On the way out, they almost collided with Kevin, who was coming out of the state bar’s witness waiting room and into the hallway, hustling like a man with a plan.
Nina grabbed Paul’s arm, waved good-bye to a surprised Jack, and led him to the stairs. “Let’s go. Kevin already caught an elevator.”
They made their way down to the first floor and into the narrow, T-shaped plaza beside the building in record time and scanned for a place to hide. Paul led Nina to a spot behind the fountain, where they had a clear view all the way to a burnished steel sculpture by entry gates that opened onto Spear Street.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to stay so close? What if they see us?” Nina fretted.
“We need to be close in case they leave, Nina. We need to watch them.” Paul adjusted a small earpiece that led to a wire directly into his shirt pocket.
“I never saw a white man’s face so red. I’m thinking, I’m hoping he’s mad enough that he gives someone a piece of his mind and we hear every word. But even if we do, Paul, it’s illegal, listening in like this. We can’t use anything we hear in court.”
“We want to know what’s going on,” Paul said. “The rest will follow.”
“Oh, no,” she worried as lunchtime pedestrians whizzed past. “I hope he’s not too mad.”
“All we said was that there’s a change of plans, meet me, essentially.” Paul peered around the fountain. “Kevin’s there sitting on one of those concrete benches, puffing on a cigarette,” he said, holding his finger to his ear. “And it’s quiet. Reception’s good.” Invisible construction efforts involving orange cones had most of the traffic on Spear Street at a dead halt. “I can hear him thinking.”
“If it’s Riesner, he’s thinking Riesner’s going to screw him. If it’s Scholl, she’s going to turn him in. Did you get your gun back from security when we left court?”
“I did.”
“Because I don’t want you to use it.”
“Of course you don’t.”
Litter flew in the wind in misty whirlpools. Nina pulled her jacket tighter. “Too much fog. I can hardly see the spot.”
“It could be worse,” Paul said. “It could be raining.”
“No sign of anyone,” Nina said. “Oh, God, Paul. What if nobody comes?”
Paul stood beside her, eyes narrowed, head turning from side to side. “Don’t these thousands of people have anything better to do on a March afternoon than wander the town? We should have chosen a spot with fewer than seven thousand people at a time.”
“They would want to meet in a public place. Somewhere close to the court.” The letters had been short and to the point. To recipients Scholl and Riesner, Mrs. Gleb had happily, chuckling and drinking tea all the while, forged two separate notes that said, “I changed my mind. I won’t testify. I’ll meet you down in the plaza right outside the state bar building at the Spear Street entrance at twelve-fifteen today if you want to know why.” The signature at the bottom, KC, had all the small crabbed character of Kevin’s real signature, which Nina had brought her.
To Kevin, she had sent another note: “You won’t be testifying. Meet me at twelve-fifteen where the plaza outside the state bar building opens onto Spear Street.” She hadn’t signed it.
If there was no conspiracy, there was no reason for anyone to show up, including Kevin. They would all be mystified, and would continue with the process of bringing Nina to her knees.
“Nina, look.” Paul thrashed back and ducked down, pushing her down beside him.
“Ow. I don’t see anyone.” She poked her head around the fountain. Leading with his finger, he pointed the way.
“What?”
“Can’t you see? It’s Jean Scholl, right by that wall, keeping out of sight.”
So it was Scholl. She had responded to their forged note. Scholl was behind the whole thing. Nina’s thoughts made her shiver. All this because she had crossed the wrong cop in the ordinary course of her business. It seemed incredible, impossible, but here was the living proof.
Simply doing her job was dangerous. Her brother, Matt, had said that more than once.
“See her now?”
“No.”
“Her back is to us, but I’d recognize that rear end anywhere.”
“But, Paul, why is she hiding? Isn’t she supposed to be meeting Kevin?”
“Don’t know,” he said shortly. She noticed his hand.
“There’ll be no shooting here!” she said. “There are too many people! Someone could get hurt!”
