‘We will. I promise. I’ve been looking for this for too long and now we’ve got it. I’m not letting you go, and that’s all there is to it.’
Hardy was intensely unhappy with Graham’s disappearance, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. The police would probably find him first and Hardy would get a call from jail.
Meanwhile, he did have other clients who needed consistent, if perhaps low-level, effort. He tried to leave Friday afternoons open for the motions and correspondence that covered a decent part of the overhead of a small commercial practice like his own. He was just finishing up a memo for one of these clients, when he looked up and saw Abe Glitsky standing in his open doorway.
Momentarily startled, Hardy sat back. ‘Now I know how you must feel. People turning up in your office without any warning. Hey, wasn’t today the day? Tell me your door’s been installed.’
‘It’s in.’ Glitsky nodded, but there was a set to his features. He wasn’t here to talk about his door.
‘What’s the matter?’
The lieutenant took a step into the room. ‘I tell you something in confidence as a friend, and you take it to the DA and try to make your own juice out of it, I feel kind of like you’re a sack-of-shit lawyer instead of my old pal.’
Any profanity from Glitsky was unusual, but a directed vulgar insult was unheard of, serious. ‘You want to come in? I’m sorry. I was wrong.’
Glitsky didn’t move. ‘I don’t think I do. I’m just here with the message, so you’d know I knew.’
Dan Tosca was allowing himself to be treated to a nice dinner at Firenze by Night. Lanier had wanted the information sooner if he could have gotten it, and now, technically, it was too late; the attorney general had already got its indictment on Graham Russo, though he and his partner hadn’t been able to serve the warrant.
Lanier didn’t really think there would be anything with Sal Russo’s business dealings that might complicate the investigation into his death. But, as it turned out, he was wrong.
Tosca was eating coniglio con pancetta - Lanier called it bunny and bacon – and Marcel was having spaghetti and meatballs. ‘… so I was surprised, mostly because I hadn’t heard a word about it.’
‘But it was a heart attack, you’re sure?’
Tosca shrugged, pushing sauce around his plate with a piece of bread. ‘Nobody’s sure of anything, come right down to it, but Pio gets a pain in his chest, he goes to the hospital, he dies.’
‘Pio?’
‘Pio, yeah. Ermenigeldo Pio. He ran the fish operation.’
‘For who?’
Tosca lowered his voice. ‘It was his shop. He built it up.’
‘And how big was it? Not just Russo’s, the whole thing?’
‘Dollar volume? Thirty, thirty-five.’
‘A month?’
Tosca shrugged, agreeing. ‘People like fish. Everybody’s worried about cholesterol. Me’ – he pointed down at his plate – ‘I like this. I don’t worry about it.’
Marcel put his fork down. ‘I don’t feel good about Pio dying just now.’
A smile. ‘I bet he don’t either. And it’s not now. It was last week.’
This really set off warning bells. Like all veteran cops Lanier set little store in coincidence. ‘They do an autopsy?’
‘Why? It was a heart attack. Guy’s sixty-two. Probably didn’t eat enough fish.’ Tosca speared some meat. ‘But you ask me, it’s all genes anyway. You get your time, then you’re dead.’
‘You’re a philosopher, aren’t you, Dan?’
Another shrug. ‘Part time. Look, if it makes you feel better, I can tell you, this has nothing to do with Sal Russo and his one truck of fish. Pio was doing vans, he’s got a fleet. He’s doing Half Moon Bay up to Tomales seven days a week.’
‘So who’s doing that now? Who’s taking that over?’
Tosca’s eyes twinkled. ‘I don’t think that’s all settled yet.’ He reached over the table and patted Lanier’s arm. ‘A vacuum like this comes up, there’s always a little power struggle. It’ll work itself out. But I guarantee you this has nothing to do with Sal Russo.’
If it was all fish, Lanier could believe that, even at the enormous volumes they were discussing. But if it was anything else… ‘You would tell me if you’d run into drugs, wouldn’t you?’
Tosca put his fork down. ‘Marcel, this is not how dope is handled. You know this. You got your Koreans, your Vietnamese, the Chinatown tongs, your longhairs. Bunch of guinea Pescadores go up against these hard-ons? I don’t think so. Besides, I thought you told me you were arresting the boy, his son.’
‘We are.’
‘And wasn’t there some magazine story he admitted it?’
‘Yeah.’
Tosca spread his hands. ‘So what’s the problem?’
18
Sarah wasn’t sure whether it had been her idea or Graham’s, but somehow they’d decided they would spend a last weekend together, after which Graham would turn himself in.
But it wouldn’t be in San Francisco, where the risk was too great. Sarah already felt so compromised that she barely considered what difference another day or two would make, especially over a weekend.
Graham had a Saturday tournament across the Bay. If his team won, he would have more money for his defense, which he would need. So at nine-fifteen Saturday morning they parked at the tournament site, a multidiamond complex in a valley surrounded by oak-strewn rolling green foothills. Graham was pulling his bat bag from his trunk when a trim man in a designer sweatsuit, gold chain, sunglasses, came jogging up. ‘I can’t believe it, I can’t believe you’re here.’
Graham turned. ‘Hey, Craig, how you doin’?‘ A bounce of the shoulders. ’We got games, I’m here.‘ Graham’s macho pose was kicking back in. Sarah saw little sign of the man she’d been with for the past week, for whom she was sacrificing everything. This untouchable athlete needed no one. It was an unsettling moment.
But this man, Craig, was going on. ‘You’re having some week, aren’t you? I know some important people, let me tell you, and I don’t know anybody who’s ever been on the cover of Time.’
‘It’s just stuff around me,’ Graham said. ‘I’m here to play ball, that’s all.’ He put out his hand to include Sarah, bring her up to them. ‘This is a friend of mine, Sarah Evans. Sarah, Craig Ising, our sponsor.’
Shaking hands with him, Sarah was struck by his relative youth. He wasn’t much older than they were, certainly not over forty. From Graham’s description of him – really from what she knew he must be worth – she had expected someone in his fifties, at least.
Half an hour later Sarah was eating a Sno-Kone, watching the teams warm up. Ising appeared from somewhere and sat next to her. ‘So, you been seeing my star a long time?’
‘Couple of weeks,’ she said.
‘You live in the city?’
‘Yeah.’ She glanced out the side of her sunglasses. ‘How’d you find Graham?’
‘I knew his dad.’
‘Sal?’
‘You knew him too?’
‘Graham talks about him a lot.’
‘Yeah. Hell of a funny guy. Was, I mean. Shame about that. He had some great jokes. Anyway, Graham was in Triple A and got cut, and Sal told me I ought to try him out. I’m glad I did. Kid’s made me a bundle.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘He’s mature, you know, a leader.’
She smiled. ‘I like him already, Craig. So what was it? You bought fish from Sal?’
‘Naw.’ He lowered his voice. ‘He had protection, you know? He was good luck.’
Sarah felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. ‘What do you mean, protection?’
The game had started and the shortstop for the Hornets took a hit away from the first batter, going deep into the hole. When Ising sat down again, Sarah repeated her question.