The Mercy Rule

by John Lescroart

  There was nothing for her to do but wait for him to come out and see what he did next.

  Now it was almost eight-thirty and she was sitting in her car alone and suddenly the tears threatened. Exhaustion was killing her. She hadn’t been alone with Graham in over three months. She hadn’t had time for any exercise. She’d almost forgotten the physical connection between her and Graham. Had it been as real as it felt? Or would all this have been for nothing? Would their love still exist when he got out? If he got out…

  This was the specter that haunted, that she tried to ignore. Graham might not get out, not ever. Hardy and Freeman and -admit it – she herself might fail him.

  Graham had a very real opportunity to spend the rest of his life in jail. And then what of her? How could she continue to be a cop, knowing that the system she was sworn to uphold had ruined her life? Glitsky hadn’t told her anything she didn’t already know: she was way over the line. And if she couldn’t be a cop, what would she become?

  She was saved from further introspection when George exited the restaurant and walked by his earlier route to Baywest, where he retrieved his car in the parking lot. Sarah was ready to follow him back to his home, when he turned right off Market, surprising her, back into the lower Tenderloin.

  By now it was full dusk. The few streetlights that still worked in this part of town had come on. George drove slowly up Eddy to Polk, hung a right, then another one, and started back uptown. He turned right again. And again. Going in a circle.

  Suddenly, her pulse beginning to race, Sarah knew what George was doing. He was cruising.

  Reaching for her handheld, she put in a call to her dispatcher. ‘I need an Adam unit’ – a black-and-white patrol car – ‘ASAP for backup at…’

  When George pulled over and the woman got into his car, she was ready. She waited until he had pulled into an alley, then told her Adam to roll.

  She was right behind the squad car and so had a bird’s-eye view as the two uniformed officers came up to George’s car and knocked on the windows, one on either side, shining their flashlights down, illuminating what was going on inside.

  Finally, a wedge.

  The two uniformed officers took the prostitute over to the black-and-white car, fifty feet up the street. Sarah kept George back by his car. It was doubtful he would have recognized her in any event, but clearly now, in darkness and in terror, he didn’t know who she was except trouble. He’d taken off his coat for the business and now he was visibly freezing in the wind. She thought it was good for him.

  Sarah had his wallet in her hands, was ostensibly checking over his ID. ‘George Russo. Do you know it’s illegal to traffic in prostitution?’

  He decided to try a ridiculous bluff. ‘I don’t-’ Stopping. ‘She’s a friend of mine.’

  Sarah smiled at him and yelled up the street. ‘Hey, guys! This John says he and the girl are friends. Ask her if she knows his name.’ She turned back to him. ‘I’m betting not, George. You know her name?’

  George had the eyes of a spooked horse. He glanced out behind Sarah as though searching for something – salvation, maybe. Sarah gazed levelly at him. ‘Linda, Julie, what?’

  From the other car one of the officers called down. ‘She says he can go to hell. She doesn’t know him.’

  ‘Look at that,’ Sarah said. ‘I won my bet.’

  ‘All right, so what now? I pay some fine? What?’

  Sarah could waste a lot of time putting him through hoops, but she knew exactly what she wanted, and the best way to get it. She told him a lie. ‘You know we’ve got a new program to cut down on this vice traffic, George. It’s really getting out of hand, and you Johns tend to just walk away. So you know what we’re doing now? We’re putting names and pictures in the paper.’

  ‘You don’t do that.’

  She nodded. ‘We do now. It’s a new program. Didn’t I say that?’

  ‘I can’t have that.’

  ‘You don’t get to choose.’ She hardened up her voice, put her hand on her gun. ‘All right, come on along with me.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To my car. I’m parked right behind my friends there. Then we all go downtown. Where do you think?’

  ‘Are you saying I’m under arrest?’

  Again, she gave him nothing and he stammered into the breach. ‘Look, I can’t let this happen to me. I cannot get arrested for prostitution. I don’t care what that girl says – she’s a friend of mine. I’ve got to call my lawyer.’

