Guilt

'So's Christmas.' Isaac really wasn't saying much lately. His mother's death had carved out a hole in his personality where the kid used to be, and now a sullen, gangly, hurt teenager glared across the table at his grandfather. Isaac was the oldest and having the worst time of it, but in Nat's view none of the boys was doing very well.

A waitress came by, as one of them did every couple of minutes, with a new selection of foods – all kinds of sticky buns, chicken, beef and pork dishes, various seafoods (Nat didn't keep Kosher all the time), vegetables and noodles, each served on a small white plate, a pile of which were accumulating quickly at the side of the table. At the end of the meal, the waiters would count the plates and compute the cost – simple and efficient.

'So you been reading about your father in the newspapers?' Nat wasn't going to side-step into it. He knew what the undercurrent was about and knew there wasn't any solution except to talk about it. But none of the boys answered, so he persisted. 'You taking grief at school?'

O.J., sitting next to Nat, was the youngest and looked across the table to his older brothers for cues, but they were pretending to be busy peeling aluminum foil from some chicken wings, so he piped up. 'I don't think Dad's a liar. I don't think he cheated.'

'Shut up, O.J.,' Jacob said. 'He's doing what he's got to do, that's all. He's a cop. It's not the same.'

'What's not, Jake?'

'The rules.'

Nat didn't like hearing that. 'Your dad's not breaking any rules, Jake. He's got the same rules as everybody else.'

Isaac snorted. 'You read the newspaper, Grandpa? You watch any television?'

'Yeah, I've seen it.'

'Well?'

'Well, what?'

'Well, what do you think?'

'I think this man Dooher killed his wife and he's got a smart attorney. Your dad arrested him because he thought he did that. You know he didn't take any blood from the hospital.'

Isaac looked down, unconvinced. Jacob spoke up. 'It doesn't really matter, Grandpa. Everybody thinks he did.'

'Not everybody,' Nat said. 'I don't. You boys shouldn't. Anybody starts telling that stuff to you, you tell them they're full of baloney.'

'But why do they keep saying it?' O.J. wanted to know.

'Because people don't know your father. And people do know, or they like to believe, that there are cops out there who do bad things, who cheat and lie and plant evidence so they'll win their cases. But that's not your father. You guys gotta believe in your old man. He's going through a hard time right now, just like you all are. You got to help him get through it.'

But Isaac was shaking his head, disagreeing. 'Why? He doesn't help us with anything. He's gone in the morning, gone at nights, gone on the weekends. Work work work, and he dumps us off on Rita. He just doesn't want to be with us. It's obvious. We remind him of Mom.'

'If he did,' Jake added, 'he'd be here.'

O.J. was having a hard time holding back tears. 'I just wish Mom would come back. Then we wouldn't even need Dad. Then it would be all right.'

Nat reached out a hand and put it over his youngest grandson's. 'You do need your dad, O.J. Your Mom really isn't coming back.'

'I know,' he said. 'Everybody always says that.' His voice was breaking. 'I just wish she would, though.'

'I don't think we do need Dad, Grandpa,' Isaac said. 'I mean, look right here. Where's Dad now? Who cares? We're taking care of each other. Quit crying, O.J.'

'I'm not crying.'

'Leave him alone, Isaac.' Jacob pushed at his older brother. 'He can cry if he wants to.'

'I'm not crying, you guys!'

'Shh! Shh! It's okay.' Nat smiled at the customers around them who were looking over at the disturbance. 'Let's try to keep restaurant voices, all right? Oh, and look, here comes your dad now.'

Eleven o'clock, Glitsky's kitchen.

'Abraham, they need you.'

'Everybody needs me, Dad. I'm sick to death of people needing me. I don't have anything to give them.'

'Just some time. That's all they need. Some of your time.'

'I don't have any time. Don't you understand that? Every minute of my days and nights…'

'But this is your own blood. You signed on for this.'

'Not this way I didn't!'

'Any way, Abraham. They didn't ask to be here either, not like this.'

Glitsky stopped pacing and lowered himself on to the ottoman which filled the centre of the small room. His dad leaned against the refrigerator. The two men's voices were low and harsh. They didn't want to wake Rita, sleeping in the dim light of the Christmas tree in the next room.

'You know what went on in this trial today, Dad? To me? You have any idea?'

'Of course.' Nat touched his brow. 'You think I've got Swiss cheese up here? But you know what's going to happen in the next couple of months here, Abraham, you don't start paying attention? You're going to lose these boys. Now which is more important?'

'I'm not going to lose them.'

Nat shook his head. 'Were you listening tonight? They're losing sight of you, son. They read about you in the newspaper, they hear bad stories on the tube. How do they know what to think?'

'They know,' Glitsky said. 'They've got level heads. They know me.'

'This, Abraham, is malarkey. They don't know anymore, not for sure. Jacob tonight said you don't have the same rules as everybody else. Is that your message? Is that what you want to teach them?'

'He doesn't think that.'

'He said it. You gonna say he didn't mean it? It sounded like he meant it. He needed some answer for his friends saying you broke the rules, so that's what he came up with. You're allowed to – because you're a cop.'

Glitsky hung his heavy head. After a minute, he raised it again. 'Lord, Dad, I'm tired. When's this Dooher madness going to end? I keep thinking if I could just find more evidence, something that's not ambiguous… because otherwise, he's gonna walk. We're going to lose.'

Nat pulled a kitchen chair up in front of his son. 'So then he walks, Abraham. It's not the end of the world. It's one bad man, that's all.'

'But it will look like me, don't you see? It will look like all the accusations against me are true.'

'Which they're not. The people you work with, they know that.'

Glitsky barked a short, humorless laugh. 'That's a beautiful theory, Dad, it really is. But the truth is this could be the end of my credibility.'

'First, you won't lose your job, Abraham. Even if you do, you'll do something else.'

'But I'm a cop, Dad. That's what I do, it's what I am.'

Nat shook his head. 'Before you're a cop, you're a father. After you stop being a cop, you're a father. Your boys, especially now, they need a father.This is your main job. The rest,' he shrugged, 'nobody knows the rest.'

There was a rush to winning, no doubt about it.

Wes was still at the bar at the Yacht Club, pounding some more Yuletide cheer. Mark had prodded him into coming along. The public appearance would be important, he'd said, especially for after the trial.

Yesterday, after Wes had continued his onslaught against the prosecution, taking apart Emil Balian on the stand, the television news had picked up on him, on the 'brilliant' defense he was conducting. This morning's Chronicle headline had read: Key Prosecution Witness Founders in Dooher Case. The pundits were unanimously calling for a quick verdict of Not Guilty, and Wes was enjoying the celebrity.

Suddenly the world seemed to understand that Wes Farrell was in fact the champion of the underdog and a tiger of a defense lawyer. After five months of tedious trial preparation, hours upon days spent studying transcripts and analyzing evidence in his dingy office or his dirty apartment, after the breakup with Sam and the doubts about his friend, now at last he was getting some recognition for who he was, for what he did – the sweet, sweet, sweet nectar of success that had eluded him for so long.