“Nina. Nobody gets hurt if they behave. That goes double for you. Now what have we here?”
Kevin Cruz came walking up and looked around. He put his hands in his pockets.
“What’s Scholl doing?” Nina asked, rubbing her ankle with her hand.
“Watching. Waiting.”
Kevin checked his watch.
“He came, Paul. That means he expects to meet her. So why is she hanging back?”
Paul started to laugh. He laughed so hard for so long, Nina got worried. “What’s the matter with you?” she said.
“It’s Scholl,” he finally gasped out. “She’s-she’s-”
“She’s what?”
Suddenly, Kevin shifted his body so that he was facing toward the street, away from them. He tensed with anticipation.
“Someone else is coming,” Nina said.
Jeffrey Riesner strolled into view. Kevin stood up to meet him.
“I don’t understand,” Nina said, pulling back. “I thought we were going to pin down who’s who in this. They all came. Are they in this together? I’m confused. What do we do now?”
“Nina, take a good long look at Scholl. Look at how she’s hiding. Check out the piece she’s holding.”
“It’s weird all right. She’s watching.”
“Nina, she’s investigating! She’s being a cop!”
“What?”
“She got a suspicious message and decided to check it out. Thatta girl.”
Nina’s attention dodged toward the two men, who were engaged in heated debate. She scooched in close to Paul. He took the tiny receiver out of his ear, and they both listened.
“You told me you had that judge in the bag!” they heard Kevin say, his voice rising clearly above the dull background roar of the city. “You said you could get me the kids!”
Riesner’s voice was lower, but in intermittent pieces they caught the gist. He wanted to know what the hell Kevin thought he was pulling, switching allegiance at the last minute. “I promise you won’t see your kids again until you’re drooling and senile, asshole.”
So Riesner was behind it all after all, Nina thought. He was the poison, the thin red snake slithering behind all of them, but the realization gave her no relief, no pleasure.
Apparently, Scholl had heard enough. Stepping out from behind the doorway on Spear Street where she had been hiding, she tucked her gun into a pocket and, holding it out of sight, faced the two men.
“She’ll arrest them,” Nina said. “My God, Paul. It’s finally over.”
“Maybe.”
“Hello, boys,” Officer Scholl said to Riesner and Cruz. She stood directly in front of them, looking at ease in the middle of a seething crowd of city folk.
“You?” Jeffrey Riesner said. “What brings you here?”
“Curiosity,” she said. “Then I couldn’t help overhearing,” Scholl said. “Excuse me for crashing your party, but you two have sure been cooking, and whew, does it smell.”
A hole opened around the three where they stood next to the sculpture. They looked like everyone else, but they were not. They were connected, a unit, and the air around them seemed particularly charged. Those passing drifted uneasily around their fringes.
“I’ve worked out this much.” Holding her hand very near her body she exposed her gun to Riesner, who reacted with a jump back. “You,” she said to him, “got him”-she pointed at Cruz-“to lie, with the ultimate goal of pulverizing our favorite lady lawye
r in return for the custody of his kids. I also have a gnawing suspicion that you stole yourself a key one fine day in court and made immediate use of it. And-” She thought, then put a finger to her chin. “The forgery. Your case last fall-the counterfeiter you defended. I’ll bet he could tell me a few things about how he paid a hotshot like you. Tinkering with Reilly’s paperwork? Or did he just show you a few tricks of the trade?”
Kevin Cruz stared at Riesner. “You did all that?”
Riesner said, “Why don’t you run on back home to Tahoe and write a few tickets, investigate a couple of nasty fender benders. Try to salvage something before you make a complete fool of yourself, Scholl. You have nothing on me. I’ve got a position in that town and powerful friends. Don’t do anything you’ll regret later.”
“And you, Kevin,” Scholl said, ignoring him. “What a shame. I’m deeply disappointed in you. He has an excuse. He’s a lawyer. It’s his business to lie and cheat to get what he wants. But you’re an officer of the law. Didn’t you tell me after that last time you’d walk a straight line? Didn’t you promise me that?”