  ‘If you’re going to call your lawyer, you can do it just as well from the Hall of Justice.’

  He lowered his voice. ‘Look, what if… I mean, can’t we take care of this here? Maybe we can-’

  She cut him off. ‘Don’t make it worse, George. Attempting to bribe a police officer is a crime too. Maybe you didn’t know that. Let’s pretend that for now, huh? Now let’s go.’

  He was cracking. ‘No, look, please-’

  She raised her voice again. ‘Hey!’

  One of the officers stopped what he was doing and began trotting down to her. ‘Everything all right, Inspector?’

  She held up a hand, keeping the officer out of earshot distance. ‘One minute, thanks. Stay close.’

  She looked back to George. ‘Turn around,’ she said. ‘Put your hands behind your back.’

  The officers wanted to put him in the black-and-white, where there was a screen and no handles on the back doors. But Sarah was a homicide inspector – the top of the hierarchy – and they knew it from the call number the dispatcher had given them: 14-H. She told the uniforms they could drive the hooker around the corner and let her go. The John was a witness in a homicide investigation and she was going to squeeze him now. In her car.

  He was in the backseat, handcuffed, shivering with fear or cold or both. She got into the front seat and spun around. ‘I’d like to make you a trade.’

  A born trader himself, George narrowed his eyes at the unexpected gambit.

  Sarah didn’t let him get an answer out. ‘My real interest is your brother.’

  ‘Graham? What’s Graham got to do with this?’

  ‘This is going to make you tell me where you were when your father got killed.’

  ‘Fuck you. Why should I?’

  Sarah looked flatly at him for a minute, then turned around and started the car.

  ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute!’

  ‘We can talk downtown.’

  ‘No, no. I was just…’

  ‘Being an asshole?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah. I’m sorry. What do you want to know about Graham?’

  She turned the car’s engine off. ‘I don’t want to know anything about Graham. I want to know about you. Graham didn’t kill your father.’

  ‘My father isn’t dead,’ George said. ‘I work with him every day.’

  ‘Sal.’ She clipped it. ‘Don’t get even slightly cute with me one more time or this discussion’s over. Understand?’

  George didn’t give much away, but he did nod. ‘Okay, Graham didn’t kill Sal. So what?’

  ‘Okay, so somebody else did. I’m eliminating suspects.’

  He leaned back, the haunted look in his eyes giving way to something else. Shrewdness, a deal in the making. ‘You can’t think I had anything to do with that. I didn’t even know where Sal lived.’

  ‘That’s what you’ve said, but I don’t know it’s true. You wouldn’t tell Graham’s attorney or anybody else where you were that afternoon.’

  ‘Why should I? It’s nobody’s business. You cops never asked.’

  ‘Well, it’s my business. I’m asking now. You can tell me where you were and I’ll go away and that’ll be the end of tonight’s little adventure. Or not, and I can write you up, fill out an incident report, you get to see your name in the newspaper.’ She leaned forward. ‘Look, all I want to know is where you were. You don’t tell me, I’m going to become a lot more interested in you as a murder suspect. Every minute of your last year is going
to get a profile.’

  ‘I don’t-’

  ‘On the other hand, you tell me where you were and if it’s got nothing to do with your father, then this moment tonight, your girlfriend, everything – it all stops here.’

  ‘You don’t write it up? Or whatever it is you do?’

  ‘I won’t do anything.’

  ‘My father, especially. He can’t know.’

  This phraseology slowed her momentarily until she realized George was talking about Leland, not Sal. ‘He won’t.’

  Infuriatingly, as she was closing in, he skittered away again. ‘How do I know I can believe you?’

  She smiled. ‘Well, the truth is, George, you can’t. Either way, you’re no worse off than you are right now.’ Her voice became conversational. She knew the battle was hers if she kept it cool. There was no need for the heavy artillery; enough hits with the light gauge would accomplish the same thing. ‘Look, George, it’s simple. You’ve got nothing to lose. Just tell me.’

  He closed his eyes and swallowed, then mumbled it out. ‘Mitchell Brothers.’

  ‘What?’

