His sense of the surreal was heightened when he turned the corner and watched the stream of people coming through the completely unsecured back door between the Hall and the jail. The door was supposed to be locked, but anyone who worked in the building for more than a few months could get a copy of the key. And polite folks that they were, many would routinely hold open the door for anybody else trying to walk in at the same time.

Maybe, he thought, that’s why the cops at the metal detector were so lackadaisical. They figured that anybody who had a gun would probably have the sense to walk around the building and come in the back.

Finally, entertained by his musings, Hardy made it to the elevator, pressed “ 5,” and rode up pressed by the crush of bodies against the side wall, resolving he would never again come here for a social call, as he was doing now.

When he was being paid, okay, but this was lunacy.

By contrast the hallway on the fifth floor was a haven of serenity. Still with all the charm of an Eastern bloc housing project, still a sterile airless walkway with industrial green tile and fluorescent lighting, but peaceful nonetheless, somehow-strangely-comforting, even welcoming, after what he’d come through to get there.

He walked down about halfway and turned into the door marking the homicide detail. Neither of the two clerks assigned there were at their positions, so Hardy lifted the hinged counter that separated the room and went through to the hall leading to Glitsky’s office. With the metal detector still fresh in his mind and his Swiss army knife in his pocket, it occurred to him that he could quite easily take a few more steps into Glitsky’s office and cut his friend’s throat and walk out, and in all probability no one would ever know.

The thought brought half a smile. It was a funny world, Hardy thought, if you knew where to look.

Now here he was at Glitsky’s door, but it was closed, locked up. He knocked once, waited half a second. If Abe was in, traditionally the door would be open or at least unlocked. He turned to leave and heard a drawer slam inside. “One minute.”

Glitsky looked like hell-ashen and drawn-and for a moment Hardy thought that Zachary hadn’t made it and that Abe had only just heard.

“Tell me he’s okay,” he said.

“The same.”

“The induced coma?”

A nod, and Hardy took a breath of relief. Glitsky squinted out of the gloom of his office at his best friend. “What do you want?”

“Nothing. Just checking in.”

When Treya came by his house to pick up Rachel and take her to school that morning, Hardy had been stunned to learn from her that Abe had gone in to work. Treya, as usual, had defended him-they’d done the brain-opening surgery on Zachary Sunday morning and there was nothing to be done with him now for at least the next several days, during which time they’d be keeping him in what was apparently called a pentobarbital coma. Abe could either sit in the waiting room at the hospital going crazy, or go to work and hope the day passed more quickly. He’d chosen the latter.

Now, after another few seconds staring at nothing, Glitsky turned back toward his desk and Hardy followed him in. Closing the door, Hardy reached for the light switch, thought better of it, pulled around a chair, and sat. A diffuse light from the high windows kept the place from utter darkness, but reading here would be a stretch.

Glitsky sat with his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes focused somewhere a foot or two above Hardy’s head. From time to time he’d draw a breath, but nothing so deep as a sigh. There was resignation in the wasted face, but no rage, usually Glitsky’s default emotion.

The lack of anger worried Hardy.

“Yesterday morning Treya said they’re keeping him unconscious for a few days,” he said at last. “You got any more than that?”

“No.”

“She said the operation was a success.”

“In the sense that he lived through it.”

“I thought it gave the brain room to swell.”

“Right. That’s what it does.”

“Then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what are you looking at? What’s the prognosis?”

Glitsky brought his eyes to Hardy’s. It seemed a long time before he spoke. “Either the swelling’s going to go down and he gets better to some degree, although we can’t know how much for a couple of months”-he hesitated-“either that, or one of the clots breaks up too much or any other random thing happens and he dies.”

The silence gathered.

“You know,” Glitsky said quietly at last, “I’m thinking it wouldn’t have been the worst result if the heart thing had killed him when he was born.” Zachary’s birth had been accompanied by the discovery of a heart murmur, which, though later found to be benign, had raised the specter of his early death from congenital heart failure. “At least that wouldn’t have been my fault.”

“This wasn’t your fault, Abe.”

Glitsky shook his head. “You weren’t there.”

“Treya told me what happened.”

“She wasn’t there either.”

“So tell me.”

Glitsky’s gaze went back to the ceiling. He unfolded his arms and put his palms flat on the desk. “He was right next to me. I mean, all I had to do was block him, one foot in front of that big fucking wheel.” Glitsky’s unaccustomed profanity hung in the room, a boundary crossed. “Instead I walked over to get his helmet, which should have been on him first.” He leveled his gaze. “Five seconds, Diz. Five stupid seconds.”

“You know why they call them accidents, Abe? They’re nobody’s fault.”

Glitsky lived with that for a minute. Then, “I think I’m going to quit.”

“Quit what?”

“This.” Glitsky gestured around at the office. “Here.”

“How would that help?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it wouldn’t.” He brought a hand to his forehead, rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “What were we saying?”

“I’ve got an idea,” Hardy said. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep? Take a few days off while this shakes out.”

“And what? Just wait?”

“What else are you doing here?”

Glitsky looked through him for about five seconds. Finally, he nodded and started to push himself back from the desk, then stopped and reached for his telephone. He punched a few numbers, then after a moment spoke into the receiver. “Hey,” he said. “No, nothing new. Diz is up here. He thinks I ought to go home and get some rest. Maybe you want to do the same thing.” He waited, listened for another second or two, then said, “I’ll swing by and pick you up on the way out.”

8

When Hardy got back to his office on Sutter Street about twenty minutes after he’d left Glitsky, his receptionist/secretary, Phyllis, greeted him out in the lobby with a chilly smile and the comment that since she kept his calendar, it might be helpful if he shared his appointment schedule with her from time to time.

“But I do,” he said. “Religiously.” He put his hand over his heart. “Phyllis, I hope you know with an absolute certainty I would never, under any conditions, make an appointment without sharing every detail of it with you.”

Phyllis cast her eyes heavenward in her perpetual exasperation over her boss’s sarcasm. She threw a fast glance back over her shoulder, indicating a young woman sitting and perusing a magazine on the couch against the wall behind her circular workstation.

Hardy followed the glance. The woman turned a page in her magazine. “She’s here for me?” he whispered with a bit of theatricality. “It must be a trick to make me look bad in front of you. I swear I’ve never seen her before.”

Phyllis pursed her lips. “She says she has an appointment, referred by Harlen Fisk. A Mrs. Townshend.”

“Aha! She was supposed to call and make an appointment, Phyllis. Maybe she misunderstood. But the real good news is that this was not my fault.” At her skeptical expression he added, “Hey, it happens.”