And it had started, of course, with a discussion of Stier’s opening, which Glitsky thought was pretty compelling. “Admittedly, though,” he said, popping a nut, “I’m the choir he was preaching to. You probably didn’t really want to ask me.”

“Oh, right, I forgot for a minute. What was the part, though, that convinced you?”

“Of what?”

“That Maya’s guilty.”

Glitsky’s hands rested together on his stomach. He leaned back in his chair. “I’ve got one for you. What part of it didn’t you believe?”

“I believed all of it,” Hardy said.

“There you go. Don’t worry about it. You’re due for a loss anyway. Nat”-Glitsky’s eighty-something father-“says the occasional loss strengthens the spirit.”

“The old ‘What doesn’t kill us makes us strong’?”

“Right.” A shadow fell over Glitsky’s face. “I have to admit, though, sometimes not.”

“When did you get a loss recently?”

Glitsky’s face went a shade darker. “Hello? You been around the last few months?”

“You’re taking Zack as a loss? Last I saw, he was bouncing off the furniture.”

“Last I saw, he was walking around in a football helmet. Maybe you didn’t notice?”

“Maybe you didn’t hear what you just said: He was walking around. The football helmet was against future injury, if I’m not mistaken. Is there something you aren’t telling me?”

“About what?”

“Zack. All I’ve heard is that all signs point to complete recovery.”

Glitsky shook his head. “They don’t know for sure.”

“But they say what I said, don’t they? All signs point, et cetera.”

“They say they’re ‘cautiously optimistic.’ That’s ’cause if they say he’s all better and something happens, they’re afraid I’ll sue ’em.”

“How about if it’s because they don’t think anything else bad is going to happen?”

“They can think it all they want. Nobody’s saying they know it. Nobody can know it. Why again are we talking about this?”

“You were calling it a loss, that’s why.”

“Yeah. Well, it’s what it is, whatever you call it.” Glitsky pulled his feet off the desk. “What were we talking about before that came up?”

“Stier’s opening.”

Staring off into the middle distance between them, Glitsky absently cracked another peanut shell. “That’s the main thing. I used to have a pretty good brain. Now, my attention span… I get one thought. It goes away. Another one stops by. I can’t string any of them together. It’s just like I’m endlessly distracted. I can’t seem to get myself out of it.”

Hardy asked, “You talking to somebody?”

“Sure. Treya, Nat, you from time to time.”

“I mean a professional.”

Glitsky almost smiled. “That’s not happening. It’s not something I can figure out and decide to change.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do, all right.” He ate a nut. “And I’m kind of done with this topic, okay?”

Hardy could take a hint. “Sure. What do you think about the mayor being down there?”

“Pretty bold statement.”

“I can’t figure out if it helps or hurts. Me, I mean.”

“It’s a jury,” Glitsky said. “Only takes one. How’d Braun take it?”

“Like you’d suspect. She blamed me, of course.”

“Naturally. I would have too.”

“Well, there you go. But however it plays with Kathy and Harlen, bottom line is it’s just another distraction. And my client’s only chance is if this thing starts being about the evidence at some point.”

“I thought that was the PX.”

“Never got there. Not even close.” Hardy shook his head and threw a baleful look across the desk. “This might be a good time to remind you that you never signed off on the arrest, if you recall.”

“Let’s not go there, Diz. You know I didn’t have to. Bracco and Schiff had more than enough. The PX confirmed it. And, PS, didn’t you just tell me about five minutes ago you believed every word Stier said?”

“Yeah. I think he’s right. It all works as a theory. But I don’t think he proves any of it-the evidence doesn’t prove it, that’s for sure. And that’s kind of what he’s supposed to do.”

“Well.” Glitsky suddenly realized they’d eaten all the peanuts he’d left out, so he stood up, stretched his back, started gathering the used shells for the wastebasket. “There’s the beauty of the system. If there’s no evidence, you’ll get her off.”

“I’d say, ‘Isn’t it pretty to think so?’ Abe, except the line’s already taken.”

After Hardy left, Glitsky’s short attention span still worked well enough to jog him into writing himself a note to go over the Maya Townshend file just to make sure that Bracco and Schiff had presented their case as clearly and with enough evidence as they could to Paul Stier. Hardy was right-Glitsky had been out at the time with Zachary’s medical care issues, and his troops hadn’t run their evidence by him even once. If they’d left anything out, Glitsky wanted to be sure he got it back in, not that it would break his heart for Hardy to lose one.

The guy, God knew, was due.

21

If Hardy thought it had been madness in and around the courtroom for the morning session, in fact it had been as a mild and peaceful meadow compared to the riotous frenzy that greeted him as he got off the elevator on the third floor after his talk with Glitsky.

Evidently, Kathy West was going to be staying around at least for the afternoon session and clearly this was making some big waves out in the real world. The mayor didn’t come down and sit around in open court very often, and her presence had become just what Hardy didn’t need right now-the biggest news story of the day, perhaps the biggest nationwide.

The entire hallway was stuffed with humanity-lots of the press variety-and Hardy was trying to elbow his way through. Should he be even one minute tardy, he would face Judge Braun’s wrath and possibly a contempt fine. Hardy didn’t know whether it was police paranoia, Braun’s need for control, or one of the mayor’s staff trying to protect the boss, but someone had ordered a makeshift metal detector station outside the courtroom door, and what had at first appeared to be an amorphous mob was in fact a restricted and organized line waiting to get in.

Very, very slowly.

At near the head of the line he made out the figures of his two partners-Gina Roake and Wes Farrell-unexpectedly coming down for the show. As if he needed it, here was a true litmus test for how quickly the news of the mayor’s attendance had spread throughout the city. But he didn’t think he could push his way through enough to get to them in any event. The crowd didn’t strike him as one that would be tolerant of cuts.

Hardy might not have been a fan of the architecture of the Hall of Justice, but he knew his way around the building. Hewing to the back wall of the wide and echoing hallway, he inched his way along against the current and eventually found that the door to Department 24 was open. Court wasn’t yet in session there, and he walked up through the deserted courtroom and into the back corridor that connected all the departments on this floor. Unchallenged by bailiffs, all of whom were doing crowd control in Department 25, he approached the door through which they would later bring his client.

As he came abreast of the judge’s chambers, he stopped. The door to Braun’s chamber was open about halfway and Paul Stier and Jerry Glass were coming out of it, still in amiable conversation with Braun. When they saw Hardy, both their progress and the discussion came to an abrupt and awkward halt.

“Gentlemen. Your Honor,” Hardy said, and held his ground, actually more shocked than angry, waiting for the explanation that would have to be forthcoming. One of the most sacrosanct rules in jurisprudence was that attorneys with active cases before a judge were not to have any ex parte interaction with that judge.