John Lescroart by The Hearing Page A

didn’t try. “Be that as it may, that’s my advice while I’m still free to give it. After today, we’re on opposite sides.”
    Gina Roake stood and thanked Torrey. He told her he appreciated her coming by, and hoped that she would come to the right decision, and she told him she’d discussit with her client, but they would both consider his advice very seriously. Then she left. He could still hear her footsteps in the hallway outside as he picked up the telephone.

7
    S harron Pratt chose the moment with some care.
    She had been invited to give a talk at the Commonwealth Club on her tenure to date as district attorney, the office’s most notable successes and failures, the evolution of her philosophy on criminal justice, and her plans for the future. Quite a few members of the media were on hand, as well as many of the city’s business and political elite. It was an ideal setting—quite a bit more high-toned than an impromptu Hall of Justice press conference, a slam dunk of a photo op, a chance to explain her absolutely unexpected position shift in word units longer than sound bites.
    Because it had been playing so well in the business community and the newspapers for over two years, she began with a recap of her office’s continuing, high-moral-tone campaign against Gironde Industries, the French company whose winning low-ball bid for the $25 million airport baggage carousels had rocked the Board of Supervisors and infuriated many of the largest and most well-connected construction firms who did business in the city.
    A foreign company like Gironde wasn’t about to be able to fulfill their contract without working with armies of local subcontractors—sheet metal workers, tile layers, painters, electricians, brick masons and so on. These companies, named by Gironde in their proposal, had in turn all guaranteed that they were in compliance with the city’s minority subcontracting quota.
    Gabe Torrey understood business far better than Pratt did, and he had alerted her to the likelihood of fraud in the negotiations. Gironde simply couldn’t do the job forthe amount that they had bid otherwise. Torrey’s opinion was that Gironde hired subcontractors for the proposal period, then laid them off immediately thereafter; that none of the subs had anywhere near the mandated number of women or minorities; he’d bet that many had women or minorities as titular owners who were paid minimum wage. Gironde would put people on the payroll, then give them a handful of cash to stay home and lie about working on the project.
    Pratt had taken it from there.
    And the district attorney’s office had gone to work with a vengeance, convening a grand jury, subpoenaing witnesses, obtaining search warrants on the offending subcontractors, seizing their records without warning, bringing the frauds to light time and again.
    It developed into a major story—reporters soon discovered that Gironde had human rights violations reported on jobs they had worked on in Senegal, in the Caribbean, in the Philippines. The owner of the company, Pierre Coteau, owned another company that sold animal furs. How, Pratt demanded, could a benevolent and liberal San Francisco award a contract to such a despicable company?
    At the request of the Board of Supervisors, Gironde was now preparing a revised second bid with a new list of subcontractors. But the feeling on the board and in the city at large was so strong against them, and in favor of Pratt on this issue, that no one believed they would keep the job. “And,” Pratt concluded, “this is the kind of law I will continue to practice in my second term. These are the kinds of people I will prosecute—those who would unfairly take jobs from the honest citizens and hardworking businesspeople of this city.”
    The applause washed over her. She loved Gironde. It was the perfect San Francisco prosecution. Not only was the issue one of