Hardy stood up. "I appreciate you seeing me."
She came up to him and laid a hand on his arm. "I really wish you would leave Jody alone," she said. "He doesn't need this."
"Thanks for your time," he said. "I'll find my way out."
The phone was ringing. It was six-thirty on the clock next to the bed, and at first Hardy didn't know where he was, then whether it was morning or night. The last time he had fallen asleep during daylight he'd slept through the dark, and for a moment there he wondered if he'd done it again.
He picked up the telephone. It was Jody Bachman, personable Jody Bachman. "Margaret said you came by. I'm sorry I missed you. Also, listen, the other thing – never calling you back. What can I say? I got busy again. It's been really crazy. So I got your message at the office checking in, but I was late for this event. You know how it is. You want to get together?"
"Tonight's out. I'm fighting a cold here."
"Okay, how about tomorrow? You still in town? If you're free for lunch I've got a table at the City Club. Great food. Better view. Noon okay?"
"Noon's fine," Hardy answered.
"Noon then. You know where it is?"
Hardy said he'd find it. Bachman said he'd see him there.
He collapsed back down on the bed. When he closed his eyes he had a sensation of motion, of the room spinning around him. He forced himself up to a sitting position.
He was forgetting something. It seemed important, maybe crucial, but he couldn't put his finger on it. And the effort at thought was so tiring. Minutes passed. He started to doze sitting up. The telephone rang again.
"Are you still sick?"
"I'm still sick."
Frannie's earlier anger had given way to concern. "Why don't you come home, Dismas? You ought to see a doctor."
He told her about his scheduled meeting the next day with Bachman. One way or the other, that would be the end of it. He had to stay until then.
She stopped pushing. Okay, if that's what he was going to do. The kids, she said, were fine. Rebecca was really missing him – that wasn't a guilt trip, just a fact. She, Frannie – his wife, remember? – missed him, too. Would he please try to take care of himself, be careful?
He told her he would. He didn't have much choice. He wasn't going anywhere feeling like he did. Hermetically sealed in his hotel room, he was going to sleep right now for the night. He'd see her tomorrow.
In the bathroom he took some more aspirin, drank two glasses of water. His face in the mirror was drawn and sallow. Everything ached. He crossed to the window to pull the shade closed. A purple dusk lay on the city streets. Further off, Mount Wilson, up on the crest of the San Gabriels, glowed vermilion, diamond glints of the gasping sunlight sparkling out of the rocky brush. He put an arm up against the window and leaned heavily against it.
Below him in the parking lot a lone man got out of his car, closed the door and went to his trunk. He took out a small carrying case, looked around the lot, closed the trunk, then quickly, without wasted motion, bypassed the lobby entrance and walked directly underneath into Hardy's wing of the building.
It was just the way he had felt at home. Paranoid. Stupid.
But knowing that didn't help. Suddenly he knew he had to get out of here. He had given Jody Bachman his room number, told him he'd be staying in all night.
Jody Bachman, who by Hardy's scenario had hired someone to kill Simpson Crane, Crane's wife, Larry and Matthew Witt. And now Hardy was the only one standing between him and his seven million dollars…
There wasn't much to pack. He gathered his old clothes, still wearing his new ones. There was no one in the hallway when he stepped into it.
The elevator opened and he was facing a thin dark well-dressed man. The man carried the small carrying case he'd seen earlier, or one very much like it. Hardy stepped by him into the elevator as the man got out. He was looking for a room numbers as the door closed.
52
Jody Bachman was twenty minutes late, and if he was surprised to see Hardy sitting alive at the table he had reserved, he showed no sign.
The fever had broken after another twelve hours of heavy sleep in a motel just outside of Glendale. Hardy, in new loafers, slacks, an indigo sports coat and regimental tie, still hurt. His muscles still ached.
He had given himself a couple of minutes of feeling like an idiot when he woke up. But, after all, he had woken up and that was some consolation, maybe even justification. It had probably been fatigue and fever. Absolutely nothing to it. But it was done. He had changed hotels. In all likelihood it had been foolish and unnecessary. He could live with that. Had, in fact.
He knew who Bachman was before he got to the table. Entering the room as though he owned it, he was one of those southern California ex-surfers whose aging process didn't seem to run on the same battery as that of mere mortals. He had to be thirty-five or so if he was a partner at Crane, but he looked ten years younger – chiseled cheeks, a cleft in his chin, not a worry line anywhere. The hair, which would have been peroxide blond fifteen years before, was now a light chestnut and fell forward in a Kennedy lock. He either used a tanning salon or spent a lot of time at Margaret Morency's pool.
There was no question – it was a power room. Bachman's first stop was where the mayor of Los Angeles sat at a table for six, at least one of whom Hardy recognized as a prominent and much photographed state legislator.
As Bachman worked the room, winding his way back to the window seat, Hardy sipped his club soda. There was no smog. Los Angeles south of downtown sprawled over some warehouses, then expanded to a horizon of oil derricks, rail yards, power lines, freeways, gypsum quarries. It was a view for those who favored expanse over anything pleasant to look at – there were no bridges, islands, bodies of water, distinctive buildings, hills or green patches. Maybe Bachman didn't yet rate the better window tables, where the mayor and the congressman and whomever they ate with could glimpse the ocean, the glittering and verdant west side, the San Gabriels.
"Sorry I'm late. Jody Bachman." Bachman mouthed another greeting to someone he had missed on his first pass through the room, then – finally – sat. "I can't seem to catch up." He laughed. "It never ends. You having a drink?"
Hardy tipped the glass. "Club soda."
"Me, too. How guys have a martini or even a beer in the middle of the day…" He shook his head. "It wipes me out. I might as well take a sleeping pill. So what can I do for you?"
"I'm trying to get to the end of something myself. My client got sentenced to death on Friday."
Bachman, sipping his water, stopped it halfway to his mouth. "Jesus," he said, putting the glass down, "that's a different breed of law."
"It's not exactly boardrooms and bylaws."
"Death, huh? Witt's wife, right?"
"That's right. Jennifer."
Bachman whistled soundlessly. The waiter arrived. He wore a tuxedo and placed a glass of what looked like cranberry juice on the table. "Just the special, Klaus, for me. Whatever it is." He included Hardy.
"Sounds fine." When Klaus was gone, he said, "I'm trying to get the judge to lower it to life."
"I thought you appealed. Forever."
"Eventually," Hardy said. "If it comes to that." He didn’t intend to explain the protocol. "Jennifer says she's innocent and" – Hardy allowed a bemused grin for Bachman's benefit – "I'm still tempted to believe her. So what I've got to do is give the judge some doubt. Doesn't have to be much…"