But Hardy wasn't through yet. "Did you laugh out loud when you heard it, Wes?"
"No, but I never laugh out loud at jokes."
"You laughed at Dirty Harold."
Farrell broke a grin. "True. I did."
"So based on your own response, this new funniest joke in the world isn't as funny as the Dirty Harold joke."
"Fucking lawyers," Farrell said. "Everything's an argument."
"What's the Dirty Harold joke?" Roake asked.
Hardy turned to her. "This little kid with a filthy mouth, so the teacher won't ever call on him. Then one day they're going through the alphabet, finding words that start with a given letter and then they use the word in a sentence. They finally get to 'e'- Harold's hand has been up the whole time on every letter- but she figures there aren't any filthy words that start with 'e,' so she calls on him…"
"Elf!" Roake exclaimed, smiling. "I know an elf with a big prick."
"That's it." Hardy drank some wine.
Farrell seized his chance. "So Holmes and Watson go camping and set up their tent and they go to sleep. Two hours later, Holmes goes, 'Watson, what do you see?' and Watson goes, 'I see millions and millions of stars. And Holmes says, 'And what do you deduce from that?' Watson says, 'I imagine each star has planets around it just like our own, with a chance of life on each one.' And Holmes goes, 'Watson, you fool, someone's stolen our tent.' "
"So." Roake maintained a poker face. "Having heard the joke, maybe now we can begin. I've got a handball game in forty-five minutes."
They were gathered for their monthly partners overview- business, after all- and Hardy spent the next twenty minutes going over the firm's numbers. The associates were all well utilized- the firm was cranking along, racking up substantial fees almost as though it were on automatic pilot. Hardy's concerns about Wu's deal with Boscacci might have been a legitimate topic for discussion on another day, but so far nothing had actually gone wrong, and he elected to keep his qualms under his hat.
Under "other business," Hardy mentioned the firm's upcoming involvement in support of the Jackman campaign, which he considered an opportunity as good as any to broach the one sensitive topic they needed to discuss. Might the Jackman candidacy entice Roake back to work, Hardy wondered. To something approaching regular hours?
Roake straightened up in her chair. Her eyes flicked between the two men. "I resent the hell out of that question, Diz. What I do with my time is my business."
Hardy's gaze didn't flinch. He kept any sign of edge out of his voice. "I'm not arguing with that, Gina. You've earned whatever time you feel you need. But as a business matter for the firm, you're drawing a decent salary for yourself and your own private secretary and you've got a big corner office that's essentially sitting unused."
Roake clipped off her words. "How about if I just quit and start charging the kind of rent for this building that another firm would have to pay? I could give up my decent salary and I'd still be making more money than I am now. How about that?"
Hardy shook his head. "That's not what I want. I don't think it's what you want. I wasn't speaking critically. If you don't want to do any more billing, you've got my complete support. Wes's, too. But when we started up together, we had a business plan that included the three of us bringing in business and billing our own time. And that's not happening. Even with our otherwise good utilization, we're struggling to make those original numbers."
Hardy came forward, his hands clasped on the table in front of him. His voice was still soft, almost caressing. "I'm just trying to get a sense of your plans, Gina, so I can know what we're dealing with. As it stands now, you're an expense item and not a profit center, and we didn't plan for that. The firm has to come up with the difference, which is not insignificant. I owe it to us all to tell you about it. Times are good now, but if they get tight, we could find ourselves in a heap of trouble."
Roake scratched at the yellow legal pad on the table in front of her, staring down at her scribblings. "All right," she said, without looking up. "I'd like to think about this for a few days, if you don't mind."
"Not at all," Hardy said, "and Gina? There's no wrong answer here. The firm needs to know, that's all. We've talked about some capital improvements on the horizon. We've got to know if they're feasible, that kind of thing."
"I hear you," Roake said. "Really, I do." Then, with a crisp smile, she pushed back from the table, gathered her notes and told them both good night.
After the door to the Solarium had closed behind her, Hardy let out a long breath and met his partner's baleful eye over the table.
"Okay, then." Farrell drew a palm over his brow. "All in all, I'd say that went pretty well. You want to pour me some of that wine?"
Hardy put his briefcase down by his reading chair, then walked down the long hallway in his house. Before he'd remodeled it, the old Victorian had been in the railroad car style, with all the downstairs rooms opening to the right off the hall. Now a large, recently renovated kitchen opened up in the back, and behind that was a family room and then the bedrooms for the two kids. They didn't keep the television on much as a general rule, so he was somewhat surprised to hear the low drone. He poked his head into the family room. "What's on?"
Frannie looked over from where she sat on the couch. "Abe."
He walked over and joined them. "What's that loopy guy done now?"
On the tube, Glitsky frowned into a battery of microphones. "No, that's not true," he was saying. "I consulted with the Chief and Lieutenant Lanier, but the decision was mine. At the time it seemed the best one. No one could have predicted that Mr. Brodie would escape. And in fact, the capture itself took place without incident."
The picture flicked back to the pretty anchorwoman, who wore the same cheerful face whether she was reporting on terrorism or bake sales. "But in spite of Deputy Chief Glitsky's comments, the fact remains that Leshawn Brodie, still considered armed and extremely dangerous, and a suspect in several local murders, remains at large after he allegedly stole one of the officers' weapon and engaged in a dramatic shoot-out with arresting authorities this morning in Nevada. Critics are calling ill-advised at best Glitsky's decision not to arrest Brodie while he sat on a bus in the Greyhound terminal in downtown San Francisco early this morning. And considering the suspect's escape and record of violence, it's hard to disagree with them."
"Hard, but not impossible," Hardy said. When the male anchor appeared and it was clear that the news had moved on to its next sound bite, he grabbed the remote and turned off the set. "You notice she never mentioned who the critics were. Did I miss that? 'Yet, it's hard to disagree with them,' " he intoned in the anchor's voice. "What kind of reporting is that?"
"Bad," Vincent said. "They weren't even listening to what Uncle Abe said."
"How long was he on?" Hardy asked.
"Long enough." Vincent's voice was breaking with adolescence. He cleared his throat and went on. "What did they want him to do? Shoot up the whole bus to get the one guy?"
"You got the gist of it, I think." Frannie put a hand on Hardy's knee. "Maybe you ought to call him, though. He's taking a lot of heat. How was your day?"
"Evidently better than Abe's, though it had its moments." He glanced at his watch. "You think he's home?" But he was already punching numbers on the telephone. "This is your best and possibly only true friend," Hardy said, "and if you get this…"
"What?"
"Monitoring your calls, I see."
"You would, too. It's been ringing off the hook."
"TV'll do that. Instant fame."
"Great, but I don't want to be famous."
"There's your problem. You're the only person in America who doesn't. The media doesn't know what to do with you. Maybe you ought to get a new makeup guy. Wipe away those frown lines. Did you know you had a scar through your lips? I'm sure they could airbrush that out, too."