the widow. I’d rather have you guys find it a homicide, and that’s what Moses wants me to check into. I have no interest beyond that.”
“You don’t think we’re competent to do that, to find that out? ’Cause that’s what it sounds like you’re saying, and that kind of pisses me off.”
Hardy sighed. “Are we a little defensive here in our declining years, or what?”
Abe chewed on some more ice. “You don’t understand what it’s like here lately.”
“Yeah, but I’m not asking for much, either.”
“You’re asking to get in somebody’s face around their investigation. That’s pretty much.”
“Well, then you do it for me.”
Glitsky laughed. “Yeah, that’d work.” Hardy knew that the humor he heard wouldn’t ever get to his eyes. “Do you even know what we’ve got? Why don’t you wait a day or two? If it’s a homicide, we’ll likely decide it’s a homicide.”
“I know that.”
“And don’t brownnose me.”
Hardy had forgotten that he’d never been much good at getting things by Glitsky. He was beginning to remember. “Look, Abe,” he said, “it’s not like I’m a private investigator wanting to go around you guys. I’d just like a little information, that’s all.”
“That’s the line, huh?”
“It’s the line, but it’s also the goddamn truth.”
Glitsky flicked at his cup—rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat. “Griffin and I aren’t exactly sleeping together,” he said. “You’ll have to play it very straight.”
“I just want to meet the guy,” Hardy said. “I’ll dazzle him with my Irish charm.”
6
THE SUN HAD COME OUT. The morning was beginning to get warm. Hardy took off his sweater before he got to his car. He felt slightly nauseous. He had felt it was his duty to look at the body again.
He’d seen quite a lot of blood in Vietnam before he himself had been hit in the shoulder. As a cop, he’d run across his share. But he was far from hardened to the effects of metal passing through flesh at high speed.
They hadn’t yet dressed it. Hardy had started at the toes and worked up. Eddie had been five-ten, about 160 pounds. He had an old, healed moon-shaped scar about three inches long on his upper right thigh, calluses on the tips of the fingers of his left hand, a fairly new bruise on his left forearm, and a small scratch near his left ear, just under the hole the bullet had made going in.
He drove up Mission Street with the windows open. The radio in his Suzuki wasn’t working, but still Hardy tried to turn it on three times in the thirty blocks between Ging’s Mortuary and his destination. The damage done by the tiny piece of lead kept jumping up behind his eyes, short-circuiting other connections.
The parking lot was between a local office of the Pacific Telephone Company and the Cruz Publishing Company.
The lot was now filled with cars. Hardy had a hard time, for a moment, remembering what it had looked like empty. This was industrial wasteland, without a house around. Railroad tracks, train yards, glass, stone and cement. He parked along the curb, letting the site work itself into his consciousness. The sun was hot now and glared off the side of the Cruz Building.
Arturo Cruz stopped dictating and dismissed his secretary, then gave all his attention to the two men six floors below him in the parking lot. Immediately he knew it had been a mistake to send Jeffrey to get rid of the cop—it must be another cop. Jeffrey was too young, inexperienced. Loyal as a dog, a body to die for, but not by any stretch a jack-of-all-trades.
Jeffrey was having a conversation with the man, showing him around the long, narrow lot that was now filled with the cars of Cruz’s employees.
His publication was a newspaper called La Hora, which catered to the large Latino population of San Francisco. It was an intensely competitive market, and to make it you had to do things that maybe when you started out would have bothered you.
Now, the point was, you’d
“You don’t think we’re competent to do that, to find that out? ’Cause that’s what it sounds like you’re saying, and that kind of pisses me off.”
Hardy sighed. “Are we a little defensive here in our declining years, or what?”
Abe chewed on some more ice. “You don’t understand what it’s like here lately.”
“Yeah, but I’m not asking for much, either.”
“You’re asking to get in somebody’s face around their investigation. That’s pretty much.”
“Well, then you do it for me.”
Glitsky laughed. “Yeah, that’d work.” Hardy knew that the humor he heard wouldn’t ever get to his eyes. “Do you even know what we’ve got? Why don’t you wait a day or two? If it’s a homicide, we’ll likely decide it’s a homicide.”
“I know that.”
“And don’t brownnose me.”
Hardy had forgotten that he’d never been much good at getting things by Glitsky. He was beginning to remember. “Look, Abe,” he said, “it’s not like I’m a private investigator wanting to go around you guys. I’d just like a little information, that’s all.”
“That’s the line, huh?”
“It’s the line, but it’s also the goddamn truth.”
Glitsky flicked at his cup—rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat. “Griffin and I aren’t exactly sleeping together,” he said. “You’ll have to play it very straight.”
“I just want to meet the guy,” Hardy said. “I’ll dazzle him with my Irish charm.”
6
THE SUN HAD COME OUT. The morning was beginning to get warm. Hardy took off his sweater before he got to his car. He felt slightly nauseous. He had felt it was his duty to look at the body again.
He’d seen quite a lot of blood in Vietnam before he himself had been hit in the shoulder. As a cop, he’d run across his share. But he was far from hardened to the effects of metal passing through flesh at high speed.
They hadn’t yet dressed it. Hardy had started at the toes and worked up. Eddie had been five-ten, about 160 pounds. He had an old, healed moon-shaped scar about three inches long on his upper right thigh, calluses on the tips of the fingers of his left hand, a fairly new bruise on his left forearm, and a small scratch near his left ear, just under the hole the bullet had made going in.
He drove up Mission Street with the windows open. The radio in his Suzuki wasn’t working, but still Hardy tried to turn it on three times in the thirty blocks between Ging’s Mortuary and his destination. The damage done by the tiny piece of lead kept jumping up behind his eyes, short-circuiting other connections.
The parking lot was between a local office of the Pacific Telephone Company and the Cruz Publishing Company.
The lot was now filled with cars. Hardy had a hard time, for a moment, remembering what it had looked like empty. This was industrial wasteland, without a house around. Railroad tracks, train yards, glass, stone and cement. He parked along the curb, letting the site work itself into his consciousness. The sun was hot now and glared off the side of the Cruz Building.
Arturo Cruz stopped dictating and dismissed his secretary, then gave all his attention to the two men six floors below him in the parking lot. Immediately he knew it had been a mistake to send Jeffrey to get rid of the cop—it must be another cop. Jeffrey was too young, inexperienced. Loyal as a dog, a body to die for, but not by any stretch a jack-of-all-trades.
Jeffrey was having a conversation with the man, showing him around the long, narrow lot that was now filled with the cars of Cruz’s employees.
His publication was a newspaper called La Hora, which catered to the large Latino population of San Francisco. It was an intensely competitive market, and to make it you had to do things that maybe when you started out would have bothered you.
Now, the point was, you’d
Similar Books
