Resilience

by L.M.Lewis

Yeah, sure, just put it in the closet.

Disclaimer: These are not my characters and I make no profit from them.

Rated: G

Author's note: I've already done an epilogue to 'The Birthday Present' so this is more in the way of a bridge between that episode and the one which follows, 'Surprise on Seagull Beach.' I've already said elsewhere that a '38. hollow point' plus right ventricle, equals dead person so, granting the suspension of disbelief required for that, it should be no problem to request a violation of the space-time continuum to insert at least a month between the two episodes.

Oh, and much of this territory was already mapped out in a very good story by Judy Darnell called 'Choices'.

Many thanks to betas Susan and Cheri, who found a whole passel of errors.

Resilience

By L. M. Lewis

McCormick really had thought that it was all going pretty well, right up till the moment when the judge asked, "What happened to my keys?" But that was less than twenty-four hours after he had gotten back to Gull's Way, and only fourteen days after taking a .38 slug to the chest.

Mark could hardly pretend not to have heard; he was standing only a few feet away from where the judge was sitting at his desk in the den. Rule number one: Don't lie if you don't have to. "I think you left them in your chambers at the courthouse." He tried to put an audible sneer into the word 'chambers', hoping to deflect the conversation in that direction.

Hardcastle frowned. "Yeah, but you were over there to pick up the truck; didn't you get the rest of my stuff?"

"No," replied McCormick, on firmer ground there, "it was locked up." That was because Frank had been there a couple hours earlier and cleared the stuff out. Mark had gotten them from Frank when he'd stopped by the station to give his formal statement.

McCormick, thinking ahead to just such a moment as this, had brought it all home, and carefully placed the set of keys in a jacket pocket as far to the back of the hall closet as he could. He'd then taken the spare keys from the drawer in the judge's desk and moved them to a shelf in the laundry room, where they might have accidentally migrated. A judge without keys was a judge who would not be driving against his doctor's orders, or prematurely accessing the file cabinets.

Still, he would have made book that the moment of crisis would have come a little later than this.

Two weeks earlier, the surgeon had informed Mark that there was no way the judge should even be alive. Nine days ago they had transferred him out of intensive care to a regular room. The day after that, McCormick had found him standing up in his room, and two days later walking, very slowly, in the hallway.

But he hadn't been able to make any of it look easy. It was more grim determination than anything else. McCormick, who had spent most afternoons there, only slipping out when the judge had other visitors, could tell the old donkey was pushing the edge of the envelope. Yet right from the very beginning he'd seemed to want to convince everyone, and especially Mark, that being shot in the chest was merely an inconvenience.

"But, anyway, if you need me to drive you somewhere . . ." Mark let the statement trail off, implying that he disapproved of the idea, without exactly saying so.

"No," the judge grumbled, "I just want my keys."

00000

The judge felt his eyes narrowing down. This had all the hallmarks of one of those conversations in which McCormick did not exactly lie. The question was, would he do so if Hardcastle pushed him to the wall on it? And just who's in charge here, anyway? If I want the keys, I want the keys. That doesn't mean I'm going to go tearing off in the 'Vette.

No, not likely. It had taken him way too long to negotiate the stairs last night. Mark had tactfully absented himself but stayed within earshot. Then he hadn't objected when he discovered that McCormick had taken up temporary residence in the spare bedroom across from his own, or when he noticed this morning that both doors had been left ajar.

The problem was, McCormick had been there when the doctor laid out the ground rules for the judge's discharge home: rest, no driving, and no work of any kind for at least a couple of weeks. It was a strange sense of imbalance, having McCormick being the model of probity while he himself was looking to cut some corners. It was almost comforting to know that the kid was weaseling away on this one issue.

And as much as he hated the idea of being taken care of, he thought maybe the distraction was all that was keeping Mark from dwelling on what he'd had to do to stop Weed Randall.

"I just thought maybe you'd seen 'em. I didn't need 'em right now," he muttered concedingly.

"Right," McCormick replied, "and they'll probably turn up before you do." And then he slipped out of the room before the judge could ask any more questions.

00000

McCormick was no longer fond of the expression 'dodged a bullet', though he felt as if he had. But this was only Day One of what looked to be a long siege.

The problem was, it worried him when Hardcase behaved like anything but a stubborn donkey. And damned if the judge didn't seem to know what was expected of him. Mark ambled into the kitchen with the plan of killing some time making lunch. Maybe the less time he spent hovering, the less Hardcastle would have to pretend he was okay.

Despite his best efforts, sandwiches and soup only took fifteen minutes to put together. The judge insisted on coming to the table for meals. Mark compromised by bringing it into the dining room. The food was consumed in uneasy silence punctuated by a couple of halting efforts at conversation. McCormick could not remember such an awkward meal, even back when he had first come to the estate.

He was staring down into a half-eaten bowl of soup, he didn't have much appetite, when he heard himself say, "I think I saw your spare set of keys on a shelf in the laundry room." There, all his best efforts sabotaged by the part of him that wanted to see the judge back to normal.

