It was a grueling responsibility – the daily grind. But it was his job, and he was sorry if once in a very great while he had to miss a goddamn dinner. Some wives actually understood this.
That’s what he would have said if she’d come back in on the warpath.
But if she had lost her temper at any time last night, she’d found it by the time she talked to him this morning. She wasn’t mad, and this threw him, as she knew it would, back on himself.
Was this the way it was always going to be? She simply wanted to know, so she’d be able to deal with it. So she could be a better mom to the kids. (She didn’t say, ‘in the absence of a father figure,’ but he heard it.)
So he tried a few clichés – ‘Life is complicated.’ ‘We have different roles we’re trying to juggle.’ ‘This is just a busy time’ – but he’d ended up by apologizing. He’d try to communicate better in the future. She was right: something had to change.
Well, he thought, something already had. He’d brought on Michelle to help with Tryptech. He’d more or less committed to Graham Russo’s defense. This case intrigued him as corporate litigation never would. There was no passion for him in business law and it took all of his time, wasting him for anything else – like his family. It made him feel old.
He might – no, he would - wind up working the same kind of hours for Graham Russo, but it would be in the service of something he believed in. Maybe, at forty-five, he was finally getting down to the core of who he was.
The car behind him honked and he moved forward, then pulled over to the side of Geary Street, letting the traffic flow past him.
This was the way he always reacted when he began caring too much: he went on autopilot and ran from it. There was too much to lose. It wasn’t safe.
It was what he’d done after his son had died during his first marriage, when he was twenty-seven. Something in him decided he wouldn’t survive looking over into the chasm. He closed up and went to sleep.
He and Jane had gotten divorced, he’d quit the law entirely, and for nearly ten years he’d tended bar at the Shamrock. Drinking a lot, but rarely getting drunk. Functioning quite well, thank you, but keeping any feeling on a short tether. Sleepwalking.
Then, suddenly, Frannie. Realizing that the essence of him had nearly dried up and would surely blow away if he didn’t risk part of it, he’d started over. Fatherhood, again. Criminal law, again. Caring too much again.
What if he lost all this now, or even any part of it?
No, he couldn’t let that happen. He was at his limit of risk tolerance. It was too dangerous; it was a matter of his survival, he had to pull back.
And that’s what he’d done: gotten back to sleepwalking. Functioning, keeping too busy. He was on the run, avoiding the only kind of work he found fulfilling, maintaining a low level of interaction with his family.
It stunned him – he’d become afraid. Of change, of failure in his job, of caring too much at home.
It had to stop, he thought. He had to wake himself up. What was the point of protecting the essentials in your life – your talents, your family, your friends – if you never took the time to enjoy them? If you were already dead?
Superior Court Judge Leo Chomorro, a brush-cut, swarthy block of well-tailored muscle, was in his chambers, playing chess with his computer. He had blocked out six days for a murder trial in his courtroom, and this morning one of Pratt’s young wunderkind had forgotten to subpoena the witness he had planned to call at the start of the day. So Chomorro had a morning off, not that this had put him in an especially good humor. On the other hand, one of Hardy’s trials had been in Chomorro’s courtroom, and there was no evidence that anything put him in a good humor. Nevertheless, he was the only available judge this morning, and Hardy needed him.
He kept it short: he’d like the judge to sign a court order to look at the surveillance videotapes from Graham Russo’s bank. He explained why he needed it.
‘Why don’t you use a subpoena?’ the judge asked him.
‘I can’t. There’s no case pending.’
‘So what jurisdiction do I have to issue this order? Who am I to tell the bank what to do? I can’t issue an order any more than you can issue a subpoena.’
‘Your Honor.’ Hardy laid on the respect. ‘The bank doesn’t care about the tape. All they need is paper to cover themselves. If you sign this, no one will ever object. If you don’t, important evidence in this case could be lost because the police don’t want to preserve it.’
Chomorro snorted. ‘They shouldn’t care either way.’
Hardy nodded. ‘Should is the operative word there, Judge.’
‘You think this one’s going to get hot, don’t you?’
Another nod. ‘It’s smoldering already. That’s why I need the order now. I don’t know how long they save the tapes. If it’s a week, maybe I’m already too late. I need last Friday’s.’
Chomorro reviewed the order that Hardy had printed out from the word processor in his office.
‘To: CUSTODIAN OF RECORDS, Wells Fargo Bank, Haight Street Branch.
‘GOOD CAUSE APPEARING THEREFORE, you are hereby ORDERED, upon receipt of reasonable payment therefore, to surrender to Dismas Hardy, counsel of record for Graham Russo, copies of surveillance videotape film for the dates May 9-13, inclusive.’
Below the date was a line for the judge to sign, and this he did, looking up when he was finished, handing over the paper. ‘I haven’t seen you around here in a while, Mr Hardy. You been on vacation?’
Hardy kept it light. ‘Just waiting for the right case.’
Chomorro nodded. ‘Looks like you found it.’
Graham had his telephone and answering machines unplugged, but in New York on Thursday afternoon a senior editor at Time - Michael Cerrone – convinced his boss that the Russo story in San Francisco was a potential cover. On Friday at one-twenty, shivering in the wind and fog – even up on Edgewood – Cerrone knocked on Graham’s door and introduced himself. He had his photographer with him.
‘Time magazine?’ Graham said. ‘You’re kidding me.’
Cerrone had seen this response before in people whom fame had sledgehammered. He proffered his credentials.
‘This is so unreal,’ Graham said. ‘Here I just come home from getting laid off and now you want to take my picture for Time magazine?’
Cerrone wasn’t much older than Graham, though he looked even younger, with dark hair to his shoulders and an open, inviting smile. In jeans, hiking boots, and a bright blue parka, he was the farthest thing imaginable from a threatening big-city media type. He showed his teeth, grinning. ‘Hey, I know it’s not Rolling Stone, but I’ll buy you a beer.’ Then, more seriously, ‘Who laid you off? How come?’
Graham explained it. His employers had no complaints about his work, but due to all the publicity, they’d gotten several phone calls. Potential customers didn’t seem all that thrilled with the idea that their sick patients would be riding in an ambulance with a paramedic who might help them end their suffering. After all this blew over, the ambulance company might reconsider bringing Graham back on, but until then…
‘That sucks,’ Cerrone said sympathetically. ‘Don’t you want to tell your side of it? You’ll never get a better chance.’
Graham Russo thought about it for a couple of seconds, then told Cerrone he might as well come on in out of the cold, bring his photographer in with him.