstrong Security was developing a presence in El Salvador. Beyond his net surfing last night, he'd read several lengthy magazine articles and even pieces of a couple of books delineating the relationships between U.S. mercenaries and the Salvadoran gang networks in that country, and took it as gospel that the connections between them ran deep. He took a minute to get Glitsky up to speed, then asked, 'Did they question Calderon?'

'Calderon wasn't as lucky as Scholler.'

'Are you telling me he's dead?'

'That's right.'

'Did Scholler kill him?'

'No. Scholler was on the ground, bleeding. When the guards heard the screaming and yelling from the assault and got there, they got Calderon surrounded and he went more or less insane. He still had his shiv on him and he charged them. They reacted with what, after the hearing, I'm sure will be called appropriate force in self- defense.'

Hardy realized that he was gripping the phone so tightly that his knuckles were white. He knew that if Calderon had taken the job of assassinating Scholler in prison and either botched it or got caught afterward, both of which had happened in this case, he could expect to be killed by his handler or by another gang-connected inmate before he could be questioned and give anything away. And he knew that whoever had put out the contract would just as easily put out another one.

After the phone call, Hardy couldn't get his mind back on the draft of his brief. He decided to walk down to the Hall of Justice to clear his mind. The fine weather continued, and if Glitsky had already gone to lunch, Hardy could walk down a couple of blocks and catch a meal at any one of a number of the good new joints in SoMa, South of Market. But Abe was in, at his desk drinking a bottled water and eating a rice cake. Glitsky opened his desk drawer, pulled out a handful of peanuts in the shell, and slid them across his desk.

Hardy cracked a shell. 'This is Allstrong again, Abe.'

'Calderon? It might be at that.'

'It is, absolutely.'

Glitsky shook his head. 'Don't get me wrong. I want it to be with all my heart, but I don't have enough, Diz. If makes you feel any better, I think it's possible, and I didn't think that a few days ago. I'm waiting for Darrel before I jump to any conclusions.'

'I made that jump when I heard about the stabbing. There is no other conclusion.'

'Not to be disagreeable, but don't kid yourself. You were all over this at least yesterday, maybe before.'

Hardy chewed reflectively. 'You want to hear how it works? Why it's Allstrong?'

'Sure, but the short version, please.'

'Okay, six weeks ago Hanna gets killed. Allstrong's now had to kill two people involved in the Scholler appeal. He thinks it's probably all done as far as getting rid of evidence is concerned, but he knows that as long as Evan Scholler's in prison, there's going to be this appeal coming up again and its attendant risks, meaning people like Bowen or me coming around asking him provocative questions. Maybe there's even more evidence someplace that he was actively involved in a domestic homicide.'

'Let's hope,' Glitsky said.

Hardy nodded. 'So Allstrong gets another idea.'

'Kill Scholler.'

'You're reading my mind.' Another peanut. 'Scholler dies, the appeal is over. Cuts it off at the source. But of course, the problem is that Scholler's in prison. Not untouchable, but more complicated, through El Salvador and backup through one of the L.A. gangs.' Hardy held up his hands in a voila gesture. 'There's your six weeks between Hanna and now.'

'Brilliant.' Glitsky ate another peanut. 'You've got it all figured out.'