Hardcastle had paused in mid-bite, frowned in puzzlement, then put his sandwich down carefully. He really hadn't been very hungry. "Which shelf?" he asked, mildly.

"Top one, to the right of the machine."

00000

It had been both clumsy as a confession, and effective as an injunction. Where the heck did he learn how to maneuver me like that? And yet, from the look on the kid's face, Hardcastle was almost certain he hadn't known he was going to say it a moment before.

He nodded and went on with the pretense of the meal, and they settled into silence again. After another short interval, the judge pushed his plate away. McCormick looked relieved to be able to carry things off to the kitchen. He didn't even comment on how much hadn't been eaten, not really being in a position of moral superiority there anyway.

Hardcastle got up slowly, feeling more tired than when he'd sat down. He trudged back to the laundry room and found the keys exactly where McCormick had said they would be, not anywhere he would have thought to look for them.

A short while later he was back at his desk. He had the keys off their ring and sorted out: cars, house, files, gun cabinet, desk. He saw McCormick in the hallway and waved him in.

"I need a new spare set," he pointed at the piles. He'd decided that one awkward discovery a day was all he could decently pretend to swallow. Now the other set could stay hidden indefinitely. "Can you run 'em over to the hardware store?"

McCormick nodded, starting to scoop them up.

"Wait," the judge stopped him, pointing down to the pile of smaller keys, the ones to the file cabinets. "Get two each of those. You need a set, too."

He saw the younger man swallow hard. Hardcastle knew he must have gone into the files to set up the case against Weed for murder. He wasn't sure if the kid had even bothered borrowing the spare set of keys for that. It wasn't like there were any locks around the estate that would've proven much of a barrier for McCormick. Hell, he'd already found his gun, meticulously cleaned, carefully tucked away in the safe, and he was dead certain he'd never officially given McCormick the combination to that.

"Not much point, eh?" He let him off the hook gently.

McCormick smiled wanly and shook his head.

"Okay, well, make 'em anyway. I don't want you getting too much practice."

The smile crept upwards slightly. "Judge, with those locks, it's almost an embarrassment to take out the picks."

00000

The errand had taken a little longer than expected; McCormick had tacked on a stop for groceries and an overdue stop at the drycleaners.

"I was going to call you," Mrs. Chen scolded, "almost ten days." She handed over the plastic covered item. "Wait, I show you, closed up perfect." She was whipping the layer of plastic up with one hand. McCormick held the hanger out at arm's length. "See? Stain out, too," she added with the pride of craftsmanship; blood was always tough.

McCormick beat back a wave of near revulsion as he stared at the black fabric, even though there was no trace of what had been there before. He wasn't even sure why he'd bothered to have it cleaned and repaired; he hoped to God never to see the judge put it on again.

He nodded numbly. "Very nice, Mrs. Chen, perfect. Just like new." She smiled as he paid her.

He thought about it as he drove home with the thing hanging just behind him on the truck's clothes-hook. Why the hell had he carted it off to be fixed? Maybe it'd just been part of the sense of relief, when Frank had handed the bag of clothes back to him three days after the shooting. It wasn't going to be material evidence in a murder case. He'd taken the bag home. The blood was dry, thank God. He'd taken the pieces out one at a time in the laundry room. No Hawaiian shirt, McCormick suspected that Frank had culled that out as hopeless and too graphic. Mark allowed himself a bitter chuckle; it had been both of those before the shooting.

But the robe and its matte-brown stain. The surprisingly small hole. Mrs. Chen had known the judge for years. She'd patted Mark's arm and told him everything would be all right, and he doubted she had meant the hole and the stain. "Good as new," she'd said, "you see."

He let himself in the front door, listened for a moment and heard nothing, then hung the bag out of sight in the hallway closet. He'd put it back upstairs some other time.

Not in the den, not on the patio. Probably taking a nap, which was good. He had one foot on the first step of the stairs. He hesitated, the instinct to confirm his guess came up against the certain knowledge that if he went up there, and the judge was not quite asleep, Hardcastle would feel obligated to get up and get on with things.

Back off. Give him some space. He went back out onto the patio and took a few deep breaths. There was a distant ring of laughter coming from the direction of the beach. He smiled to himself. Surf's up.

He strolled back to the low wall at the rear of the lawn and looked down to the beach below; it was the same group that had been there last week. The one guy was pretty good, not that he himself knew much about surfing. He'd been mowing the lawn then, and he'd stopped to watch them for a while. It had looked like there'd been more goofing around than surfing that time.

Kids. He'd caught himself, feeling suddenly old, though he suspected he'd never been as young as this crowd. When he was 18, he'd been sleeping on the couch in the back room of Flip Johnson's workshop in Daytona, working the pit and cadging rides. He probably hadn't looked as carefree as the guy on the board down there, even after he'd become fairly certain that Flip wasn't going to toss him out on the street.

"Hey, Mark!" He heard Frank's familiar voice and turned to see him coming around the side of the house.

"Hey, Frank." He strolled back to toward the patio. "I think he's asleep."

