At Jackman's outer office, Hardy stopped in the doorway. Treya, on the telephone saying "Yes, sir" a lot to someone, smiled a greeting and held up a "just a sec" finger. Hardy came in, walked over, and kissed her on the cheek, then sat in the chair next to Jackman's door. Treya continued with her proper responses in her modulated, professional voice, but she rolled her eyes and made faces in the midst of them.
Watching her, Hardy broke a grin.
When Glitsky's first wife had died, Hardy would never have believed that anyone could have approached Flo as an equally compatible mate for his best friend. But in a little less than a year, Treya had won him and Frannie over. Not only competent and confident, Treya's sense of humor went a long way toward blunting Abe's razor edge.
At last she hung up. "The mayor," she explained. "Always wanting my opinions on the issues." Then, a questioning look. "Did you have an appointment? Is Clarence expecting you? I don't have you down."
"No. I'm just dropping by, seeing if he had a minute to chat."
"I don't think chat's on his agenda today. He just had me tell hizzoner he wasn't in." She smiled sweetly. "Maybe you would like to do it the normal way and schedule something?"
"I would, but I'm not sure when I'll be back at the hall."
"Here's an idea, Diz. You could plan to be. Others have been known to."
"But Clarence and I go way back. We're pals."
"He feels the same way."
"I just hate to see the spontaneity go out of our relationship."
Treya nodded sympathetically. "So does Clarence. He frets about it all the time. I'll put you down for tomorrow at three. You can talk about it then." The phone on her desk rang and, waving Hardy good-bye, she picked it up.
Back at his office, Hardy phoned the aquarium and discovered that Francis the shark was still alive and swimming under its own power. But Pico still wasn't admitting victory. "He hasn't eaten a damn thing. Swimming's one thing, but he's also got to eat."
"How do you know it's a he?"
"How do you think I got to be curator here? Could it be the Ph.D. in marine biology? The ability to tell males from female fish? One of those?"
"I always figured it was affirmative action of some kind. What are you trying to feed it?"
"Fish food." Pico was clearly done with Hardy's input on the subject. "Can we talk about something else? How'd it go with Eric?"
Hardy's brow clouded, his tone grew serious. "I've got one for you. How well do you know him?"
"Pretty well. He's been our family doc for years. We used to be closer-socially, I mean-before he and Ann broke up. Why?"
"Do you think he could kill anybody?"
Pico snorted. "No way." A pause. "You want to hear a story, what he's like?"
"More than anything if it makes him look good."
"Okay, you remember when Danny first started having his problems?"
"Sure." Pico's eldest was seventeen now, but ten years before, he'd been diagnosed with leukemia. Hardy remembered some of the high drama surrounding the diagnosis and treatment, which had resulted in bone marrow transplants and, ultimately, remission. "Was that Kensing?"
"Yeah. But what maybe you don't know is that he made the tentative diagnosis long before some board would have approved the treatment he ordered. They said it was way too expensive. They wanted to wait, have him take more tests, like that. So what did Eric do?"
"Tell me."
"He didn't think we could wait. If we waited, Danny might die. So he lied."
"To who?"
"The HMO. When's the last time you heard about a doctor risking his paycheck to save a patient? Well, Eric did. He made Danny's records appear that the leukemia was more advanced than it was. If he was wrong and it cost his HMO big bucks for nothing, sorry. But if he was right, Danny lives." Pico checked his voice back a notch. "Anyway, so that's who Eric is, Diz. Check it out. He does this kind of stuff all the time. Christ, he makes house calls. He walks my sharks. You ask my opinion, the guy's at the very least a saint, if not a certified hero."
But when Hardy hung up, a thought nagged at him. Pico's story had a downside. Kensing might be a saint and a hero, but a good cross-examiner could make the point that he had also proven himself capable of a sustained and elaborate fraud. He falsified medical records, possibly cheating his own employer out of maybe thousands of dollars. And if he did it once with Danny Morales, the odds were good that he'd done it with many other patients. And that at least some of those times, the odds were good that he'd been wrong.
David Freeman's enormous office was panelled in a burnished and ancient dark wood. Burgundy drapes framed the two windows, in the center of which presided the lion's claw-footed, leather-topped desk, most of its forty-eight square feet of surface cluttered with papers, files, ashtrays, in-and out-boxes, paperweights, celebrity photos, a couple of telephones. The fully stocked wet bar also featured a temperature-controlled wine cellar, Anchor Steam beer on tap, two cigar humidors, and an espresso machine. A couple of seating areas gave clients-and opposing attorneys-a choice between a formal or informal setting. On the floor, Persian rugs. On the various pedestals and tables, knickknacks from half a century of rich and grateful clients. A Bufano sculpture of St. Francis of Assisi blessed the room from one corner. A selection of original John Lennon erotic lithographs added a counternote. In a Byzantine-style glass case, a selection of alleged murder weapons ("alleged" because their respective owners all got acquitted) testified eloquently and mutely to Freeman's skill in the courtroom. The fact that David could acquire them from prosecutors and police after he'd won the case was further testament to his popularity.
Hardy crossed a leg over a knee and sipped from the demitasse of espresso, then put it back on the arm of the sofa. His landlord had brewed himself a cup, as well, and brought it over to his desk, where he blew on it once and, engrossed in some paperwork, drank it off in a gulp, replacing it carefully in the exact center of its little porcelain saucer. For another full minute or more, Freeman didn't look up, but turned the pages in front of him, occasionally making a note, occasionally muttering a phrase or two to himself, arguing or agreeing with what he was reading.
As he watched him work, Hardy couldn't help but be struck again with the man's almost childish energy and enthusiasm. Freeman was seventy-six years old. He'd been practicing law for fifty years and though he'd seen it all, there was still precious little about it that didn't energize him. He came into his office every day of the week by about seven o'clock and when he didn't go to court, which he did as often as possible, he stayed at his desk until late dinnertime, then often returned for a nightcap or two while he whipped out a quick twenty pages of memos or correspondence.
It seemed to Hardy that the old man had shrunk three or four inches in the eight years they'd been associated, and put on fifteen pounds. He could almost braid his thin, long, white hair. If he let them grow, he could probably do the same with his eyebrows. A downright slovenly dresser-"juries don't trust good clothes"-he favored brown suits, many of them picked up in thrift stores, whether or not they fit perfectly. He never had them pressed. He smoked and/or chewed cigars constantly, and drank at least a bottle of wine, himself, every day at the office, and probably most of another for lunch and then again at dinner. He never exercised. The skin of his hands and face was mottled with liver spots. Today, he had bloodstains around his collar from where he'd cut himself shaving. Looking at him, Hardy thought he was the happiest, and possibly the healthiest, person on the planet.
And he didn't miss a trick. "You feeling all right, Diz? Getting enough sleep?"
Hardy thought he'd been looking right at him, but he hadn't noticed him look up. There was no point in getting into it, the mistake with his alarm clock, the whole question of children in one's life. If Hardy started whining, Freeman would only say, "You made that bed. Get over it." So Hardy left it at, "Postlunch slump is all. Plus, I got up early."