“Welcome to real life, Jeanie,” Kevin Cruz said.
“What did he tell you? That Judge Milne was an old golf buddy who just needed a little whisper from his pal to give you what you want? Because that’s a laugh, let me tell you. Milne’s straight.”
“Why did you come here? What is this?” Riesner asked. “Some kind of lame shakedown?”
“Not exactly,” Scholl said.
“What do you want?”
“Right this minute, to get out of here. I don’t think it’s a very good idea, us sharing our feelings like this in such a public forum. We need to talk privately. You up for that? A little talk in a private place, and a lot less trouble all around?”
A smile played around Riesner’s thin lips. Talk? He was an expert. Sure, he would talk.
Tipping her sunglasses so that she could see better through the fog, Scholl’s eyes darted around, suddenly narrower. “Tell me something. You got letters?” she asked the two men.
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” She frowned. This time, she scanned the street and then the plaza very deliberately, looking straight toward the fountain. Nina and Paul ducked back. Too late? What had she seen? Scholl whispered something to the two men, and they took off at a fast clip, heading left up Spear Street toward Market.
Paul tucked his earpiece into his pocket. “We still don’t know the whole story,” he said. They walked quickly to the silver sculpture. Paul took just a second to retrieve the bug he had placed there earlier.
“Let’s follow them,” Nina decided, taking the lead.
“Okay.” Paul quickly overtook and passed Nina, using his elbows when necessary to make his way through the energetic street crowd.
In the sunless afternoon, the San Francisco streets were filled with Hopperesque scenes of lit stools and loiterers. Three people stepped in front of them to panhandle. Paul took Nina’s arm and sidestepped them.
“Where are they going?” Nina asked, huffing, clutching her bag to prevent it from hitting people. “I thought we’d have a chance to confront them back there. Scholl really threw me off.”
“When I saw her there, I could have sworn she was about to arrest them. I wonder what she plans to do now.”
“What do we do? Just run up to them and tell them what we know?”
“No,” Paul said. “We’re outnumbered, and Officer Scholl has her weapon. Change of plans. Let’s not be stupid, but let’s not let them get away. We follow, then get the cops.”
The trio up ahead hit a red light at Mission, so they crossed over Spear to the Rincon Center and crossed again to pass Lightning Foods. Nina and Paul stayed on the opposite side of the street behind them, dodging the new concrete berms that lined the sidewalk, protecting the Federal Reserve Bank on the corner of Market Street.
“They’re going for the Hyatt,” Nina guessed. “That’s so strange. This is where we celebrated Bob’s birthday.”
A cable car sat in front of the hotel, a smattering of passengers perched on its wooden benches. The conductor let loose a clang, sang, “He-e-ere we go!” and it took off up the hill. Nobody stopped to watch. Riesner entered the hotel first from a side exit on Market Street, catching hold of an opening door and holding it for Scholl and Cruz.
Nina and Paul ducked past the valets in the parking area and into the automatic revolving door. They took escalators up to the main hotel level.
One of the world’s signature hotels, the San Francisco Hyatt was remarkable for a huge interior courtyard framed by balcony corridors that angled up from the lobby level almost to the full height of the tower. Skylights at the top cast natural light down on the busy restaurants and services that lined the courtyard, and a huge, tubular gold sculpture formed a centerpiece. Water below the sculpture gurgled in a square black pool and spilled in unreal sheets to another level, shivering like a stretch of Saran Wrap.
On one side of the courtyard, glassed-in elevators shaped like funicular mailing tubes sailed up to the hotel rooms lining the open corridors. The effect was very Blade Runner, a glimpse into a fantastic world where architecture substituted for, and sometimes outdid, nature.
Nina and Paul skulked between pillars and behind the sculpture while their three quarries repaired to the 13 Views, the main courtyard restaurant.
“They’re talking,” Nina said. “Now what?”
“Wait,” said Paul.
After a few moments, Riesner got up.
“She’s letting him go?” Nina asked, amazed.
