If any of this was so, and if Baker, admittedly no saint, had not killed Rusty, then Hardy found himself in a position that pissed him off. Because somebody had put him in this thing, maybe even helped him set up Baker for a fall. He thought he’d like to find out who, and kick some ass.
Hardy opened his car door and stepped out into the street. He had no desire to go back to his house, or to start bartending in two days. He owed it to himself to find out what was really going on here.
He looked up at the stars. Louis Baker could personally rot for all he cared. He knew that. But the situation surrounding him was tying Hardy in knots, and until he could get some of them untied he wouldn’t be free to get on with his life.
Chapter Sixteen
It’s a fantastic opportunity!”
Manny Gubicza was afraid of this reaction. Treadwell was excited and didn’t seem to understand his lawyer’s reluctance. Manny should have asked him to come down at lunchtime to discuss this in person, but he had another appointment at lunch, and with his powers of persuasion all he would have to do to Treadwell was pass along the D.A.’s offer and explain how stupid it was-that is, if Treadwell listened to him.
“It’s a trap,” Gubicza said.
“How can it be a trap? I didn’t make this up, remember. The bastard did kill my Poppy!”
“I know.”
“Well?”
Fred was really hot for this. The lawyer spoke in a measured voice. “I think we can assume, Fred, that the D.A. isn’t suggesting a polygraph because they want to help your case.”
“But it doesn’t matter! Once I-”
“Please, let me finish. The offer is that you come down and go over the statement you’ve already made, and if the polygraph checks, they’ll proceed on the Medina angle.”
“Right. That’s what I want.”
“No, it’s not what you want.”
“Manny…”
“Fred, listen. They’re going to have to come up with at least a hearing anyway, and eventually an indictment. They’ve already got your statement. Medina did it and he’ll be punished for it.”
“But they said they weren’t going to. I know they didn’t believe me. They were going to interview Medina and he’ll deny everything and they won’t have any evidence and they’ll drop it.”
“They might try, but haven’t we been using the media to tell this story as much as anything else? Hasn’t that been working?”
He heard the change in his ear; Treadwell had switched him from the speakerphone. “Look, Manny, this whole thing hinges on my credibility.” Treadwell was whispering insistently. “You think I’ll let them get me on Raines and Valenti. No way! If you know it’s a trap, you use it for your own ends. I know you think only a lawyer can be any good under questioning-”
“That’s not true, Fred,” Manny lied.
“-but all I do is tell them what happened again, and they’ll see it’s the truth. Think what the media could do with that! It’s perfect for us!”
Manny punched up his own speakerphone, putting Treadwell on it, and stood up. He paced behind his desk. “Fred, here’s a hard truth. In the legal world, to the extent that something is not completely controlled by you, it’s the enemy. This is not a friendly little parlor game. Lives are at stake. Yours, for example. Valenti, Raines, Medina. People cheat in these situations.”
Manny didn’t think he had to point out that he and Fred were cheating from the git-go. That wasn’t the point. The point was to build your case from what you decide are the facts you’re going to use. They were doing that very well.
He didn’t want Fred anywhere near a polygraph. Though the results of a lie-detector test were not admissible at trial, it could be a damaging tool, especially at the pre-hearing stage. He stopped at his window, looked down the street, across at the Pyramid. He walked over to his desk again. “I can’t let you do it, Fred.”
“So we’re just going to pack it in, admit that we lied.”
“It’s not that!”
“It even seems like it’s that to me. Think what the D.A. will do with it.”
“The D.A. will just continue plodding along.”
“And drop Medina.”
Gubicza hung his head, putting his weight on the back of his chair. “They will probably not pursue it with much vigor,” he admitted.
“But Medina has to be punished.”
“Fred, compare that good-Medina being punished -with the much greater good of you not going to jail for murder.” He hated to raise his voice, but it was happening. “If they trip you up on Raines and Valenti, not only do those two guys walk, it’s likely you go down. And once they’ve got you seated and hooked up to a polygraph, they might just ask you anything. And it might not be about Hector Medina and Poppy,”
“So just make them promise they won’t.”
Gubicza cleared his throat. “Make them promise they won’t,” he repeated.
“Sure. Make that a condition.”
“Don’t you think that request might be showing our hand just a little bit?”
“How?” Warming to it now, Treadwell was making his case. “Look, they want to talk about Hector Medina, we say okay, but that’s all. They’ll understand that. I mean, we don’t want to muck around with the murder investigation. This is a separate issue. Tied in, maybe, but separate. We build my credibility, we get Hector, it’s perfect.”
“Quit saying that, Fred. Nothing’s perfect.” He sat back down in his leather chair. “God, I hate this kind of Monday,” he said.
Fifteen blocks downtown Art Drysdale hung up his telephone and walked down to his boss’s office. He nodded to Dorothy, Locke’s secretary, and just kept going. Christopher Locke, the elected District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco, was on the telephone himself, seated at his desk, and waved his old friend to sit down. Instead, Drysdale went back outside and helped himself to a cup of coffee.
“How’s business?” he asked Dorothy, planting himself on a corner of her desk.
Before she could answer, Locke called from the other room. “Art!”
Drysdale shrugged. “We’ve got to do this more often,” he said to Dorothy, then whispered, “do me a favor, love, and keep the phone quiet for about two minutes.” He went back through the doors, closing them behind him.
“What?” Locke said. He was studying a file on his desk and didn’t look up.
“That’s why they keep electing you,” Drysdale said. “The warm, charming exterior. The man behind the office.”
Locke sighed, shaking his head, keeping it down. “What?” he repeated.
“You owe me a buck,” Drysdale said.
It took a second, but then Locke stopped reading and brought his eyes up to meet Drysdale’s. “Get out of here,” he said.
“Swear to God.”
“Gubicza agreed to it?”
“With conditions.”
“What? That we don’t ask any questions?”
“Nothing about Raines and Valenti.”
“So what’d you do?”
“I agreed, of course.”
“So what are you gonna do?”
“I said, and I quote, ‘On my mother’s grave I will never mention those names or anything about those cases.’ ”
“So how are you going to bring them up?”
Drysdale sipped at his coffee. “Well, I thought I’d have the polygraph set up downtown here. That way I’ll avoid the temptation to go stand on my mother’s grave, may she rest in peace. Which is where I said I wouldn’t bring up the murder raps.”
Samson wasn’t really in Dido’s class, or Louis Baker’s. He had this sloppy way, heavy, not tight, with long dreadlocks none too clean, and didn’t put out the kind of vibe Dido had done, where when it wasn’t business he was okay. Dido could laugh and shoot a hoop or two. He bought Lace his shoes. Like that.
And even Baker, you could talk to him. Stuff about the cut, this an’ that, the paint, the Mama. If Dido had to go, Lace could have maybe gone in with Louis-at least until Louis killed Dido. Then maybe not. But if Dido had just died, or moved on, ’stead of Louis having done it…