"Good, he behaving himself?"

"Mostly," Mark smiled. "I give him one more day before he's back in the file cabinets. You know, 'Pshaw, t'ain't nothin'.'"

"And how are you doing?"

"Me?" McCormick looked surprised. "I'm fine."

"Good, I was wondering when you were going to drop by the station and sign your statement."

"Oh, yeah, slipped my mind."

"Well, that's what I figured," Frank said dryly, taking a file out from under his arm and gesturing McCormick toward the patio table. He put it there, open to the first page, and pointed Mark to the seat.

"Got a pen?"

The pen was handed over. Mark turned to the back page and found the x'd line. "There?" he pointed.

"Yeah, but you're supposed to read it first. Make sure it's all correct."

McCormick was already signing. "I'll trust you on it, Frank." He flipped the pages down, folded it shut and passed it back along with the pen.

"Mark, I thought maybe it'd help for you to read it, now that there's a little space between you and-"

"Frank."

"Okay, well, maybe not now, but here." He took an envelope, unsealed, from his inner pocket. "It's your copy. Maybe later." He laid it down on the table.

"Maybe," McCormick replied dubiously.

Frank put his hand on the other man's shoulder. "Give yourself some time."

"I have," Mark insisted. "It's been two weeks."

"Okay, well, more time. If you carried a badge, after something like this you'd have an appointment with a psychologist. It'd be mandatory."

"Not a chance," McCormick answered with unexpected intensity. Frank started to open his mouth again. The younger man waved him off. "I said I'm okay. I'm okay. You want me to go see if he's up yet?"

"Nah." Frank shook his head. "I gotta get back to the office; gonna see him tomorrow anyway." He saw Mark's eyebrow rise fractionally. "Poker. He called yesterday afternoon and said we were on."

"Of course, right after he got home from the hospital," McCormick leaned his forehead into the palm of his hand, "business as usual. Why not? Maybe he's figuring Maggie won't call him on his bluffs for a changethe sympathy factor."

Frank chuckled. "Didn't mention the plans to you, huh?"

"He knew better. He's crazy, but he's not that crazy."

Frank glanced over his shoulder at the house. "I promise we won't keep him up too late. See ya tomorrow?"

"Yeah," McCormick replied in resignation.

00000

He woke hearing a car door slam, not the truck or the Coyote. He got up slowly, that being the least painful way, and sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, getting his bearings. 3:15. Damn. He was past the stage where he could sleep all afternoon and still expect to be able to sleep through the night.

He stood up, holding on to the end post of the bed, and saw Frank's car as it headed down the drive. Why the hell hadn't McCormick woken him?

He took the stairs slowly; down was almost as hard as up, he'd discovered. But he was pleased to make it all the way to the bottom without McCormick showing up to inspect his progress. He made his way to the patio door, and saw the kid sitting slumped in a chair, his back to the house.

The sound of the door opening brought the other man hastily upright, and by the time he turned to face the judge, his expression was nothing but bland inquiry. "You got some rest?"

Hardcastle nodded. "Frank was here?" He wasn't quite expecting the look of guilt that passed briefly over McCormick's face, and then he noticed the envelope folded over and half-hidden in the younger man's hand.

"You just missed him. He just needed . . . my signature. Some routine stuff." McCormick produced a rather calculated scowl. "He said he'd see you tomorrow."

"Oh, yeah. It's poker night." Hardcastle smiled. "You know poker's really all brain stuff," he added.

"Yeah, beer and pastrami at three in the morning. Very intellectual." McCormick shook his head. "I want to hear you explain that one to your doctor when you go back in with a relapse."

"Well," Hardcastle growled, "you don't have to worry about that because I won't be having any 'relapses'. Unless I sit around here doing nothing for the next couple of weeks, in which case they'll be hauling me off to see a shrink."

The moment it was out, the judge knew there wasn't going to be any snappy retort. Under ordinary conditions shouting back or stalking off, or both, would have come next. Apparently those weren't options anymore.

The kid's expression had gone from a glower to something closed off and inaccessible, while his grip on the envelope in his hand had tightened into a fist. But he stayed where he was and said nothing for a long moment. Hardcastle watched him with a sense of rising concern, trying to playback the conversation and figure out where it'd gone wrong, and suspecting the whole thing was not about beer and pastrami.

He tried to back off with a conciliatory gesture. "You can kick everybody out at one a.m. and we'll play for chips to keep it boring."

The kid didn't so much seem to relax, as to get control over himself. There was an even less readable expression as he replied very evenly, "I can't tell you what to do. I just wish you'd try to remember it's only been two weeks . . . You need to give it some more time."

"I have given it time. I've given it a couple of weeks. I'm okay."

"Yeah, yeah. Everything's fine." McCormick jammed his fist in his pocket. "Look, if you're bored, you can supervise me while I change the oil in the Coyote. You can tell me how great 10W-40 is and I can pretend to listen."

Hardcastle could recognize a gambit toward normality when it was tossed out. He eased back carefully from whatever precipice he had stumbled upon, without looking down to see what was at the bottom. He thought maybe he'd call Frank later.

