‘And an eighth.’ Freeman spread his hands. ‘I know, it’s low, but Dyson says that’s all the better for us – we’d get more of them. It’s been as high as nine. Maybe it’s going there again, maybe higher. It could be worth a fortune, way beyond your billables. I’m keeping the firm in, if that’s any consolation.’
‘It’s not a matter of consolation.’
And in truth – if the Tryptech ship wasn’t going down the way its container had – Hardy knew that potentially this was a great deal. At today’s price Dyson was offering him sixty thousand plus in stock, far more than he would make in the next four months. But he also knew that the operative word was could. Unfortunately, the stock market, like any given jury, was notoriously unpredictable. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe it could be lucrative,’ he said, ‘but I’m a working stiff who kind of depends on a paycheck every month.’
Freeman was silent for a beat. ‘You really might want to do this, Diz,’ he said at last. ‘As a long-run move it could really work out.’
Hardy’s brow creased. As a matter of course he knew that David had run a Standard & Poors on Tryptech before taking them on as clients, and if David still thought the company checked out, it would probably survive. It wasn’t the biggest manufacturer of computers and parts, but it wasn’t the smallest.
But even David Freeman had been fooled before. And after having worked with him for the better part of a year already, Hardy was of the opinion that Dyson Brunei wasn’t America’s most honest man. The offer more than worried him. Could Tryptech have gotten to the point where it could no longer pay any of its contractors, not just its lawyers? If that was the case, they were dead, and soon.
Plus, restructuring was a scary word; it meant they were laying off employees. Hardy knew this had been going on at Tryptech with increasing regularity. Of course, as long as the company was in business at all, it would need legal help, but this late-in-the-day finagling to get his services, essentially for nothing, in exchange for stock that had been in free fall for months, struck Hardy as desperate.
‘If they’re strapped for cash,’ he suggested, ‘maybe we could talk about getting the Port to settle.’ Hardy thought he could probably negotiate something like $10 million in a long weekend. Of course, Tryptech was hoping to get nearly three times that when all was said and done, but it might be bird-in-the-hand time.
‘I don’t think so,’ David said. ‘I suggested that to Dyson, of course. He’s not ready to go that way. Not yet.’ Another pause. ‘He said he had all his people to consider. Customers, shareholders, contractors, everybody.’
Hardy chuckled. This, coming from a man who was laying off workers and probably dissembling – which was the lawyer word for lying – about the actual number of computers he’d lost in his container, struck Hardy as plain silly. ‘Well, thanks anyway, David, but you’ll have to tell Brunei I don’t think so.’
A disappointed sigh. ‘All right. But if you don’t mind, I’m conveying the same offer to Michelle.’
Hardy left the room, shaken. Suddenly his main source of income looked good to be drying up.
‘What drives me nuts is I go into this litigation game for the security of it-’
‘There’s your problem,’ Frannie told him. ‘There is no such thing as security. It is a pure myth.’
His wife knew whereof she spoke. Orphaned as a young child, she’d been raised by her brother, Moses. Then her first husband had been killed within a week of her discovery that she was pregnant with the baby who turned out to be Rebecca. ‘This is why, my poor suffering husband, we should really really try to recognize and enjoy things when life is going well. Like now, for instance. This minute.’
There was a blanket under them and another one over them as they lay on the rug in the living room. The shades in the bay window were drawn, the kids were asleep, and the elephants on the mantel had circled and were at rest. Tony Bennett was on low, singing some Billie Holiday. A fire threw a flickering light.
‘This minute isn’t too bad,’ he admitted. ‘Why are we in the living room?’
‘Sexual urgency,’ she said.
‘That was it,’ Hardy agreed. ‘I remember now.’ He leaned over and kissed her. ‘I love you.’
‘Well, all right, if you must.’
‘I must.’ Her head was on his shoulder, a leg thrown over his. A long moment passed. ‘And you’re okay with all this?’
‘With what?’
‘All these changes coming up. It’s going to be different.’
‘You’re still going to be here, right?’
‘I’m considering it.’
‘So nothing’s really changed. You just think it might be changing, but you’ve been dying to get out from under Tryptech anyway…’
‘I just worry,’ he said.
Frannie went up onto an elbow, her red hair glowing in the firelight. ‘You? You’re kidding?’ She leaned up against him. ‘Dismas, everything changes all the time. Don’t you think life would be pretty boring if it didn’t?’
‘Boring would be nice,’ he said. ‘I could live with boring.’
‘You’d hate it. Your boredom tolerance is zero. You just want to guarantee everything.’
‘And what’s the matter with that?’
‘Nothing, except you can’t guarantee anything.’
‘I hate that part,’ he said.
‘The good news, though, is you’ve got a client you believe in whose parents seem to want to throw money at you.’
‘Which I’m not sure I can take.’
She was quiet for a minute. ‘Let’s play a game,’ she said. ‘I’ll say something, and then you try to think of something positive to say about it, instead of how it could all come back and bite you on the ass.’
‘Sounds like fun.’
‘It is.’ She kissed him. ‘You should try it.’
Eventually they got to the bedroom. Hardy was in a deep sleep when the telephone rang next to the bed.
‘Hello?’ He looked at his digital clock – eleven-fifteen.
‘Mr Hardy. I’m sorry to wake you up. This is Sergeant Evans. We need to talk.’
Adrenaline jolted in and suddenly he was awake, throwing off his blanket, grabbing a bathrobe. ‘Just a minute,’ he whispered, carrying the portable phone into the kitchen, closing the bedroom door behind him. He flicked on the light and pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. ‘Is Graham all right?’
‘He’s fine. I just talked to him.’
Hardy tried to process this, but he must have been more asleep than he thought, because he couldn’t do it. ‘You just talked to him when?’
‘Just now. He called me.’
‘From jail?’ He was asking stupid questions. Of course he’d phoned her from jail. That’s where he was.
‘We decided we had to tell you.’
Hardy’s first thought was that Graham had confessed to the pretty young cop. She knew he’d be at his low ebb – lonely, depressed, and scared – and had gone back to nail him on his first night in the slammer. And succeeded.
‘We’re together.’
Again, Hardy’s brain didn’t seem to be accepting the data it was getting. ‘You’re together in what way?’ he asked.
‘I guess the usual way.’
Hardy’s experience with murder suspects and homicide inspectors who got ‘together’ in anything like an interpersonal relationship was limited, if you didn’t include one shooting the other.
‘I’m in love with him.’
‘You’re in love with Graham?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay.’
Frannie’s words came back at him. Nothing was guaranteed. Nothing was predictable. It wasn’t just the stock market or juries. It was everything. ‘Okay,’ he said again.
‘I know it’s a little weird.’
‘I’ll get used to it,’ Hardy said. ‘So does this mean you think he’s innocent?’