  He repeated it. The Mitchell brothers had been San Francisco’s kings of pornography for years until one of them had shot and killed the other one, which threw a damper on their partnership. Still, the original Mitchell Brothers Theater – five or six blocks from Baywest Bank – continued to thrive under the original name.

  In terms of sexual provender, it went a good deal farther than the titillating nudity of the North Beach tourist shops. Featuring hard-core live sex shows, private booths, one-on-ones, and kinkiness of every imaginable kind, it was as raunchy a place as San Francisco could provide.

  ‘It’s my rotten luck.’ George was slumped now, going on. ‘The one day I do anything, the one hour, that’s when Sal dies and everybody wants to know where I am, where I was. And if Leland finds out where I was…’ He shook his head. ‘He’d cut me out, too, like Sal did. Then it would really be over.’

  ‘What would?’

  ‘My life,’ he said. ‘My career, everything he’s raised me to do.’

  She had to ask. ‘So why did you risk it? Why’d you have this girl tonight? Why don’t you get yourself a girlfriend?’

  This was torture. ‘There’s no… Leland wouldn’t…’

  ‘Like any of them? Approve?’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t make any mistakes.’

  She tried to understand. George blamed himself for being abandoned; if he had been better or more lovable or something, it might not have had to happen. He might never understand the way it had formed him, but now he was an adult with an adult’s needs and desires, and, stunted by the fear of rejection, he was afraid to pursue them. Legitimately.

  It saddened her, so she spoke gentry. ‘I’m afraid you’re on the wrong planet for no mistakes, George. Everybody makes them here on earth. They’re allowed.’

  ‘Not to me. You don’t know.’

  But the defenses were coming back up. He straightened in the seat. His eyes narrowed again, seemed to focus more sharply. The slackness went out of his face. ‘So anyway, that’s where I was,’ he said. ‘Is that what you wanted? Do we have a deal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You won’t tell my father?’

  ‘That’s right. But sooner or later, you know, something else like this is going to happen. He’s going to find out.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s going to stop.’

  Just what he needs, she thought, as though he weren’t already one of the most repressed young men she’d ever met. But she wasn’t his counselor. She’d tried, even – against her instincts – cared for a moment.

  Someday he’d change, or he would implode. Or he might stay the same and live a miserable, pinched life of money and toys. Either way, Sarah wasn’t going to have anything to do with it.

  She didn’t know how she could check it out, but for the moment George had given her a believable alibi. And this solved one of her immediate problems.

  But it hadn’t solved Graham’s.

  32

  Hardy smelled bacon and felt the soft touch of his wife’s lips against his cheek. ‘I turned off the alarm and gave you an extra half hour.’

  ‘You’re my savior.’

  ‘I know. Come eat and get dressed after.’

  It was five forty-five. He stepped into a pair of jeans and threw a jersey over his head. Out their bedroom window he could discern the outline of the Oakland hills, so the sun must have been somewhere behind them, but it hadn’t marched into the sky yet.

  His coffee was poured in an oversized mug. Eggs were scrambled and steaming on his plate with six fat strips of bacon, English muffins, and marmalade. He loved marmalade and for some reason never thought to eat it.

  He sat down. ‘Did I already mention the savior thing?’

  She smiled. ‘What time did you get in?’

  ‘Twelve-thirty, one, something like that. I finished the motion. Salter might-’

  She stopped him, putting her hand over his. ‘Later. Trial later.’ She pointed. ‘Breakfast now. Eat.’

  He closed his eyes and nodded, smiling. She was so right. ‘Good plan,’ he said.

  ‘Everybody needs one.’

  At seven-thirty A.M. the sturdy jogging figure appeared in his running clothes at the end of the alley. Hardy, waiting at the automatic gate to the parking lot behind the federal courthouse, was dressed for court in a dark suit and blue tie.

  With a good sweat worked up, Giotti didn’t stop until he was almost upon him. He didn’t expect any interruptions on his morning run through the downtown alleys, certainly not from a lawyer on business.

  ‘Morning, Judge.’