00000

McCormick changed into something suitably grubby, jacked and blocked the Coyote, got out the pan and the creeper, and for the umpteenth time in the past two years directed a silent monologue at Flip Johnson on the subject of practical ground clearance.

Hardcastle had turned down the offer to supervise. He was probably just as tired of hearing the lecture on viscosity index and flash point as McCormick was of giving it. He'd retreated into the den to deal with some more of the backlog of mail.

Mark thought maybe the garage was the one room in any house where he felt the most at home, and doing car maintenance, especially the more mindless variety, was the surest way he knew to work through other problems. But today he pushed everything else to the back of his head and focused on the simple ritual in front of him as though he were overhauling a transmission.

00000

Frank either hadn't gotten back to the office yet, or was out on another call. They couldn't tell him which. Hardcastle put the receiver down and leaned back in his chair. The only thing Harper would have wanted McCormick to sign would have been his statement, and why hadn't that already been taken care of?

Frank had told him the bare facts about Weed Randall's death, the day he'd woken up in intensive care. The details had been left a little fuzzy, or maybe it was the effect of the morphine, hard to say. McCormick's own report had been even less detailed but somehow more graphic. He'd never seen the kid so shaken. But they had talked and that had been that.

And he'd never seen the police report, or Mark's statement, even though Frank had been over to visit him a least a half-dozen times before his discharge. He could ask Frank. He had a right. That's what he had in his hand today. In his pocket.

He got up, went to the hallway and slowly, but steadily, up the stairs. The door to McCormick's temporary room was standing open. The pants were draped over the end of the bed, and the end of the envelope stuck out over the edge of the pocket. I should know what happened, but he hesitated.

He told you what he wanted you to know. He shook his head doubtfully and stepped back into the upstairs hallway. Back off. Give him some space.

00000

McCormick found him still in the study, a pile of letters on his desk.

"Just look at this, will ya? The city council is going to have another hearing about making all the beaches public."

"They're not?" McCormick looked at him, puzzled. "I thought they already were."

"Nah, never have been. There aren't enough access roads, and no room for parking, not to mention no toilets. And the town's never offered to clean the beaches up after people get through using them."

McCormick nodded. He'd noticed a few bottles down on Seagull last week.

"Well, the Beach Association won't stand for it, that's for sure. Look, the hearing's in three weeks. Gonna have to put together another brief." The judge rubbed his hands together, looking more satisfied than irritated.

Good, there's a nice harmless project for him, a change of pace from homicidal crazies.

00000

3:00 a.m. Hardcastle checked the clock for the third time in twenty minutes. No more naps, he vowed, climbing out of bed and dragging on his robe. He moved into the hallway quietly, determined not to have McCormick asking him what he was doing up, but a sideward glance into the other room revealed a swath of whitethe sheets turned back on an empty bed.

Hardcastle listened, no sounds of movement from downstairs. He walked down the steps in fairly good form, just in case he ran into the kid coming back from the kitchen.

At the bottom of the stairs he saw the flickering light from the den; the TV was on with the sound inaudible. Mark was in the chair, staring right through the television with a totally abstracted look on his face.

"Can't sleep?" the judge asked. McCormick jerked his head up. It was too late to do anything about the papers in his right hand, resting on the arm of the chair, but he started to fold them clumsily. Hardcastle shook his head. "I think you need to put that down."

Mark's laugh was unexpected and harsh, as he shoved the sheets into the pocket of his own robe. "You know, not twelve hours ago Frank was telling me that I ought to read them. You guys should get your signals straight."

"You know that's not what I meant," Hardcastle sighed, as he sat down heavily in the other chair. "I mean you gotta stop beating yourself up about it. Stop trying to figure out what you could've done different.

"I haven't seen them," he pointed to the papers, half sticking out of Mark's pocket, "but I spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling tiles in that hospital room and trying to decide what else you could've done. Called the police and told 'em their poster boy had gone on a rampage? Dragged Frank along with you to see Fix? None of that would've worked. And I gave you the damn gun, but if I hadn't, you and Sandy would both be dead."

"I know," Mark sighed. "I guess you and I stared at two different ceilings and came to the same conclusion." McCormick reached back into his pocket and pulled the sheets out again, looking down at them.

"So," The judge looked puzzled, "if you already figured that out?"

"And if I had it to do over again, I still would have shot him. No question. There wasn't any other choice. He didn't give me any choice."

"Then-"

""So, I was just wondering, Judge," McCormick looked up at him. "How long before the next time? Because I don't want anyone to use me like that again."

00000

The judge was giving him an absolutely indecipherable look. He thinks I'm crazy, too. "Frank said I should see a shrink."

This seemed to break into whatever the judge had been thinking. "Huh? Oh, that? That's what they do in the department. Kind of like a debriefing. It doesn't mean he thought there was something wrong with you. Hell, if it didn't bother you that you had to shoot someone, then I'd be worried . . . It's just-"

"Someone to talk to?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"I've already got that, don't I?"

