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under, as you say.”
    Becker didn’t seem offended by the suggestion. “No, I don’t suppose we can rule that out. But it’s not the most obvious explanation for how the gun got there.”
    Glitsky scratched at his cheek. Becker had been up front with him about his and Cuneo’s investigation. Although it hadn’t been his original plan, he saw no reason now to try and conceal his motive. “Well, as I said, Hanover was a friend of the mayor. She doesn’t like the idea that he killed himself, to say nothing of his girlfriend. She asked me to take a look.”
    Bemused, Becker stood still a moment, shaking his head. Finally: “If that’s what you’ve got to do, I wouldn’t want to have your job.”
    Nodding, Glitsky said, “Sometimes I’m not too sure I want it either.”



3

    D ismas Hardy, managing partner of the law firm of Freeman, Farrell, Hardy & Roake, had his feet up on his desk. His suit coat hung over the back of his chair. His shoes were off, his tie was undone, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned. He was taking an after-lunch break from a not-very-strenuous day and reading randomly from a book he’d recently purchased, called
Schott’s Original Miscellany.
    Being a fact freak, Hardy considered it one of the most fascinating books he’d come across in recent years, containing as it did all sorts of nonessential but critical information, such as the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria), the ten-point Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness (from talc to diamond), the names of the Apostles, and 154 pages of other very cool stuff. He was somewhat disappointed to see that for some obscure reason it didn’t include St. Dismas as the Patron Saint of Thieves and Murderers, but otherwise the diminutive tome was a pure delight, and certainly worthy of his nonbillable time.
    He was poring over the Degrees of Freemasonry when the phone buzzed at his elbow. He marked his place, sighed and lifted the receiver, knowing from the blinking line button that it was his receptionist/secretary, Phyllis, the superefficient, loyal, hardworking and absolutely trying human being who viewed her role as gatekeeper to his office as a vocation decreed by God. She’d filled the same position for Hardy’s predecessor, David Freeman, and was no morereplaceable as a fixture in the Sutter Street law offices than the phones themselves.
    “Phyllis,” he said. “Did I ask you to hold my calls?”
    He loved that he could make her pause. Mostly he did this by answering with a nonlawyerly “Yo,” but sometimes, for variety’s sake, he’d come at her from another angle. Yahoo, living large.
    “Sir?”
    “I’m not accusing you. I’m just asking.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Okay, then. What’s up?”
    “Deputy Chief Glitsky is here to see you.”
    “In person?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Make a note, Phyllis, I need a back door to sneak out of here.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “That was a pleasantry, Phyllis, a bit of a joke. You can send him in.”
    He mouthed “Yes, sir,” as she said it, then hung up smiling. Sometimes it worried him that Phyllis was among the top sources of humor in his life. It seemed to say something truly pathetic about the person he’d become, but he couldn’t deny it. Leaving his stockinged feet on the desk where they would appall his friend Abe almost as much as the sight would scandalize Phyllis, he waited for the turn of the knob and Glitsky’s appearance.
    One step into Hardy’s office, Glitsky stopped. His expression grew pained at the socks on the desk. Hardy left his feet where they were and started right in. “I’m glad you came by. We’ve really got to join the Masons,” he said. “You know that?”
    Glitsky closed the door behind him. “You’re going to wait until I ask you why,