Rain pelted the asphalt, the heaviest downpour he'd seen in the past couple of years.
He'd set the briefcase down next to him. Hands in his jacket pockets, he stood under the awning that covered the otherwise open and usually wind-swept corridor that led out the back door of the Hall, past the coroner's office and the entrance to the jail. His leather flight jacket was buttoned to his neck, the fur-lined collar turned up nearly to his ears. A gust of wind threw a spray of mist into his face and he backed up a step.
The effort to take his hands from his pockets and wipe his eyes seemed impossibly great.
Three or four people passed him going to their own rides – moans at the weather, shop talk, a snatch of laughter. At what? he wondered.
Unable to bring himself to move forward, he eventually turned around, picked up the briefcase, and retraced his steps halfway back to the door of the Hall. There he turned left, ran a few steps on wet concrete, and pulled at the glass door that proclaimed the offices of John Strout, Coroner for the City and County of San Francisco.
It was after hours, though, and the door was locked. The night bell was marked out of order. Glitsky almost laughed, might have even thought he was laughing, except that the sound in no way resembled laughter. The rain fell on his uncovered head, trickled down the back of his neck. He knocked hard, the doors shaking beneath his fist. Then, saving his knuckles, he turned his hand to the side and pounded hard. He was certain Strout was inside. This was the middle of the day for him. He pounded again.
Some helpful soul passing in the corridor yelled over that he thought they were closed.
'Thanks,' Glitsky replied. He waited a reasonable period of time, then pounded again at the door.
A uniformed patrolman suddenly appeared behind him, tapping him on the shoulder. 'Let's go, pal,' he said. Glitsky noticed the rain dripping from the bill of his cap. He had one hand on his nightstick and looked like it wouldn't take much in the way of temptation to induce him to use it. 'No loitering here. Building's closed up for the night. Let's move it along.'
Scowling, which didn't make him prettier, the lieutenant turned, brushed the hand away. 'Easy, cowboy,' he said. 'I'm with homicide, upstairs. Glitsky.'
The cop did a double-take and must have recognized him. He all but fell backwards, sheepish. 'Oh, excuse me. Sorry, sir. I thought you were a bum.'
Glitsky nodded. 'Join the club.'
PART TWO
14
'He'd be the perfect bartender.'
Not that Glitsky had applied for the job, or ever would, but Hardy thought his friend might profit from a spell working behind the bar at the Little Shamrock – give him something to do while he waited out his suspension, keep him from going stir crazy, polish up those people skills that cops kept getting lectured about.
He was in the driver's seat, stopped at a red light, trying to sell the notion to his brother-in-law, Moses McGuire, who not incidentally was the majority partner in the bar -three-fourths to Hardy's quarter.
McGuire looked across the seat at Hardy as though he were a Martian. In fact, the two men had been in each other's lives for nearly thirty years, since they'd platooned together in Vietnam, where Hardy had saved Moses' life. Later, when Hardy's first marriage and life had fallen apart after the death of his son Michael, McGuire had returned the favor by giving Hardy sanctuary – a bartending job at the Shamrock that he'd kept for nearly a decade. So the two guys were connected, but Hardy's suggestion – even in jest – that Abe Glitsky work behind their bar was still too much to abide. 'Perfect? In what way perfect?'
'Honest…'
'Hey, there's an idea. We could call him Honest Abe. I bet he'd love that.'
'I'm serious. He'd work hard, show up on time, take no abuse from customers-'
'Because he'd have driven away all the customers?'
'Why would he drive away customers?'
'Gee, I don't know. Could it be because he's scary, intimidating, unfriendly…'
'Abe?'
'We are talking about Abe Glitsky, aren't we? The guy we're on the way to pick up? Black, mean-looking, scar through his lips, never drinks, never smiles? Him?'
Moses, atypically, was dressed in a somber brown suit with a black shirt and black tie. Not so atypically, he was having a morning tipple – one of the airplane-issued one-shot bottles of Lagavulin that he was carrying around with him in the pocket of his suit coat. He was drinking early because he'd declared it more or less a holiday – he wasn't opening the bar today. He'd assigned the shift to one of the regular night guys because of the memorial service.
Not that he had known Elaine Wager. But his wife Susan, a cellist with the symphony, had been hired with several other musicians to play at the service and he wanted to hear her. The acoustics of the cavernous Grace Cathedral were legendary – Art Garfunkel had once sung his vocals for an album there, just him and a microphone and the vibrations off the old stones. Terrific stuff. When he'd heard that his brother-in-law was going to the service too, it cinched it for him. They could make it a road trip, a very short one, true – only thirty blocks or so – but McGuire made it a point to take his fun when he could get it.
The car moved through the intersection. 'He's a good guy, Mose.'
McGuire was clean-shaven this month. He hadn't been in a fight since before Christmas. The last broken nose had somehow set straight, and with his salt-and-pepper hair combed back, he looked almost dashing, albeit twenty years older than his chronological age. 'I know he's a good guy,' he said. 'Often I'll say to myself, "That Abe Glitsky, what a good guy." But that doesn't mean he'd be a good bartender. You know why?'
'Tell me.'
'Because bartenders, in theory, should have personalities.'
Hardy threw a glare across the seat. 'Abe's got a personality.'
'OK, let me rephrase it. Bartenders should have good personalities. Warm, inviting, even charming, much like myself.' He savored a mouthful of Scotch. 'Even you, on a good day in your youth, from time to time would achieve the lower rung of charming. But Glitsky? I don't think so. No.'
Hardy turned the car onto Lake, pulled to a stop at a once-in-a-decade curb-side opening almost directly in front of Glitsky's duplex. It was nine thirty on a bright, cold and sunny Monday morning, one week after Elaine's murder. Hardy let himself out of the car, then leaned back in, an afterthought. 'I don't think we need to bring it up, OK?'
'I'll be my usual sensitive self,' McGuire assured him, and tipped up the tiny bottle.
In spite of his promise to be sensitive, McGuire started providing hot job tips almost as soon as Glitsky got into the car. He'd already opined that maybe Abe could find work selling real estate, setting up web pages on the Internet; he could open a chop house – with all the great gourmet restaurants in the city, the place was crying out for a good, old-fashioned chop house.
Glitsky, in the back seat, dangerously calm, started rattling them off. 'Alfred's, John's, Jack's, Little Joe's…'
'OK, then, OK, forget the chop house. How about maybe private investigator for Diz?' It went on and on. Maybe it wasn't too late for Abe to go back to school, become a doctor or lawyer or something. An accountant? Was Abe good with numbers?
Like McGuire, Glitsky was in a business suit – although he rarely saw the need for it, the lieutenant could dress when he wanted to. Adjusting the knot on his electric blue tie, he squinted out the back window, then reached into an inside pocket, removed some sunglasses, put them on.
McGuire happened to catch the move. 'I like it,' he said. 'Very Samuel Jackson.' He was twisting the cap on his third little bottle. A thought struck him and he stopped, snapping his fingers. 'Hey, maybe acting…'
Hardy glanced sideways, wishing his brother-in-law would shut up, but he was shooting more Scotch, oblivious. Until suddenly – Hardy didn't even see it – Glitsky was leaning over the front seat, his gun in his hand, up against McGuire's head. His voice rasped, but the tone was one of exquisite calm. 'I'm going to blow your fuckin' head off,' he said.