The judge looked startled. "Of course," he replied emphatically. "Only I didn't think you wanted to talk about it."

"I don't much, right now. But if I do, it won't be to somebody who's never had to point a gun at another person." He leaned forward and stood up wearily, feeling way older than he had a few weeks ago. The papers were still in his right hand. "Here," he handed them over, "I guess these should go in my file, huh?" He rolled his shoulders back, trying to get rid of the dull ache that had settled there. "Anyway, I'm going to bed."

00000

Without another word the kid had slouched out of the room and up the stairs. He hadn't even stopped to take note of the judge's expression when he handed over the papers. For his file? Where the hell had that come from? He heard the door in the hallway upstairs being shut.

He glanced down at the sheets; they looked like they'd come close to being crumpled up at some point tonightfour pages, single spaced, transcribed from a tape. He settled further back in the chair, and reached up to turn on the floor lamp behind him.

Frank, being the thorough sort, had made him start way back at the courthouse. He'd gone through the same process himself, only the end result had been way less than four pages since he'd been unconscious for a big chunk of what happened. McCormick's version didn't sound much like McCormick; it sounded more like a guy who was trying to put some distance between himself and something he didn't want to remember.

The part after Weed fled the courtroom really didn't have a lot of use, but Frank had let the kid talk and the distance had gradually disappeared, replaced by the immediacy of fear. The wait in the hospital, the talk with the surgeon. The damn gun. What the hell was I thinking? He's a parolee, for God's sake. Sandy storming off.

Then a break in the narrative. Hardcastle smiled. Frank had probably stopped the tape and given Mark a little sage counsel on the subject of sticking to the matter at hand. No need for details about how he'd acquired his transportation.

The trip to see Fix, very fast work, that. Hardcastle smiled again. He'd concluded a while ago that it was McCormick who'd come up with the evidence that had put Weed back in that courtroom in the first place. The smile faded. Weed never knew that, thank God. It wouldn't have taken him more than another moment to turn around and take out a second victim before he'd fled.

He'd come to the last pageall the players coming together in the parking lot of a cheap motel. McCormick's sentences had become clipped and remote again, but the bare facts were enough. Even in the moment of crisis he'd given Weed a chance to step back from what he was threatening to do. It had been suicide by policeonly McCormick wasn't a cop There seemed no question that Weed had deliberately forced Mark's hand.

And then he hadn't just gone and decently dropped in his tracks, no; he'd dredged up some tiny, shattered fragment of humanity from what was left of his fractured soul and threw it in the kid's face as he lay there dying in his arms. Hardcastle thought he was angrier at Weed for that than for the courtroom shooting.

The judge set the papers down in his lap and put his hand to his forehead. The image of Mark, kneeling in that lot over a dead man, with a gun and, yeah, a stolen car, listening to the approaching sirens, how close did I come to losing him then?

He leaned back in the chair, then reached up to turn off the light. Sitting a while longer in the near darkness, he felt an ache in the middle of his chest. It seemed something more than the result of the scars he'd formed there.

00000

It was broad daylight. Hardcastle looked over at the clock10:05. He shook his head disgustedly. One little chest shot and the habits of a lifetime go right out the window. He hauled himself out of bed. He thought maybe he'd finally gotten back to sleep sometime around dawn.

He showered and dressed, listening for signs of life elsewhere in the house and hearing nothing. He wondered if all that nocturnal second-guessing had finally caught up with McCormick as well, but a quick look across the hall revealed that the bed was not only empty, but the room had been restored to guest status. The few necessities that the kid had carted over from the gatehouse were gone again, and the bed had been stripped and remade.

Up early this morning. He wondered which it was, some sort of silent protest against donkeys playing poker, or a strategic retreat, adding some physical distance to 'I don't much want to talk about it.'

Downstairs he found the folding poker table set up in the den and the refrigerator already stocked with the usual poker-night selections. Up very early. The poker protest theory was losing ground, unless this was some kind of weird McCormickian reverse-logic thing.

And now that the kid finally appeared to be out from underfoot, he felt compelled to track him down and see what the hell was going on.

He heard a very distant sound of raucous voices and laughter coming from outside. He closed the refrigerator door and opened the one to the patio. Out past the pool, near the back end of the lawn, he saw McCormick standing with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the beach below. The voices were louder now, with an underlay of music.

Dammit. He stalked out onto the patio and across the lawn. McCormick must have heard something because he turned around and looked up, surprised. "The hearing isn't even for a couple weeks," Hardcastle pointed his finger down at the small but noisy crowd below. He headed for the path, only to be intercepted by the younger man.

"Wait up a sec, Judge." He was physically blocking the way, with a look of amused concern on his face. "They're just kids; they're just having a good time. Besides, that's a very steep path and I'm not carrying you back up after you wear yourself out lecturing them about the evils of eminent domain."

The judge looked down at the beach again, then up at the man who was looking increasingly worried. "Nah," he shook his head. "I'm not going down there. I'll just call the police. They're trespassing, ya know."

