Farrell jumped in. "The reason this might be important to you, Diz-"

"Hey!" Sam hit him on the arm. "It's my story, all right? I understood your point at dinner. I'm getting to it."

"I'm listening," Hardy said.

"Thank you. The point," she shot a glare at Farrell, "being that the boy really has had a difficult life, especially in his early years. So in spite of the pampered rich boy he might seem to be, he was essentially an abandoned kid, raised, if you want to call it that, by an emotionally removed if not outright abusive mother."

"She abused him, you think?"

"I don't know if she actively abused him, like beat him or anything like that, but I guarantee you he's deeply scarred. And, finally, the point is…"

"Ahh," Farrell said, "the point."

"… is that in many jurisdictions, but especially in San Francisco, the wise defense attorney, such as my esteemed roommate here, will take every opportunity to present his criminal client as the victim of something, childhood abuse being perhaps the all-time favorite."

"It is a good one," Hardy said.

"And Andrew is legitimately in that club."

"If you can get it into the record," Farrell said. "It may not get him off, but it sure as hell couldn't hurt in sentencing."

"No," Hardy said. "I don't imagine it could."

17

We've got a problem."

At his desk, Hardy motioned Wu in. She'd taken some care dressing and making up this morning. She often did, so this wasn't unusual in itself. But the two-piece pin-striped dark blue business suit she wore was such a far cry from the way she'd looked in his daughter's bathrobe, nursing the mother of all hangovers, that Hardy blinked at the transformation. He'd been listening again to the tape he'd made at Juan Salarco's- something about it bothering him- and now he removed his headphones, gave Wu his attention. "Hit me," he said.

"He's a writer."

"Who is? Andrew?"

She nodded. "On his computer. They delivered more discovery here yesterday while I was out. This disk," she held it up, "is not good. You want to see?"

"It would make my day." He took the disk from her and slipped it into his computer.

" 'Perfect Killer Dot One,' " she said.

"Love the name."

Hardy's fingers moved over the keyboard. Wu came around behind him as the document appeared on the screen. Quiet and intent, together they read Andrew's short story about a young man filled with jealous rage who kills his girlfriend and his English teacher. For over ten minutes, the only sound in the room was the tick of the computer's cursor as Hardy scrolled through the document.

When they got to the end, Hardy found his heart pounding. He had also broken a sweat. He pushed his chair back from the computer, stood and went over to open one of his windows, get some air. After a minute, he turned to Wu. "I'd better go meet the client."

"Can I ask you a question?" Wu asked. They were driving out to the YGC in Hardy's car, the top down. "Do I come across as some kind of monster?"

"Not at all." Hardy didn't know exactly what to say. He looked over at her. The light changed and he pulled out. "Why do you ask? Did somebody say that?"

"More or less. That I didn't feel anything. That there wasn't anybody real inside of me."

"Who said that? Somebody in the firm?"

"No. A colleague."

"Well, whoever it was can ask me. The other night, talking about your dad, that was real enough."

"But I was drunk then, with my guard down."

"I've done research on that exact topic. It still counts."

"I don't know." She turned in her seat. "But I'm thinking if that's all people can see in me, then maybe that's all my dad saw, too."

Hardy kept it low-key. "Or maybe it wasn't you at all. Maybe your dad just wasn't able to show what he felt."

"No, he really didn't approve of me. Or like me very much."

"Or maybe the idea of showing you terrified him, so he was extra-tough so you wouldn't ever find out and take advantage and hurt him." Trying to lighten it up, he added, "And if that's the case, you better watch out. It's genetic, that kind of thing." Hardy flashed a quick look at her.

Abruptly, Wu had turned straight ahead in her seat, her eyes on the road.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Her lips tight, her jaw set, she nodded. But said nothing.

Throughout all of his schooling at the best institutions in San Francisco, Andrew had been inculcated into the sensitive, educated modern child's nutritional paradigm of healthy eating. Sutro had both a juice and a salad bar, and that's where, for a mere $4.45, he bought his lunch every day. Over the years, like most of his classmates who'd been forced to witness the brutal slaughtering of some food animal on videotape in school, he had come to believe that humans shouldn't eat meat. A few days of real hunger after his arrest, though, had conquered his qualms. Besides that, the YGC vegetarian alternative meal was total slop.

Wu didn't think it was the food, though, that accounted for his pallor and lethargy today. He'd shaved, showered, and combed his hair, but in the jail outfit- blue denims, gray sweatshirt- he showed no sign that yesterday afternoon's depression had lifted at all. If anything, it seemed worse.

He greeted Hardy with a bored and sullen silence. He only shook, no grip, after a pause long enough for Hardy nearly to withdraw his own offered hand. Wu started to explain that Hardy was here because he had more experience with murder cases and…

"You said that yesterday. So we're going to adult trial?"

"Maybe not," Wu said. "We're hoping that this hearing…"

But he cut her off again. "No you're not. Yesterday you said that was hopeless. They get one of the criteria, it's over, right?"

Andrew had stuffed himself into the old school desk. Wu sat at the table. Hardy was standing in the corner, leaning against one of the walls, arms crossed. He spoke matter-of-factly. "You can always go back and admit the petition. I'll bet you I could talk Johnson into accepting that if you wanted to change your mind. You want to do that?"

Andrew kept his eyes on the table in front of him. "That's eight years automatic."

"That's right," Hardy said.

He looked up. "I didn't do this."

"Well, then," Hardy said, "you don't want to do those eight years, do you?"

He didn't answer.

"Which, like it or not," Hardy said, "leaves us with an adult trial, unless we can win this hearing next Tuesday."

He pointed to Wu. "She says we can't do that."

"We've got some problems," Hardy admitted, "but we've also got some strategies. To make them work, though, we're going to need your help. If you think it's even worth it to try."

Andrew shrugged.

Hardy came forward, his voice hardening up, pressing him a little. "You do? You don't? I'm not reading your signals very clearly. You want to try using some words?"

It was clear that Andrew hadn't had too many people talk to him so harshly. "All right," he said finally. "What do you want me to do?"

"Let's start by you telling me about the gun," Hardy said.

"What about it?"

"I'm curious why you brought it to your rehearsal that night."

Andrew didn't have to think about it. "It was just in my backpack. I'd been carrying it around for a few weeks."

"But you took it out that night. At Mr. Mooney's. Isn't that right?"

"Yeah."

"So how did that happen?"

He shrugged. "It was a prop, that's all. We were doing Virginia Woolf, you know. That was the play. And Mike- Mooney- he thought it might add to the tension if we had a gun on stage. It's not really in the script, but he just wanted to see how it would feel."

"So he asked you to bring a gun to rehearsal?"

"No. I had it with me anyway, so I brought it up. It was my idea. I thought it might be cool."