Glitsky shrugged. “He was lying.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, that’s your problem.”

“And if he wasn’t, it means he wasn’t there when Rusty got shot.”

“Diz. Listen up now. His prints were there.”

“Jesus, Abe, my prints were there, too.”

“A-ha!” Abe raised a forefinger. “Another hot lead in the case.”

“You can laugh.”

“I do laugh, Diz. Dig it. Yesterday you were the personification of outraged public crying for the head of Louis Baker. I, modestly, represented the restraining force of law in our society-”

“You got a pair of boots?”

“What?”

“It gets any deeper, I’m gonna need boots.”

Glitsky put an arm around his friend’s shoulder. “I am making a point. And the point is that we, we the police, aren’t supposed to go flip-flopping according to the whims of the public we’re supposed to protect. That, old buddy, includes you. Yesterday you thought Louis Baker was guilty of everything you could think of. Today, what? You’re trying to have me check out these other suspects just after I find out-and for the first time-that Louis is finally in fact a righteous suspect? Prints at Rusty’s. Puts him there. Now he’s got a motive. He’s got opportunity. Now he’s a suspect, and now you want me to drop him? There is some irony here.”

“I don’t want you to drop him. I just thought in your thirst for justice you might want to be completely thorough-”

Glitsky blew out through tight lips. “I’m the one who has been thorough here all along. I continue to be. But several things have changed since just yesterday. One, Louis got himself a gun and did some B and E. This makes his rehabilitation in prison somewhat suspect-at least to me. Second, he was in fact at Rusty’s. We knew neither of these things yesterday, and knowing them now moves old Louis up several rungs on the maybe-he’s-guilty ladder. I really would like a beer.”

But Hardy didn’t move when Abe pushed at the door. Glitsky sighed. “Okay, what?”

“You’ve looked at Medina already. Who is Johnny LaGuardia? Where does Ray Weir fit into all this? There’s just things you as a cop can do that I can’t.”

“Thousands.”

“Well, shit, Abe. Do a few of them.”

Abe shook his head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am out of here, Diz. Gone. Los Angeles may need me and that is another jurisdiction. These aren’t going to be my cases and I don’t need the aggravation. Plus, I think there’s a good chance that our Louis Baker in fact did all this, and there’s enough to bring him in on it, and after that it’s up to the D.A. and twelve of Louis’s peers, if they can find them.” He pushed at the door again. “It’s no longer police business and certainly not mine. Now, you want a beer or what?” But he stopped again. “Besides, why do you care? Baker is off the street. Go back to work. Let the wheels of justice grind fine, why the hell don’t you?”

Hardy looked at the sky, stuffing his hands further into his pockets. ’Cause if he didn’t do it-I’m not saying he didn’t, but if… He doesn’t deserve to die for it and I’d be killing him if I let it go-”

“You bleeding your heart for Louis Baker?”

“I’d love to ace him in a fair fight and that’s a fact.”

“You know your odds of getting a fair fight out of him?”

“Slim, I would guess.”

“And none.”

“Well, at least it would be just me and him.”

“Mano a mano?”

Hardy shrugged. “I can’t back in to what would amount to me killing him. I’ve just developed a case of reasonable doubt, is all.”

“You don’t think he was coming after you?”

Hardy nodded. “Yeah, I guess I do think that.”

“Well?”

“We’re gonna hang the bastard because he’s mad at me?”

Glitsky shook his head, pushed again at the door.

Hardy followed him up the stairs. At the top of the steps they stopped one last time. “I’ve got no great hots to save Baker, you know,” Hardy said. “But something else has got to be going on here. It’s just too convenient.”

“You think somebody paid him to bust into Jane’s house?”

“No. I think he did that on his own.”

“So what else?”

“So me is what else. I’ve been part of this since the beginning, and now suddenly Baker’s on ice and somehow it’s over. But I’m still involved. Especially if I’m being used to patsy up Baker when maybe he didn’t do it. Anything capital, anyway.”

Glitsky, his hand on the kitchen door, ran a finger across the scar that went through his lips. “So you want me to help?”

“A little look around is all.”

“Let me think about it,” Abe said. He turned the knob. “Okay, I’ve thought about it. No.”

He opened the door and said hi to Flo and Frannie.

Chapter Fifteen

It didn’t feel like he’d thought it would-seeing your own images up there on the screen, your words being spoken by people who pretended to care about them. In his imaginings, the scene always had him sitting next to Maxine, both of them puffed with accomplishment, she up there filling the screen with her beauty and talent, he for the idea, the words, the artistic vision behind it all.

But now the reality was so different. As it always seemed to be lately. He was slumped in his easy chair, smoke curling from a cigarette in his left hand. Courtenay and Warren sat on the couch, the room rearranged for the screening. And Maxine? The only place Maxine lived-on the screen -didn’t seem real anymore. And yet that was all that was real.

It was his first movie. This was the final cut with sound before the music was added. There was beer and champagne in the kitchen sink for afterward. Other acquaintances, friends, reclined or sat Indian-style on the floor, watching Maxine say his words, do his bidding, live the part he’d created for her.

The doorbell sounded and he half turned to see someone he didn’t recognize, a man, enter and sit on the floor. Ray Weir put him out of his mind. This film, unreal though it might be, was all that was now left of Maxine. He should pay attention.

He wanted to stop the reel and just look at her. God, she was… had been… beautiful. He supposed he still loved her. No. He knew he still loved her, always would. She had been his friend and his muse. She had been what had separated him from the other drones cranking out words and scenes and treatments.

Okay, so the movie wasn’t exactly an ‘A’ feature. You made compromises when you started out, when you needed a credit or two for credibility. Everybody in the business understood that.

Those earlier scenes, nearly doing it with Bryan-their friend who played the stepfather-they were pretty tasteful, Ray thought, although Warren had done a good job of making it seem they were really screwing. But Maxine had told him about it after they’d shot that day, about the angles they’d had to use to look real and still avoid-she’d said, “You know, penetration.”

But this was to be only the first step in a long career. They were going to do it again-an entire work, an oeuvre of films by Ray Weir, starring Maxine…

They weren’t too old, in spite of Maxine’s giving up on it. That was all Rusty Ingraham’s doing, that negative stuff, the change in her.

He squirmed in his chair. In the room’s flickering light, he saw the film had everyone’s attention. Bryan was there. No girlfriend with him of course. Warren had his arm around Courtenay, who had done a fine editing job. The print was good and clean. This was a professional effort -screenplay by Ray Weir.

They couldn’t take their eyes off Maxine. But it was his story that was holding them. Don’t forget that.

He turned a little more. The guy who’d come in halfway through was walking along the back wall, hands in pockets, checking out the glossies of Maxine on the back wall.

Maybe he was another cop come back to talk to him.

Man, Ray, he thought, what are you going to do about Wednesday night?