"Ju-udge," McCormick put his hands out, palms toward him, placatingly. "You don't want to do that. They're kids. They're surfing. Isn't that, like, some kind of state requirement out here? Even in Malibu the police must have something better to do than chase kids off the beach. And, anyway, if you kick 'em out of here now, who knows what horrors of juvenile delinquency you'll drive them to?" McCormick was grinning now, the first honestly happy expression the judge had seen on the younger man's face in two weeks.

Hardcastle was tempted to string the argument along, just for McCormick's sake, but the moment had passed and the grin had faded to something almost wistful. "Okay," the judge relented, "no police." It looked like the group was breaking up and heading out anyway. A shift in the wind had damped down the waves. "But next time . . ."

McCormick said nothing. He was looking back out over the beach, seeing God knows what in the patterns of the waves. The judge let another few moments pass. The last of the kids were gathering up their stuff and shouting good-byes to the ones that were already heading up the beach toward the access road.

"You ever do that?" Hardcastle asked, nodding once in the direction of the water.

"Huh?" McCormick was only halfway back from whatever it was he'd been thinking.

"Surf, did you ever surf?"

"Nah," the kid shook his head. "In New Jersey the only high rollers we had were guys named Manny and Vito."

"Florida?"

"God, no." McCormick stuffed his hands back into his pockets, his shoulders slouched forward. "I was kind of busy in Florida."

"Qualifying for your racing license?"

"Yeah, that and figuring out where my next meal was coming from . . . until Flip took me in." McCormick squinted out at the water. "Chasing waves, that's a rich kid's sport. You scratch the surface down there and you're going to find a lot of expensive orthodontia and future graduates of Pepperdine."

"No juvenile delinquents, huh?"

"Not unless it's a little shoplifting on Rodeo Drive, just for the thrill," McCormick said, with a tinge of bitterness.

Hardcastle looked puzzled. "So if they're just a bunch of rich kids how come you're sticking up for them then?"

"I'm not," McCormick protested. "But, Judge, you want me to take sides between a rich old donkey and some rich brats. What kind of a choice is that?" he added, keeping his tone light. "I'm just the charity kid here." He smiled as he turned to face the older man. "Anyway, if you let 'em hang around down there, I'll be the one picking up the trash."

"Well, I'm not gonna, so don't worry," Hardcastle said defiantly. Then, after a moment, "I think I am gonna take a walk down there."

"Aw, Judge," the younger man put his hand out, "now come on. That's a seven percent grade, very narrow, lots of loose gravel."

"I'm walkin', not taking the 'Vette." He was already at the top of the path, with a determined look in his eye.

McCormick sighed and turned to follow him. "Okay, okay. You were there when that doctor was telling you what not to do, right?"

"Oh, you know how it is with doctors," Hardcastle spoke over his shoulder, "ask 'em how long before you should try to tie your shoelaces and they'd say 'six weeks'. You don't have to come along, you know."

"Yeah, yeah," McCormick replied, staying just a step behind.

00000

All in all, he'd been surprised. The walk down had been slow but steady. At the bottom the judge had just moseyed around. The kids hadn't been too messy this time, no garbage to speak of, thank God.

The trip back up had been slower still, with McCormick keeping up a running monologue about nothing in particular, to spare the judge attempts at conversation. Half-way up Mark had developed a stone in his shoe, one of the mysterious variety that required several stops to dislodge. In the end not only was the judge not very out of breath, he was waiting impatiently. McCormick hoped it wouldn't go to his head.

The whole thing with the beach and the surfers had been disconcerting. Sure the judge was a stickler for the letter of the law, and cultivated a reputation for being tight with a dollar, but all that was a thin veneer of curmudgeonliness on a guy who was about as openhandedly generous as a person could be. McCormick had seen it over and over, mostly when Hardcastle thought nobody was looking.

He followed the judge into the house, deciding that this was probably not the best time to delve into that mystery, but filing it for future reference. At any rate, it had been a distraction, and for that Mark was grateful. There hadn't been any chance for pointed questions about the previous night. Hardcastle hadn't even asked about the move back to the guest house. Maybe he hadn't even noticed.

And it wasn't exactly like he himself knew why he'd done it. He'd gotten up just after dawn, after he'd heard the judge come back upstairs, and quietly gotten his stuff together. It was probably a combination of two uneventful days, and a decision that if he had to be awake at three in the morning, he'd rather have it be in the comfort and privacy of his own place.

Your own place? When did you start thinking of it that way? Hell, eighteen months was as long as he'd lived in one location, outside of San Quentin, since he'd been ten years old. No wonder he was slipping into the illusion of permanency. That's a dangerous thing. It could end in a yearor in an instant. More likely the latter.

He was so lost in thought that he didn't hear the judge at first, until he became aware of a silence and Hardcastle looking at him like he expected an answer. "Ah?"

"I said, where'd you put the beer? For tonight?" The judge was standing by the fridge.