  Giotti was breathing heavily, but managed a half-smile of welcome. He took a moment – recognition not quite there. ‘Mr Hardy. You’re up early.’

  To Hardy it felt like high noon. ‘I’ve got to deliver a motion at the Hall before eight. I wanted to catch you first. I remember you said you jogged most mornings.’

  ‘Not enough.’ He indicated the gate behind them, which had somehow swung open – a guard watching for the judge? a remote switch in his pocket? ‘You want to go inside?’

  ‘No. Here’s fine. I’ve only got a minute.’

  ‘Okay, how can I help you?’

  ‘Do you know if Sal knew anybody named Singleterry? Joan Singleterry?’

  This was the cog that had slipped for Hardy last night. He and Graham had spent hours in the past months surmising about Sal’s early life, the mysterious Singleterry woman, and had come up with nothing. But suddenly, in his open-vessel state at his office, Hardy remembered that Giotti had actually known Sal Russo during those early days, had fished and worked with him, played ball and partied with him.

  Hardy was starting to have a feeling that Joan Singleterry might have a bigger role here than he’d understood, and Giotti could be the key to her identity.

  Did he imagine it? The judge’s clear gaze seemed to flicker for an instant. But then he was back as he’d been, still catching some breath, thinking about it. Dashing Hardy’s hopes. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘She wasn’t an old girlfriend, before Helen, maybe?’

  Giotti pondered some more, shook his head no. ‘I’m sorry. Is it important? What’s this about?’

  Keeping it vague, Hardy said it was just a name in discovery that led nowhere. He was starting his defense today and needed everything he could lay his hands on. If this Singleterry woman was a source of the money – something like that – it might lead to another suspect.

  He must have betrayed a little of his disappointment. The judge gave him a manly pat on the shoulder. ‘I don’t know if you’re going to need any suspects. I’ve been following the trial pretty closely. It seems to me it’s going pretty well.’

  ‘It’d go better if I could produce a killer.’

  Giotti appreciated the sentiment. ‘Well, that, sure. But you kept the struggle out pretty good, I thought.’


  ‘I meant to thank you for that. The idea.’

  The judge shrugged. ‘I just told the truth. There was no physical proof of any struggle. Since I know your strategy, I’ve got an inside track, but I get the feeling Soma and Drysdale don’t have a clue what you’re up to.’

  Hardy allowed himself a small smile. ‘Well, wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?’

  Giotti broke a true grin. ‘Hemingway allusions, yet. You’re a well-rounded human being for an attorney, Mr Hardy. When this is all over, if you don’t appeal’ – again, the reminder – ‘we ought to have a drink sometime.’

  ‘You could probably twist my arm.’

  The judge nodded. ‘I might do that.’ A kind of wistful look came over him. ‘I just remembered how I miss Sal. Isn’t that funny?’

  ‘How is that?’

  Perhaps he shouldn’t say. His mouth tightened, his body language briefly saying ‘No, never mind,’ but then that pose broke and he smiled sheepishly. ‘Do you have a lot of good friends, Mr Hardy?’

  Hardy shrugged. ‘A few. I’m lucky with that, I suppose.’

  ‘I used to be too. That’s what they don’t tell you about this job.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Well, to get it – and don’t get me wrong, it’s all I’ve ever wanted. But to get it you’ve got to – how can I put it? – develop friendships. You make real friends when you’re on the rise, some would say on the make. You give parties, go to them, hobnob. You impress people with your brains – your legal knowledge and learned opinions and quick wit. It’s heady.’

  ‘I’d imagine it would be.’ Though Hardy had no idea where Giotti was going with this, or why he was divulging these intimacies to him.

  ‘Then you get appointed.’ Giotti’s expression said a lot about disappointment, the alternate roads not taken. ‘It all ends. You’re cut off. Some of the more cerebral judges, they do fine. Others miss the friendships, but friendships aren’t on the docket. Too much opportunity for conflict of interest, see? And these are the very people who put you here. Suddenly you can’t fraternize anymore, certainly not the same way. You wind up pretty much alone.’