Dean brought me a glass of brandy and had me sit on a stool behind the bar as he went back to his work. I watched him lifting boxes of empty beer bottles and stacking them against the wall.
Someone was knocking at the front door. Dean glanced over at me and then went to answer it, behind the curtain. He emerged a second later followed by Grant Hancock. With his Burberry overcoat and perfectly groomed hair, Grant looked as if he had just stepped off the pages of a fashion magazine. Dean winked at me, approvingly.
Grant came up and inspected me. “You look terrible, Henry. Should we get you to a hospital?”
“I think everything’s working,” I said. “I just need a ride back to my car.”
“Your car? What you need is sleep. Come on.”
I got up and followed him out. Dean walked us to the curb where Grant had parked.
“Thanks, Dean.” I reached out and patted his arm awkwardly, wanting to say more but not sure what.
“Come back sometime,” he said, smiling. I climbed into Grant’s car. We drove through the soundless streets to his building.
“I really should get back home tonight,” I said.
“Henry, it’s three-thirty in the morning,” Grant replied as he steered into the underground garage and parked in a numbered stall. “No one has to do anything at three-thirty, especially you. You’re hardly awake now. I doubt that you could make it all the way back.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “I’ll stay.”
“Of course you will,” he replied, getting out of the car.
When we got to his condo, I took a hot shower, changed into borrowed clothes and asked for a drink. We sat on the floor in the living room drinking brandy by candlelight. The room was very still as Grant had me explain the events which occurred after I left his apartment.
“I think,” he said, “that you are lucky to be alive.”
“I agree, and now I know, beyond any doubt, that the judge was responsible for Hugh’s death.”
“So now you can stop and go on with your life.”
“What?”
Grant swirled the brandy in his glass, watching it streak and run down the sides. “The mystery is solved.”
“But I still have to prove the solution.”
“To whom?”
“The police, to begin with, and maybe, at some point, a jury.”
“Are you serious?” he asked, putting his glass down. “You think you can prove this against Robert Paris? Do you know anything about the man?”
“As a general proposition? No.”
“You’re talking about one of the most powerful men in the state,” he said. “You’re talking about a man who declined appointment to the United States Supreme Court.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“That’s the point. Think of it this way, Henry. You and the judge both have piles of stones to throw at each other. You’ve pretty much used yours up but he hasn’t even started. He’s been playing with you.”
“Schoolboys throw rocks at frogs in sport,” I quoted, “but the frogs die in earnest.”
“No,” Grant said. “Not for sport. For power. I know Robert Paris,” he continued, staring into his glass. “You don’t stand a chance.”
“Is this the voice of experience talking?”
Grant looked up. “My father,” he began, “got it into his head that he wanted to be mayor of this city. Have you met my father?” I nodded. My recollection was of an elegant but rather dim patrician whom Grant inexplicably idolized. “Robert Paris was backing another candidate who would have trounced my father anyway. But just to make sure,” he set his glass down and looked away, “they told my father I was gay and that if he persisted, the whole town would know. That’s how my father found out his only son was homosexual. My father is a man,” he continued, “who still thinks gay is a perfectly acceptable adjective for divorcees. Or did, anyway. It broke his heart,” Grant said. “It really did.”
“Grant, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “That’s water under the bridge,” he said, “but the moral is: Don’t fuck with Robert Paris. Hugh’s dead. You’re not.” And then he added softly, “I’m not.”
“But if it had been you rather than Hugh, I’d do the same.”
He smiled a little. “You miss my meaning.”
“No,” I said, reaching out to touch his hand, “I don’t.”
“What time is it?” Grant mumbled, turning over in bed.
“A little after six,” I replied, buttoning my shirt.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes, there’s someone I have to see.”
“Your associates keep odd hours.” He sat up in bed, watching me tie my shoes.
“Will you call Smith for me?” I asked.
He thought about it a second.
“I still don’t see the point of it,” he said.
“The police wouldn’t reopen their investigation without pressure from somewhere. Who better than Smith?”
“If you could only give me something more concrete,” he said.
“If I didn’t know you better, Grant, I’d say John Smith intimidates you.”
“He does. It’s not often I ask for an audience with a local deity.”
“Okay,” I said, “then don’t.”
“I’m sorry, Henry. I just can’t see getting involved at this point.”
“You’ve already been helpful, Grant.”
“Thanks.”
We looked at each other.
“Is this it, then?” he asked.
“No,” I replied. “No.”
I leaned over and kissed him.
“All right,” he said.
An hour later I was finishing breakfast in Terry Ormes’ kitchen. She cooked well for a cop, I thought as I swallowed a forkful of scrambled eggs. It occurred to me that I could not remember when I had eaten last. The eggs were good — she put tarragon in them. She was talking on the phone, explaining to someone why she would be late for work. I got up and cleared the table, rinsing dishes and stacking them in the dishwasher. Her kitchen was long, sunny and narrow. Everything was in its place but this bespoke an orderly presence rather than a fussy one. She finished her call and came back into the kitchen carrying a manila folder. She sat down at the kitchen table. I joined her there.
“More coffee?” she asked, pouring herself a cup.
“Sure,” I said, noticing for the first time that the backs of her hands were covered with faint freckles.
“How long have you been a cop?” I asked, continuing our earlier conversation.
“Seven years, going on twenty.”
“Tough life?”
“It’s what I always wanted. My dad was a cop. He got as high up as captain before he retired.”
“Did he want you to join the force?”
“He never came out and said it, but he was happy that I did.”
“And your mother?”
“She’d have been happier if I’d gone into something more feminine. Schoolteaching, for instance, like my brother.” She sipped her coffee. “What about you? Was your dad a lawyer?”
“No, he was foreman of the night crew at a cannery in Marysville. I’m the only lawyer in my family.”
“The scuttlebutt around the station is that you’re good.”
“I am,” I said.
“But you’re not a great cop,” she said, “judging from what happened to you last night. The first thing we learn is not to take unnecessary risks.”
“And how do you know when a risk is unnecessary? I was playing a hunch going to see Abrams. I didn’t think much would come from it. I was wrong.”
“I’ll say. Why don’t you run your next scheme by me and let me decide if it’s an unnecessary risk?”
I laughed. “Are you my partner or my mother?”
“I guess that depends on what you need most,” Terry said. “Let’s get to work.”
She opened the manila folder and handed me a thin sheaf of papers.
“What’s this?”
“Hugh Paris,” she said. “Everything I could get on him.”
“Doesn’t seem like much.”
“It isn’t. He didn’t have a California driver’s license so I ran his name with DMV and came back with nothing. The only criminal record he has was his arrest in July. No credit cards, no known bank accounts. He leased his house from something called the Pegasus Corporation, one of those companies that owns companies.”