"No beer," Mark replied, "coffee, decaf. What did your doctor say about alcohol and your medicine? I think the phrase was 'It'll chew your stomach up.'" Then he looked more dubious. "You are taking the medicine, aren't you?" He walked over to the counter where the pill bottle sat, shook it once, glanced at the label, and then opened it and looked inside. "One pill? One in two days?"

"'Take as needed.' That's what it says. Didn't need it. You saw me out there. I was waiting for you, hotshot. Anyway, this is poker, not some tea social. Gotta have peanuts, chips, ham, pastrami, and beer. I think there's a case in the basement." The judge rubbed his hands together. "You want me to get it, or you?"

McCormick shook his head in resignation and went for the beer.

00000

Frank arrived first. Mark met him at the door and stowed his jacket in the front closet. Hardcastle was bustling around, more bustling that was technically necessary but the overall effect was what he was after and the result was a hearty greeting and a comment that he looked good. The judge cocked an eyebrow at Mark as if to say, 'See?' and Mark passed the look along to Frank.

It was another half hour before all the players were assembled and more time still before everyone had congratulated the judge on his amazing recovery. McCormick was in and out of the kitchen fetching beers. It took a while for Hardcastle to notice a discrepancy in the number of chairs. He slipped into the kitchen while the others were getting settled.

"Hey, kiddo, we're short one."

"No you're not," McCormick smiled. "It's your party. I'm outta here."

"You got a date?"

"Yeah, with my pillow. I'm beat." There was a ring of honesty to that, backed up by the shadows under the younger man's eyes. "Consider this an act of trust. You said one a.m.; I'm holding you to it." He paused for a moment. "And don't try to put that table away."Then he grabbed himself a beer and slipped out the back door without waiting for any protests from the judge.

Hardcastle went back into the den and took the last seat. Maggie was already shuffling. Polite inquiries were made about Mark and the judge made some random excuses which were accepted without comment. The kid had been known to skip poker games in favor of his own social life. Only Frank looked a little thoughtful.

They played steadily, with the usual breaks for making sandwiches and refilling the chip bowls. It was almost indistinguishable from a hundred other poker nights they'd spent together, except maybe a tad more circumscribed, a shade less raucous, very moderate beer consumption; no one would need to call a taxi.

The oddest thing began to happen around 12:30. As if by some signal, there was an outbreak of yawning and general comments about weariness, days which had begun too early, and plans which would prevent sleeping in the next day. By one o'clock they were all out the door except for Frank, who'd lingered back a little and was standing with Milt in the front hall.

"Coat's in the closet," Frank said.

The judge opened the closet door and rooted through the things hanging there until he found it. He paused for a moment, having noticed something else, then he shut the door abruptly and turned back to Frank with the coat in his hand.

"You okay? We didn't keep you up too late?" Frank asked.

"Hell, no," Milt replied with slightly forced joviality. "I was up later than this last night. McCormick's the one who needs the shut-eye."

Frank shook his head in disbelief. "Mark's right; you're crazy."

"I'm okay, really . . . but Frank," the judge's face seemed to cloud over for a moment, "how do you think he's doing?" He jerked his head in the direction of the gatehouse.

Frank stood there for a moment, shrugging into his coat. "Better than most. He's Mark; he deals." Then he frowned, "I think maybe both you guys should cut yourselves a little slack in the normality department. This isn't some kind of contest you know."

Hardcastle gave him an indignant look. "I'm not pretending. I am okay."

Frank's eyebrow shot up. After a second he said, "See, Milt, there's one mistake. You should always aim for a least a plausible lie."

"Well, of course I'm not one-hundred percent yet. It hurts some; I'm a little tired. But-"

"'But', hell," Frank said impatiently, "two and a half weeks ago they told me your chances were nil; they told Mark the same thing. Nobody comes back that fast, but you gotta go and pretend like there isn't a thing wrong, and if nothing happened to you, then how the hell does he have any right to feel lousy?"

The judge stood there for a moment, startled into silence. Frank patted him on the shoulder. "I think the both of you are gonna be okay. I just think it might be easier if you both acted like something actually happened."

The judge started to reply and then stopped. He finally just nodded as he opened the front door. The two men stepped out onto the porch. The gatehouse was visible from where they stood; the lights were still on. Frank looked at Milt and said, "Shut-eye, huh?" Then he walked down the steps and got into his car.

Hardcastle watched him drive off, then gave the gatehouse one more quick but troubled glance before retreating back into the front hallway. He reopened the closet door and pushed a gap between some coats and the item he'd noticed a few minutes ago. He took it off the rack, read the date on the receipt stapled near the top, and pulled up the layer of plastic. He had it cleaned?

He hadn't honestly given it any thought. If he had, he would have supposed it had been disposed of in the emergency room, tossed aside in the flurry of activity along with the rest of his things. There was a lot of blood; he remembered that much. They gave it all to him to deal with? He felt through the rest of the things toward the back. No shirt, thank God.

