The dart hit smack in the middle of the ‘20,’ David Freeman appeared in his doorway with a bottle of wine and some glasses, and the telephone rang.

He threw up his hands. ‘Life,’ he said, ‘it happens all at once.’

Freeman would wait and the phone wouldn’t, so he grabbed at it. ‘Yo.’

‘Hardy. Abe.’

‘By God, I think it is. You sound just like yourself.’

‘It’s a disguise for people who think I’m somebody else.’

‘So what’s up? You’re going to say Graham Russo.’

Freeman came over and put the glasses down on Hardy’s desk, then lifted a haunch onto the corner of it.

Over the phone Hardy heard his prediction come true. ‘I’m calling about Graham Russo.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘This is a courtesy call. You must have impressed Lanier and Evans with your manners. I asked them if they minded if I call you and they said no.’

‘They’re really quite perceptive individuals,’ Hardy said, ‘for police persons. So what about Graham?’

Glitsky told him.

Freeman repeated it, making sure he’d heard it right. ‘Fifty thousand dollars in wrapped bills? Four complete sets of early-fifties baseball cards?’

‘That’s it.’

The old man drank off most of his glass of red wine. Hardy noticed the world outside his window, that night had completely fallen.

He looked at his watch. Eight-fourteen. He had to stop now, call it a day, get home. He’d get a call later if Graham got booked tonight, and he’d have to come down to the jail. He didn’t feel he would survive without a little time off.

David Freeman, on the other hand, had no family or consuming interests outside of the law. He had lived this way for all of his adult life and now, after his own full day in court, he was settling down with a newly filled glass, enthralled with the details of yet another case. It never ended for Freeman – he never wanted it to. ‘So it’s not an assisted suicide after all?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean fifty grand plus the cards, taken from the old man’s safe. This is not what we call altruism. He offed the guy to get the money.’

Hardy waved that off. ‘I don’t think that happened, David. You’ve got to know him.’

‘I don’t need to know him if I’ve got the evidence. If the evidence says he did it, then he did it.’

‘You always say that.’

‘That’s because it’s always true.’ Freeman had settled himself on the couch. He’d brought the bottle over and put it on the coffee table in front of him. He poured himself more wine, swirled it in his glass, sloshed it around in his mouth, the connoisseur. ‘Why don’t you take off your coat and stay awhile? Share this excellent claret with me. Take a break, for Christ’s sake, you’ve been at it all day. This new case of yours has all the makings.’

Hardy threw another dart. The hell with the personal best game, he thought. He’d get it some other time. ‘Believe it or not, spending another hour or two here in the middle of the night discussing a case I’m not even taking is not my idea of a break. I’m thinking about going home, saying hello to my wife before she leaves me, maybe kissing my kids good-night.’

Freeman pursed his lips with distaste. ‘Aren’t you curious about the money?’

‘There’s an explanation for the money.’

‘That’s my point. Don’t you want to know what it is?’

‘I’ll catch it on the news.’ He had walked around his desk and grabbed his suit coat from the back of his chair where he’d hung it, and now, on his way to the door, he was pulling it on. He stopped at the doorway and picked up his briefcase. ‘You want to lock up and get the lights when you leave? The landlord here’s a real tyrant.’

Freeman picked up his bottle and got himself to his feet. ‘No, I’ll go down to my office.’

His brown suit looked like he’d taken a shower with it on, then slept in it. There were half a dozen rusted dots around his shirt collar where he’d cut himself shaving. The tie could have been cut from.a tablecloth at an Italian restaurant. He was half a head shorter than Hardy and thirty pounds heavier, all of it in the gut. Nevertheless, David Freeman – the eyes, the manic energy – was impressive, even intimidating.

He came to a halt abruptly in front of Hardy, seemed to consider for a moment, then poked a finger into his chest. ‘You know, this life isn’t dress rehearsal. If you’ve got a vision of what really happened with Sal Russo, the boy’s got a right to hear it. You took him on, so you owe him that, however busy you think you are. And here’s a free tip: you might try fitting in a little fun.’

‘Like you do?’

‘Exactly! Like I do. I have fun all the time.’

‘You work all the time.’

Freeman lit up histrionically. ‘I love my work! I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.’

‘I hate to say this, David, but you don’t have kids.’

The old man squinted up at him. ‘Well, you do, so what?’

‘So I don’t do what I want to do anymore. I do what I have to do. That’s my life. That’s reality. I don’t even think about what I want to do.’

Freeman remembered his glass of wine and took a hit of it. ‘It was your choice having the kids, am I right?’ ‘Sure.’

‘So it’s your choice how you want to live with them.’ Hardy found himself getting a little hot. ‘That’s a fine and learned opinion, David, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘You need this case, a murder case, something you can care about,’ Freeman said. ‘You’re burning out.’

Hardy didn’t need to hear this – it was too close to the truth. He hit the lights and closed the door behind them. ‘Well, thanks for the input.’

The short corridor was dark and ended in a stairwell down which the two men walked in silence. On the second floor Phyllis, the receptionist, had her station – deserted now – in the center of a spacious and extravagantly appointed lobby. The main lights had been turned down. Dim recessed pinpoints in the ceiling kept the space from blackness, but only just. Freeman grumbled a good-night and was nearly to his office when Hardy stopped at the top of the main circular stairwell. He sighed and put down his briefcase. ‘David.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You ought to take this Russo case.’

‘I’ll be honest with you. I would kill for this case.’

Hardy smiled in the gloom. ‘You don’t have to kill anybody. It’s yours. I mean it. From right now Graham’s your client. You can introduce yourself when they book him, which could happen in the next five minutes. If you hurry, you can beat him down to the jail.’

The old man wrestled with it for a few seconds. ‘It’s tempting, but I can’t take it. He can’t afford me.’

‘Do it pro bono. He can’t afford anybody, and it would be great advertising.’

‘It’s your case, Diz. He’s your client.’

‘I don’t want him, David. Forget hum not being able to afford me, I can’t afford him.’

Freeman’s voice cut into the darkness. ‘You want my opinion, or probably you don’t, you can’t afford not. All I’ve heard from you for years now is how my clients – my guilty clients – they’re the scum of the earth. They deserve the best defense the law allows, but it’s not going to be Dismas Hardy who gives it to them. No, sir. You’ve got higher standards, right? You’ve got to believe in your clients, in their essential goodness. But you know, I’ve got news for you about the nature of humanity – it fails all the time. Good people do bad things. That’s why we have the beautiful law.’

The old attorney moved a step closer, all wound up now. ‘You think the work you’re doing with Tryptech is cleaner than what I do. Well, my ass. Dyson Brunei is at best a liar and at worst a crook, and you don’t seem to have any problem doing his grunt work for a fee.’ Freeman lowered his voice even further, his anger building. ‘Graham Russo walks in because he needs you, and you tell me he didn’t kill his father for his money. You believe in him, don’t you? But you won’t help him. You can’t afford to. All right, but spare me the rationalizations and the self-righteous bullshit from now on, would you? I don’t have the time.’