He walked toward the rest rooms and disappeared inside. Scholl watched him go in. A minute passed. Although she continued to watch for Riesner, she and Kevin began to talk again.
A moment’s distraction was all it took.
With the swooping, invisible speed of a short-track ice skater, Riesner skidded out, ducked around behind Scholl, and headed for the elevators. Nina and Paul, trying to stay out of sight, followed as quickly as they could.
By the time they got to the nearest elevator, the doors were already closing. The elevator ascended, Riesner clearly visible through the glass. Then it stopped. Then it started up again. Nina and Paul tipped their heads back, observing it.
“The fifth floor,” she said. “He got off. Let’s go.” She pressed the elevator button.
“No, Nina. You stay down here and watch these two. And call the police. Wait for them. Direct them up to the fifth floor. I’ll hold him until they get here.”
She experienced a fear so intense in her belly she thought she would fall down with the pain. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Look, Nina, he’s a white-collar coward, not a mobster,” he said. “I’m tougher than him, and I hope you know that much. And then, I’ve got a gun, remember?” He touched the back of her neck with his finger. “You okay?”
“I’ll be fine as long as you are.”
“Got your pepper spray?”
She patted her bag.
“Keep it handy.”
He hurried down to the end of the long courtyard and took the stairs up.
Leaning against a wall near the restaurant, Nina took out her mobile phone and tried to make a call to 911. Busy. She tried again, got through, and waited on hold. Was this legal, no one answering an emergency call instantly? While she held on with growing dread, watching Scholl and Cruz with one eye, her call-waiting buzzed. She took the call.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. Wish.”
“I can’t talk.”
“Wait, Nina, this is important! I found the rest of the note from my mom. It says, ‘Received transcript of Gleb testimony. Forger is extrovert, likes money, craftsman.’ ”
“I’m sorry, Wish, I have to go.”
“And I forgot to tell you, she left a paper bag with something in it-wait a sec-” Paper rattled through the phone line and then Wish said in a puzzled voice, “Huh. It’s this wooden lazy Susan my dad uses out in the garage. Sh
e brought it home from her old office one Christmas.”
An image came to Nina of a man in a dark basement, carving for hours to make a perfect tiny puppet replica of Nina that he jerked around in private. “That’s your mom’s way of warning me it’s Riesner,” she said.
“We cracked it!”
“We sure did,” she said, clicking him off. What a trial that boy must be to his mother.
“ 911,” a woman’s voice said suddenly.
Okay, elapsed waiting time not long at all. “Yes, I’m-” A sharp poke to her back stopped her.
“I’ll take that.” A hand reached out and snapped her phone shut.
“Hello, Counselor,” Jeffrey Riesner’s voice said. “I spotted you and your knucklehead friend back there quite a while ago. Nice of him to leave you alone for me. Makes things much easier.” He yanked her bag away and tossed it on the ground, and dumped the phone after it. “Now I think we take a little walk. This way.”
He steered her along the low rectangular pond, back toward the elevators. She swallowed, trying to find her voice. “You don’t want to do this!” she said.
“Shut the hell up and get in there.” He shoved her into a waiting elevator and pushed a button. Once inside, she faced his moist face. She faced his gleaming gun.
“You won’t shoot me. You’re not a killer,” she said. “You’re a lawyer.”
“You don’t get it, do you? You will never again embarrass me in front of my colleagues. You will never win again.”
“Wait. We can make a deal, Jeff.”
The floor numbers lit up as they passed. There was no thirteenth floor, which made the fourteenth floor her unlucky alternative. The elevator stopped there. He pushed her out. “Walk.”
She walked down a long hallway, echoes of laughter and music emanating from the gaping open space beyond the balcony’s edge. She thought of screaming. But he would shoot her. He held her in a grip like iron.
“There will be no deals,” he said. “There will be a sad death, your death, because, by God, I will not let you get away from me. If I can’t see you ruined I will see you dead. Suicide, out of disgrace. Too bad it’s such a crude solution.”
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