He heard something clinking in a lumpy pocket as he felt around. His hand dove in and retrieved a familiar set of keys from a coat he hadn't worn since last year. Damn useful things, closets. He dropped the keys right back where he'd found them. He shut the door and walked back to the den, the robe draped over one arm. He sat down heavily in the closest chair. His heart was going like a trip-hammer and he needed to catch his breath.

He hadn't heard him come in. McCormick was standing in the doorway to the den, looking down at him and what he had draped across his lap. "Oh, God, that," he heard Mark mutter as he lifted the thing and carried it out of the room. He returned a moment later and crouched down in front of the chair. "You okay?" he asked quietly.

The judge looked at the concern, etched in with fatigue, on the younger man's face. He began to answer, "Yeah, I'm . . ." he hesitated.

"'Fine?'" McCormick smiled wearily.

The judge shook his head. "No, I feel like I was hit by a truck." Mark's eyebrows went up several notches at this admission and he reached for the judge's wrist, while he put the back of his other hand against his forehead briefly.

"How many beers?"

"None. Coffee, decaf."

McCormick released his wrist, apparently satisfied, and pulled up an ottoman, sitting down and leaning forward. "Anything hurt?"

"Not more than this morning," he admitted. "I took a pill around 4 a.m."

McCormick sat back a little, letting out a breath. "Long day."

"Not as long as yours."

"Yeah, well, I'm not the one trying to come back from a near-death experience," McCormick replied, with some irritation.

"Nah, you're fine, all you had to do was tidy up," the judge said, mildly.

"Look, Judge, about the robe-"

"And the keys, and the gun." The judge smiled gently. "How'd Frank put it? You 'dealt'. Thank you. Mrs. Chen does nice work, doesn't she?"

Mark swallowed hard. "Yeah. It was a mess."

"I'll bet." The judge reached out and put his hand on the other man's arm. "I'm sorry you had to deal with all of that, especially the gun." The judge sat back again. "When you want to talk . . ."

The kid nodded, "Yeah, we will." He was looking down at his hands, clasped loosely between his knees.

"And the shirt?" The judge asked wistfully. There was a pause, and then he noted with alarm that the kid's shoulders were shaking. No, thank God, it was laughter.

"Now that was a goner," McCormick looked up, smiling.

Hardcastle sighed for effect, then brightened, "Hawaiian-print Kevlar. There's a market for that."

00000

Ten a.m. Saturday. The judge climbed out of bed relatively easily. The damn pills did help. He'd let McCormick fetch him one and a glass of water, before he'd attempted the stairs last night. Then he'd climbed the steps leaning on the younger man's arm. He still wasn't sure just who had benefited more from that gesture. At any rate, McCormick had gone no further than the room across the hall before crashing. He could still hear snoring from that direction.

00000

Noon. Saturday. McCormick woke up groggily, and took a moment to register where he was. Oh, yeah, the main house. He got up and pulled his clothes on from where he left them in an untidy heap on the floor next to the bed. Noon? He looked across the hall; the bed was empty and the covers pulled up.

He wandered downstairs, scratching his head sleepily. The den was still frowzy from the evening before, but the dishes and glasses had been picked up. He glanced over his shoulder. Bacon, it was the smell that had woken him up. A little late for breakfast. He made his way to the kitchen and found the judge dealing with a skillet, humming some annoying Dixieland tune and looking disgustingly better rested than he himself felt.

"Hey, I was just gonna wake you up," Hardcastle said cheerfully as he carried it to the table. "How are you?"

"Better," McCormick replied blearily. "What's in those pills they gave you, anyway?"

"Dunno," the judge smiled, "but they do work pretty well."

"Well, keep taking them." McCormick helped himself to eggs and bacon, feeling surprisingly hungry. The judge sat down across from him, dishing up a plate for himself.

They ate for a few moments in silence, but the comfortable sort. After a few bites, McCormick said, "I'll put that table away after, um," he looked down at his plate, and then up at the clock, "breakfast?"

"Good," Hardcastle grunted between mouthfuls. Then he added, "I've got some work to do in there later on."

"Work?" McCormick tried not to sound alarmed.

"Yeah, the Beach Association is having a meeting next week about the 'situation'," he pointed out toward the back yard with his fork. "I've got to get that brief together for them."

"Ahh . . . the Beach Association." McCormick said, with a little relief creeping into his voice. "Going forth to do battle against the forces of coastal anarchy."

"And don't tell me you aren't tickled pink 'cause you figure this is going to keep me out of trouble for a couple weeks."

"I won't lie, Kemosabe," McCormick replied. "It was either that or start looking through your files for some rogue accountant to go after."

"Bah, accountants," Hardcastle grinned back. "They're the worst. Some of 'em would just as soon shoot you as look at you."

Mark laughed. "No fooling; look at Kathy's department." Then his face turned more sober. "But seriously, Judge, just so you understand, I'm not taking the Coyote out of second gear with you in the passenger seat for at least another month."

"You'll let me deal with this beach thing, though, huh?"

"Yeah," McCormick conceded, "all we have there is a pretty high paper-cut potential."

"Good, glad you approve," the judge smiled, "and after that, we'll discuss it."