‘No. I said I wasn’t sure. I thought it might be Thursday or Friday.’

Hardy tried again. This was either an outright lie or a faulty memory. ‘You don’t remember telling me it was Thursday?’

‘No.’

He took a breath, pausing. ‘All right, Ms Li, so you say it was Friday that Graham came in, is that right?’

‘Yes. It was Friday.’ Evidently she’d spent enough time repeating it to the police that she’d come to believe it.

‘Do you remember that clearly?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right, then, Ms Li, since you remember it so clearly, perhaps you can remember what time it was on Friday. Can you tell us that?’

She thought a couple of seconds. ‘It was the afternoon.’

‘The late afternoon? Early afternoon? When?’

He didn’t much like to do it, but she was defensive and still defiant and he could play that against her. She was starting to snap her answers out at him. ‘Later.’

‘After three? After four?’

‘It seemed like it was near the end of the day.’

That’s because it was, Hardy thought. But it was Thursday, not Friday. He had her. The jury would know that Graham had been working on Friday afternoon.

‘You’re sure it was near the end of the day?’

‘I just said that. Yes, I’m sure.’

‘After three?’

‘Definitely, at least.’

‘After four?’

‘It seemed like it. Maybe. Yes.’

‘On Friday, was it?’

She almost screamed in her anger. ‘Yes, on Friday. That’s what I said, didn’t I?’

Hardy smiled at her now, a genuine smile. ‘Yes, you did, Ms Li. Friday, late in the afternoon. After four. Thank you, no further questions.’

Salter nodded, pointed to the prosecution table, whose inhabitants looked a little glum, asked for redirect.

Soma stood up. ‘No redirect for this witness.’ He leaned over and conferred a moment with Drysdale. ‘The prosecution rests, Your Honor.’

Hardy had shown them. His adrenaline had kicked in after losing his videotapes, and he’d turned it on them. He dared half a grin at Soma, flashing on a sign he’d seen affixed to a motorcycle outside a bar someplace: This Harley belongs to a Hell’s Angel. Fuck with it and find out.

‘That was pretty sweet,’ Graham was saying. They had adjourned for the day and had gathered in the holding cell. ‘Friday I was at work after three. I can prove it. You got her.’

‘I think I did,’ Hardy agreed.

‘Not that it matters,’ Freeman grunted. He had boosted himself up onto the table and was swinging his feet.

‘Yoda unhappy,’ Graham said. ‘Yoda sad.’

‘I’m not unhappy. It was a good show, but I’m saying it doesn’t matter. If I were Soma – no, I don’t want to be Soma – if I were Drysdale, I would simply amend my story. It’s not too late if the jury’s leaning toward him anyway.’

‘To what?’ Hardy asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know, pick one. How’s this? Graham has the combination to the safe and, thinking Sal never even looks in it anymore, he waits till his dad’s out of the room and takes the money – it doesn’t matter when – and puts it in his own box at the bank. So on May ninth Sal happens to check the safe and sees it’s gone. That’s why he makes the two calls to Graham that morning. That’s why Graham rushes over. That’s why he has to kill him.’

Hardy had had little enough to celebrate this week. He didn’t need to get his parade rained upon right now. ‘There’s no proof of any of that.’

Freeman twinkled. ‘Exactly right. My point. There’s no proof of anything. There is no physical evidence. Soma’s just drawing you both into a pissing contest. Don’t go there. You don’t need it.’

Graham let out a deep sigh. ‘I just enjoyed watching Mr Hardy here kicking a little butt.’

‘Don’t get me wrong. Nobody likes fireworks as much as I do, Graham, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about evidence. Keep focused on that. Diz, you’ve got to write your eleven eighteen. Get it to Salter tonight, argue it tomorrow morning.’

Freeman was referring to a motion routinely made by defense counsel after the prosecution has rested, under Section 1118.1 of, the California Penal Code. It is nearly always rejected by the trial judge. The motion – called a directed verdict of acquittal – asks the judge to dismiss all charges against the defendant on the grounds that the prosecution has failed to provide probative evidence sufficient to justify a guilty verdict.

Hardy had considered it, of course, but it seemed a waste of time in this case. He turned to his old partner. ‘It’s not worth it, David. Salter’s going to turn me down anyway. He couldn’t direct a verdict, not with all the big guns out.’

Freeman nodded. ‘He sure could. I don’t think he will, either, but stranger things have happened.’

‘When?’ Graham asked, joking.

Freeman slid off the table. ‘We can’t get complacent. To quote the great Yogi Berra, it’s not over till it’s over, and sometimes not even then.’

‘That wasn’t Berra who said that, was it?’ Graham asked.

‘The first part, I think. Wasn’t it Berra?’

Hardy picked up his briefcase. ‘You titans work on that one. I’m going to write the damn motion.’

It was after five o’clock on a Thursday night and he came up through the main office, past the reception desk where Phyllis, answering telephones, ignored him. He looked in at the Solarium, hoping to see someone, but all of the associates were in their cubicles, working.

Or maybe avoiding him. They’d have heard about Michelle’s coup, or his idiocy, and in his mind they pitied him or had decided he was a terminal loser. Either way, no one stepped out and greeted him and he trudged up the stairway to his office, carrying the briefcase that, from the feel of it, was where he kept his barbells.

Dust had settled heavily over every smooth surface. The window hadn’t been opened in a week. He turned on the desk light – a green-shaded relic from the days when what was now Rebecca’s room had been his office at home – then turned around and threw up the sash. From Sutler Street wafted the smells of diesel and coffee and, more subtly, patchouli and crab. The city.

The letter from Michelle was centered in the middle of his desk. Sitting in his chair, he opened the envelope and gave it a once-over. No new news. He got halfway through his second pass on it before balling and throwing it toward the wastebasket. It missed.

Running his palm over the wide expanse of his desk, he cleared away a path of dust, then put his feet up.

He had no idea how much time went by. He wasn’t thinking in the sense of having discrete thoughts. Nor was he relaxing, not precisely. He was on ‘charge,’ listening or feeling for something that…

He wasn’t sure.

Maybe just letting the mass of facts settle: the stratagems, issues, distractions. Something, the weight of all of it, had simply stopped him. Was he missing something?

Of course, you always did. He couldn’t see the killer of Sal Russo, and someday he would need that. This he knew on a level beyond reason – he was kidding himself if he denied it.

He would need the closure.

Even if it didn’t help Graham’s verdict, and in spite of the mass of detail he had internalized, he knew he needed more facts. And worse, some sense told him he already had access to what he needed to know; he just didn’t recognize it.

So he shut down, the cogs locked. He wouldn’t be able to move until one of them shifted slightly.

It had gotten measurably darker and he hadn’t noticed. He spun his chair so he could see out the window. Above the street, through the canyons of the buildings, the sky burned a dark turquoise. The line of traffic below had disappeared.

His green banker’s lamp threw a pool of light onto his desk, the only light in the room. He stood and walked around to the dartboard, pulled the three darts, and began throwing in the semidarkness.