Guilt

Ising rolled his eyes. 'It's so sweet, why don't you put up the money?' The deal was a fine of half a million dollars earmarked for AIDS research and two hundred hours of community service for Ising. 'And the time. Where am I supposed to get two hundred hours?'

Farrell shook his head. Two hundred hours is five weeks full-time, Craig. You get the minimum prison time and it's two years. Five weeks. Two years. Think about it.' He sucked on his cigar, keeping it lit. The air in the room was getting as opaque as fog. 'But hey, it's your decision.'

'It's robbery is what it is. We ought to sue them.'

'Sue who?'

'Whoever passed this law. It's criminal. No wonder this state's down the tubes. A man can't make any kind of living.'

Farrell didn't know exactly what Ising had made last year, but the rent here in the Embarcadero highrise was not close to cheap, and Ising had personally ponied up nearly $30,000 for Farrell's legal fees in the past year, so it was a little hard for Farrell to work up much sympathy for how difficult it was for an entrepreneur without morals to make a living in California. 'What's the matter, Craig? You afraid this community service is going to put you in contact with the riff-raff?'

'Yeah, among other things. You got a problem with that? You get your commoners out there rubbing shoulders with me and they find out who I am and next you know I'm getting hit up for money. You wait, you'll see. It'll happen.'

'Does that mean you're going with the plea?'

Ising pulled at his upper lip, drummed his fingers on the table in front of him. 'Damn,' he said.

'I didn't know if I should call. I was worried about you.'

'You've always been able to call, Christina. I appreciate it. But there isn't anything to worry about. I'm a big boy. I'll be all right.'

'I'm not trying to argue with you, but you don't sound all right. And Saturday…'

'I thought Saturday I was pretty good.'

'But it was an act. I could see that.'

'Well, yes. But what was I going to do with everybody there? I couldn't very well sit in a corner and cry, could I?'

'No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean…'

'I know what you meant, Christina, and I thank you. You're right. You're saying it's okay if I show it a little. People aren't judging me so hard right now. Is that it?'

'Of course you see it. You see things.'

'Still, it's good to remember. And I'm very glad you called. A time like this, you don't want to… you don't want to push yourself on your friends. The house has seemed to get pretty big…'

'Mark?'

'I'm still here. I'm thinking maybe I should just sell the damn thing.'

'I don't think I'd make any decisions like that for a while. Give yourself a little time.'

'For what, though?'

'For things to become clearer.'

'Oh, they seem clear enough now. That's almost the problem. Everything's crystal clear. This is just the way things will be from now on.'

'Time will make it better, Mark. Eventually, it will. It does.'

'Okay.'

'I'm sorry. I'm not saying it's not horrible now.'

'No, I know, that's all right. Well, listen, I'm not much for conversation right now. And I do thank you for calling me. Really. I'll be back in the office in a couple more days. I'll see you there?'

'Sure.'

'Okay then. Take care.'

She put the phone down gently, stood looking out at the traffic passing by her front window, then picked it up and hit the redial button.

'It's me again.'

A surprised chuckle, wonderful to hear. 'How've you been?'

'I've been insensitive.'

'Not at all.'

'More than I want to be. I don't know what you're feeling, other than the pain, Mark. It's stupid to say time will make it better. Maybe it won't. I just wanted you to know that if you need to talk sometimes, it wouldn't be a burden. That's all I wanted to say.'

He didn't respond right away, and when he did, the voice was husky with suppressed emotion. 'You're great,' he said. Thank you.'

When he realized that the AIDs-insurance matter involving Craig Ising was going to take up most of the day, Farrell had called and left a message with Sam's brother that he'd pick her up on his way home and they could go out to dinner someplace.

Larry and Sally lived over Twin Peaks from Sam's old place in a gingerbread Victorian, and Farrell wasn't halfway up the dozen stairs leading to the front porch when the door opened. Sam was coming out to him, slamming the door behind her, moving fast. 'We've got to talk,' she said. 'Where have you been?'

'So let me get this straight,' he said. 'Some lady…'

'Some woman, Wes.'

'Okay, some woman comes in to where you work and tells you this story…'

'It wasn't a story. It was the truth.'

He stopped. She walked a couple more steps. 'Here we go, now,' he said.

'I'm going to try to finish one sentence. Then you can have one. How about that?'

'You don't need to get snippy.'

'I'm not being snippy. I'm trying to respond in whole sentences to the topic we are trying to discuss. Now. This woman tells you that twenty-some-odd years ago, she went on a date with Mark Dooher and she took him back to her apartment and got him drunk and then he raped her.'

'And threatened to kill her.'

'Sure, why not? That, too. And because of that, if it is true…'

'It is true.'

'If it is true, I should abandon my life-long best friend, whom you now seem to believe is a murderer. That's where we are?'

'That's right.'

'He killed his wife because he allegedly raped this woman?'

'Wes, don't go all lawyer on me. He didn't allegedly rape this woman. He raped her.'

'No, wait a minute. She invited him up to her apartment, plied him with drink, started making out with him…'

'And then told him to stop, that's right. And he didn't.' She was giving him that look – eyes hard and challenging. 'That's rape.'

'Ex post facto.'

'What does that mean?'

'It means now it's considered rape. Then it wasn't considered rape. It's like people who say Lincoln was a racist, when they didn't have the same concept back then. By today's standards, everybody was a racist a hundred years ago. Same with date rape. It's all semantics.'

'It's not semantics at all. He raped her.'

'I'm not saying date rape isn't rape. I'm saying thirty years ago, a lot of girls said no and didn't really mean no.'

'I'm not going to get into how Neanderthal that sounds, Wes, but this particular woman didn't just say no. She tried to fight him off and he told her he'd kill her.'

'No, he didn't.'

'What? How can you possibly-?'

'Because I know Mark Dooher. He's not going to kill somebody in college over a piece of ass. Come on, Sam. You're a rape counsellor, for Christ sake. You know how this goes. She invites him up…'

'She asked for it, right? Don't give me that one, please.'

'I don't know if she asked for it. I wasn't there, but it sure wasn't the same thing as lurking in the bushes and assaulting her as she walked by.'

'Yes, it was, Wes. That's the point.'

They were still standing where they'd stopped, in the middle of a fogbound street in the gauzy glow of one of Church Street's lights. Wes had his hands in his pockets. He hadn't thought they were going hiking, and in his business suit, he wasn't dressed for the chill.

He forced himself to slow down, take a breath, not let this escalate. They'd work it out. It was just that right now they were both charging at one another. He thought he'd pull back a little, lower the voltage.