There was a knack to putting a little twinkle in your eye, to sounding conspiratorial and friendly. ‘You ever spy on people?’
Alex answered quickly, too quickly. ‘No way.’
‘How about you, Nick?’
Nick pulled himself further behind his father’s robe. Big Nick broke in. ‘What are you getting at here?’
‘Take a look.’
Freeman moved aside and Big Nick came over and lowered his eye to the eyepiece. He stayed that way a minute.
‘That’s her,’ Freeman said. ‘My client.’
Big Nick was angry, turning on his boys. ‘You guys have got to -’
‘Mr Strauss, please. Just a minute.’ The stentorian voice stopped everything. The boys stood transfixed. Freeman muted it, sat on the bed, and gave them Gentle and Soothing. ‘You guys are not in trouble, no matter what. I guarantee it.’
He explained the situation then, slowly, calmly, no judgments. He told them what their father had said about the Saturday they’d first come here, that they’d only changed and had lunch and then gone out for the day. He just wanted to know if that was all they’d done, and were they sure? He didn’t want to lead them.
The two boys looked at each other. ‘I think so,’ Nick said.
‘Alex?’
His eyes went back to his brother, to his father. ‘It’s all right, Alex, just tell the truth.’
‘Well, you know, the telescope was up, so I started looking around a little, just looking at things.’
‘And did you see anything? Anything interesting or unusual, maybe across the street there?’
Alex looked at Nick, shrugged, and gave it up. ‘She was naked. She was walking around naked.’
‘When was that, Alex?’
‘Just before we had to go, when Dad called us, just before lunchtime.’
‘And you’re sure it was that day, the very first day you were here, the Saturday?’
The boys checked each other again. Both of them nodded and said yeah, it was.
33
Hardy picked up the phone on the kitchen wall on the third ring. He’d gotten out of his warm bed from deep sleep.
‘Dismas, this is Andy Fowler. Did I wake you up?’ The kitchen clock said 10:45.
‘That’s okay, Andy.’
‘I just got your message. What’s so urgent?’
Hardy was coming out of his fog but he wasn’t yet awake enough to beat around the bush. ‘May Shinn.’
A pause. ‘Since you’re on the case, Diz, I don’t think we should discuss it.’ As bluffs went, Hardy thought, except for the pause it wasn’t too bad.
‘I think we have to, Andy. I think you know what I’m talking about.’
In the silence Hardy thought he could hear Fowler’s breathing get heavier. Then he said, ‘Where can I meet you?’
They met at a fern bar on Fillmore, half a mile from Andy Fowler’s house on Clay near Embassy Row. When it was not happy hour it was the local watering hole for doctors and nurses at the local medical center. It wasn’t Hardy’s type of bar but he wasn’t here for the ambience.
He was wearing his prelawyer clothes – an old corduroy sports jacket over a misshapen white fisherman’s sweater, jeans, hiking boots – and felt better for it. At a place like this, at this time of night, those clothes put out the message that he wasn’t a yuppie looking to get laid with the accepted props of elegant threads and the attitude that went with them.
The music was some New Age stuff that was supposed to make you believe real people played it – bass pops, synthesized everything, music that eliminated the strain of having to listen to words or follow a melody. It was just There, like the ubiquitous television blaring in the corner, like the National Enquirer at checkout stands, like McDonald’s.
Surprised that the judge hadn’t arrived yet, he pulled up a stool at the corner of the bar in the back. He ordered a Guinness, which they didn’t have on tap, so he went with Anchor porter, an excellent second choice.
Maybe it was being awakened from a good sleep, but he realized he was in a foul humor.
Andy Fowler’s appearance didn’t pick him up any. The judge hadn’t changed out of his tuxedo. He had his trim body, his thick hair, his guileless smile so different from Hardy’s weathered one.
These good-looking older guys – who were they trying to kid? Suddenly he saw a different man than the Andy Fowler he’d known – vainer and shallower, the august presence and appearance not so much a reflection of an enviable and confident character as a costume that concealed the insecure man within.
Coming back through the bar, the judge checked himself in the mirror. A man who checked his hair in a burning building had his priorities all wrong.
Hardy gave a small wave, and Andy brought up the stool next to him, ordering an Anejo rum in a heated snifter. There was a moment of cheerful greeting, ritual for them both, but it subsided quickly. Hardy reached into his pocket, took out the paperweight and laid it on the bar between them. He gave it a little spin.
There it was – Andy’s Fowler’s whole world in an orb of jade. There was no more avoiding it. ‘May Shinn gave this to you, didn’t she?’
Fowler had his hands cupped around the amber liquid. There was no point in denial anymore. ‘How’d you find out?’
‘Phone records.’ He told him how he’d made the discovery, put the jade jewelry – his paperweight, Nash’s ring – together. ‘Anyway, there were a dozen calls to your number, maybe more.’
‘That many?’ Did he seem pleased?
‘What’s happening here, Andy? You can’t be on this case.’
‘It’s going to come out now, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t see how it can’t.’
‘Who else knows but you?’
Hardy sipped his porter. It wasn’t the direction he’d expected. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean who’s put it together, Diz?’ He brought his hand down on the bar, a gavel of flesh. ‘Goddamn it, what do you think I mean? Who else knows about this?’
Hardy stared into the space between them. They were the first harsh words the judge had ever directed at him. Immediately Fowler put his hand over Hardy’s. ‘I’m sorry, Diz. I didn’t mean that.’
But it was done. All right, he was stressed out. Hardy could let it go, forget it, almost.
Fowler raised his snifter, took a sip, put it down. His voice was under control again. ‘I guess what I’m asking is, what happens now?’
‘I’d say that depends on what’s happened before.’
Fowler nodded. ‘So nobody else knows.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Yes, you did.’
Everybody was a poker player. It was all check, bet, raise. ‘Okay. Why don’t you tell me about it? We’ll go from there.’
The bartender was coming down the bar toward them. ‘Double it up here, would you?’ Fowler said. ‘And give my friend another pint.’
They were at a large corner booth, nobody else within twenty feet, at right angles from each other, almost knee to knee, the older, good-looking man in a tuxedo, and the other one, maybe a construction worker, probably the man’s son. Definitely they weren’t lovers- in San Francisco two men alone were always suspect. But the body language was all wrong for that. They were close, involved in something, and it was putting a strain between them.
‘It was at one of the galleries down by Union Square. I’d had lunch at the Clift and the sun was out so I thought I’d walk a little of it off, maybe drop in at Magnin’s and visit Jane. I so rarely get to see downtown in the daylight.
‘The place was empty except for the saleswoman – she turned out to be the owner – and May. I don’t know what made me stop. They were showing some erotica – I guess that’s what got me to look, but then I saw this Japanese woman standing there, her face in profile, and I walked in. We got to talking, probably talked for half an hour, analyzing all this stuff. It was erotic, I admit, discussing all these positions and anatomies, alone with a beautiful woman you had just met.’