podium as she looked out over the multitude—“but if you break the law, justice will trump mercy every”—she brought down her fist—“single”—again, the fist—“time.”
After a short stunned silence, a man at one of the front tables began to applaud and it was as though a dam had broken. The ensuing ovation brought the entire dining room to its feet.
8
S ick of conjuring with imponderables, Hardy called a fifteen-minute recess for himself. He stood up, stretched and walked to the window. Late afternoon, a listless gray day downtown. He and Frannie had their traditional Wednesday Date Night scheduled to begin in a couple of hours, and Hardy was tempted to call it a day and go wait for his wife at the Shamrock, discuss some philosophical conundrums with his brother-in-law Moses, who would be working behind the bar. He could have an early cocktail on the theory that it was always five o’clock somewhere.
He wasn’t getting anything done here, that was for sure.
His reaction to Monday’s problems with Glitsky and the jail had settled uneasily enough, but after his visit with Cole Burgess yesterday, the whole business lay curdling in his stomach. Something was very wrong, but he really didn’t want to get involved any further. He was too close to it, one way or the other. Also, he didn’t want to risk a serious rupture in his friendship with Abe over a lowlife such as Cole Burgess—to say nothing of the logistical problems he’d doubtlessly have with his friends Jeff and Dorothy, and her difficult mother.
When the dust cleared, he was all but certain that Cole would cut some kind of deal and get low double digits in the state prison. Every homicide was a manslaughter to Pratt’s trial-shy prosecutors. Even the public defender called the city’s system a “plea bargain mill.” Best case, Cole might even get out of San Quentin with his habit broken. In any event, it wasn’t Hardy’s problem.
What was his problem right now, though, was Dash Logan. The damned guy was proving harder to contact than the Pope, and Hardy’s client Rich McNeil was understandably losing some patience.
In the mid-eighties, McNeil had just turned fifty and decided to invest his 401K money in San Francisco real estate. He could have done better with Microsoft, but back then the stock market made him nervous. In any event, he wasn’t complaining. The sixteen-unit apartment building on Russian Hill had cost a hefty million five when he purchased it for a quarter million down; its most recent appraisal pegged its value at six million plus. Rich was now sixty-four years old, primed to sell the thing and retire.
So here he was, this nice guy and good citizen who’d worked and saved the way good Americans were supposed to, and instead of some carefree years of leisure, he was suddenly looking at some very serious trouble.
A year and a half ago, he’d finally succeeded in evicting Manny Galt, who’d been a tenant in the building for nearly ten years. The tenant from hell, as it turned out.
The first sign of trouble was when he painted his entire unit, including the windows, black. When McNeil had demurred, politely requesting Galt at least to leave the outer windows clear, Galt had not so politely declined. It was his fuckin’ place, he said, McNeil could go piss up a rope.
To say that San Francisco’s rent control laws favor tenants over landlords is to say that Custer favored Southern belles over the Ogalala Sioux. So when Hardy’s client explored the possibility of evicting Mr. Galt over the paint job, he found that this would be legally impossible. Galt had his five rooms, he paid his four hundred dollars every month, and as far as the law was concerned, that apartment was his, and at that price, until he gave it up on his own.
Which he wasn’t inclined to do.
Over the years, Galt’s one unit became a constant source of dissatisfaction to the other tenants as well, and a regular feature of McNeil’s life
After a short stunned silence, a man at one of the front tables began to applaud and it was as though a dam had broken. The ensuing ovation brought the entire dining room to its feet.
8
S ick of conjuring with imponderables, Hardy called a fifteen-minute recess for himself. He stood up, stretched and walked to the window. Late afternoon, a listless gray day downtown. He and Frannie had their traditional Wednesday Date Night scheduled to begin in a couple of hours, and Hardy was tempted to call it a day and go wait for his wife at the Shamrock, discuss some philosophical conundrums with his brother-in-law Moses, who would be working behind the bar. He could have an early cocktail on the theory that it was always five o’clock somewhere.
He wasn’t getting anything done here, that was for sure.
His reaction to Monday’s problems with Glitsky and the jail had settled uneasily enough, but after his visit with Cole Burgess yesterday, the whole business lay curdling in his stomach. Something was very wrong, but he really didn’t want to get involved any further. He was too close to it, one way or the other. Also, he didn’t want to risk a serious rupture in his friendship with Abe over a lowlife such as Cole Burgess—to say nothing of the logistical problems he’d doubtlessly have with his friends Jeff and Dorothy, and her difficult mother.
When the dust cleared, he was all but certain that Cole would cut some kind of deal and get low double digits in the state prison. Every homicide was a manslaughter to Pratt’s trial-shy prosecutors. Even the public defender called the city’s system a “plea bargain mill.” Best case, Cole might even get out of San Quentin with his habit broken. In any event, it wasn’t Hardy’s problem.
What was his problem right now, though, was Dash Logan. The damned guy was proving harder to contact than the Pope, and Hardy’s client Rich McNeil was understandably losing some patience.
In the mid-eighties, McNeil had just turned fifty and decided to invest his 401K money in San Francisco real estate. He could have done better with Microsoft, but back then the stock market made him nervous. In any event, he wasn’t complaining. The sixteen-unit apartment building on Russian Hill had cost a hefty million five when he purchased it for a quarter million down; its most recent appraisal pegged its value at six million plus. Rich was now sixty-four years old, primed to sell the thing and retire.
So here he was, this nice guy and good citizen who’d worked and saved the way good Americans were supposed to, and instead of some carefree years of leisure, he was suddenly looking at some very serious trouble.
A year and a half ago, he’d finally succeeded in evicting Manny Galt, who’d been a tenant in the building for nearly ten years. The tenant from hell, as it turned out.
The first sign of trouble was when he painted his entire unit, including the windows, black. When McNeil had demurred, politely requesting Galt at least to leave the outer windows clear, Galt had not so politely declined. It was his fuckin’ place, he said, McNeil could go piss up a rope.
To say that San Francisco’s rent control laws favor tenants over landlords is to say that Custer favored Southern belles over the Ogalala Sioux. So when Hardy’s client explored the possibility of evicting Mr. Galt over the paint job, he found that this would be legally impossible. Galt had his five rooms, he paid his four hundred dollars every month, and as far as the law was concerned, that apartment was his, and at that price, until he gave it up on his own.
Which he wasn’t inclined to do.
Over the years, Galt’s one unit became a constant source of dissatisfaction to the other tenants as well, and a regular feature of McNeil’s life
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