Free Hardy 05 - Mercy Rule, The by John Lescroart Page A

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.’
    Freeman whirled and stalked into his office, slamming the door closed behind him.
     
    *      *      *      *      *
     
    In his living room a line of tiny elephants marched tail to trunk in a caravan across the mantel above his fireplace. They were made of blown Venetian glass.
    Frannie had seen them at Gump’s and fallen in love, though she knew there was no way she would ever have them. They were too expensive, too fragile. An unnecessary luxury back when they’d had nothing. But Hardy had bought six of them for her and then one each year on their anniversary.
    Now, finally home a little after nine o’clock, he stood in front of them, wondering if he could hear what they might be saying to him.
    The elephants were part of their history. When they had decided to get married, he and Frannie had had many discussions about where they would live together. Finally she said she’d move out of her duplex into this house — Hardy’s house. He thought the gift would begin to make the place her own home, and he’d been right. She rearranged the elephants every couple of days, circling them, lining them up, facing them all in one direction or another. Mood stones.
    (Her brother, Moses, did the same thing — rearranged the elephants — almost every time he came to visit. Hardy thought it must be genetic.)
    It was a night for shadows. The living room, as the lobby in his building had been, was dimly lit, in this case from one light over the telephone in the tiny sitting area off the dining room. The house was eerily quiet. It was a ‘railroad-style’ Victorian with a long hallway, living and dining rooms up front. In the back the house widened with the kitchen and, behind that, three bedrooms. j The kids were asleep and Frannie had gone to bed, apparently ;to sleep. He microwaved the leftovers of macaroni and cheese, mixing in a can of tuna for the protein, or taste, or something. At the dining-room table he started to review some of the Tryptech pages from his briefcase, but he didn’t have the energy.
    He poured an inch of Bushmills into one of the jelly glasses the kids used. Returning to the living room, he lit a fire and drank his drink. When it was finished, he showered and slid in beside his wife’s possibly sleeping form.
     
    *      *      *      *      *
     
    The elephants were dancing in an amber glow.
    A naked man stood in front of the dying embers, watching the beasts. There were fourteen of them, in a line, perhaps preparing to caravan. The wind howled outside.
    Outside the fire’s perimeter the night was pitch, and out of its shadow a woman appeared. She was dressed in something white and flowing. Red highlights shimmered in long hair, worn down. She was barefoot.
    The man half turned, afraid to step toward her lest he stumble. Twice already he had free-poured Irish whiskey into the Tom and Jerry drinking glass, too thick to break.
    ‘Are you coming back to bed?’
    ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
    ‘I guessed that.’ She laid a hand lightly on his shoulder. ‘Don’t hurt yourself.’ A reference to the drinking. When he’d been younger, before this marriage or their children, he had a personal rule forbidding hard spirits in his house. Now he sometimes thought they could open a liquor store.
    ‘I love these elephants,’ he said. It appealed to him to see one of the strongest animals in the world rendered in the most fragile of substances. ‘They look like they’re dancing, don’t they? Excited about going somewhere, doing something.’
    ‘Come on back to bed,’ she said. ‘I’ll rub your back.’
    ‘What time is it?’ he asked.
    ‘Two. The