Contingency Plan

by L.M.Lewis

Tonto 2.0 has some glitches.

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

Author's Note: In my version of the time-space continuum, there is the second season episode 'Ties', followed by the story Careless, then the episode 'You Would Cry, Too, if It Happened to You', in which bad guys steal everything that isn't nailed down from the estate, including the judge's files. This story follows on after that.

This was originally published in Star for Brian 'zine #3. Thanks again to everyone who supported that effort.

Thank also to Cheri and Owl--betas, and fellow conspirators.

Contingency Plans

By L. M. Lewis

McCormick had gotten home first from his errand, and it was second nature, after more than a year at Gulls Way, for him to hit the button on the answering machine in the den. Two blinks, two messages, but he was only a short way into the first—just long enough to realize where it was from—before he abruptly hit 'stop'.

It was someone from the parole office, Jake Withers—a name Mark didn't recognize—asking Hardcastle to contact him as soon as possible. He supposed it might be mere routine, some piece of paperwork that needed signing, an 'i' that hadn't gotten dotted, though he would have said, from his brief listen, that there was some urgency to the request.

He left the machine flashing its double time. He pretended that it looked no more sinister than it had when he'd first walked in. He turned away from it resolutely and went to finish his original task.

Which, of course, was a reminder that he was still on somewhat thin ice, since he'd let a couple of friends--fellow parolees, no less--hold an impromptu party on the estate while Hardcastle had been out of town. It would have been bad enough if the judge had merely come home and found a few beer cans on the lawn and some tire marks in the flower beds. Mark actually thought the guy had taken it pretty well, considering the entire place had been cleared out: unwanted guests, antique furniture, books, mementos, and, most important, all the judge's files.

Vanished, stolen—lock, stock, and cross-referenced file cabinets.

At the first sight of it, Hardcastle had been speechless. After that the pursuit of the thieves had mostly distracted them both, and the eventual recovery of nearly everything had left McCormick almost giddy with relief. And he thought, since almost a week had gone by and the judge hadn't actually told him his parole was being revoked, that he'd skated through again.

But, yeah, the ice was very thin. Today was proof enough—the replacement file cabinets were out in the back of the truck, waiting to be unloaded. They were evidence that the recovery had not been complete, though most of the lost cabinets' contents had been salvaged off Jack Fish's computer.

And even if Hardcastle was reconciled to the whole misadventure, that didn't mean that someone down at the parole office hadn't gotten wind of the thing and decided to make an example of him. He'd never really puzzled out where Hardcastle's authority ended and theirs began. He thought maybe no one had, but he didn't want this to become the test case.

He went back out to the front porch and looked around, taking a deep breath and listening carefully for any sounds of the judge's return. There were none, and that was good. He had his instructions. Everything was to be moved into the basement--Hardcastle's new notion of increased security. With luck he might get the three cabinets unloaded and hefted downstairs, even start the filing, all that much less of a reminder for when the judge finally got back.

Of course there'd still be the matter of the call from the parole board.

McCormick frowned and hastily lowered the tailgate of the truck, clambering up and moving the first of the cabinets back onto the gate itself. He made unusually quick work of it; drawers out for ease of handling, six trips, no unsightly whacks against the paintwork in the hallway, everything downstairs, reassembled.

There was still no sign of Hardcase.

Good, he thought, though getting some of the filing done would hardly count as extra credit under the circumstances. He fetched the file-loaded boxes down from the den.

Some of the preliminary sorting had already been done. Almost all the file folders had titles, written in Hardcastle's hand. In one box, though, was a blank one tucked along the side. It looked, at first glance, thin enough to be empty. He grabbed it, planning on putting it back with the unused supplies, only to have a single sheet of lined paper slip out as he pulled the file free.

He snatched at it as it fluttered to the floor and glanced at the few words written on the one side. Names, the first several unfamiliar, with check marks preceding them and numbers, maybe dates, following them. Then there was one he knew too well—J.J. Beale, former very temporary resident of Gulls Way. He'd lasted only one day about six months before Mark's own arrival, and was now back behind bars. There was a check mark in front of it, but a line through the name as well, very decisive.

Quite naturally, his own name was on the next line, also checked off neatly. It was a strange sensation to see it there, in ink on paper, to remind himself that there had been nothing spontaneous about Hardcastle's offer, except maybe for the urgency lent to it by the circumstances. You only forced his hand; he would have gotten round to it as soon as his retirement papers were final.

He sat down in the nearest chair, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment, to accompany the clenching feeling in his chest, at the memory of what had to have been the most bizarre three days of his life. Even held in a judicial hammerlock, he'd still said no, until he realized that cooperating was the only way he'd get a chance to prove Cody had murdered Flip Johnson.

If Flip hadn't died, or if he had, but you hadn't gone after the Coyote and been caught, you would have told Hardcastle to go pound sand.

He opened his eyes and looked down at the list. There was one name after his own, again unfamiliar—Terrence Harney. No check mark preceded it. Only one set of numbers after the name, 1-12-1984, which, if it followed the pattern of the line above, had been Harney's release date.

He's out there, available. He still has two years of parole left.

This was weirder even than seeing his own name, this notion that he was in no way unique, neither first nor last on the list, just . . . convenient. He shook his head, closed the file and stuck it back into the box where it had come from. But then he couldn't resist the urge to riffle through the 'H's'. No file for Harney. He sat back in the chair again. Of course not. It wouldn't be here. His own file was up in the den, in the lower right-hand drawer of the desk, he was nearly certain. No doubt Harney's was there as well.

There was a momentary itch in a dangerous place. He suppressed it with another quick shake of his head. It was none of his business. There was no reason to know anything about the guy.

He supposed he might ask Frank, just casually, in passing, as if inquiring about an old acquaintance.

No, absolutely not. It'd get back to Hardcastle eventually. Why even bring it up? It's probably been a year since he even looked at this.

But, no, that couldn't be. This was handwritten, not something printed off of Fish's computer. That meant the judge had found it recently, maybe in the bottom of a drawer somewhere, and added it to these other restored files instead of just discarding it. Mark frowned, but got no further in that chain of reasoning before he heard the sound of the front door opening upstairs.

"Hey," the familiar voice carried down the stairs, "where you at?"

"Here," he shouted back, hastily pushing that particular box to the side and busying himself with another. He heard a heavy tread on the steps and then Hardcastle's voice nearer at hand.

"Whatcha—" he was in the doorway, stopping in mid sentence with a mild scowl.

"I thought I'd get things sorted out some," Mark gestured.

"Shoulda asked," Hardcastle grumbled.

Mark let his hands drift to a palms-up, hands-off position and took the stance of a mildly miffed, 'I-was-only-trying-to-help' guy. Every bit of guilty knowledge was completely suppressed.

The judge looked briefly suspicious, but then seemed to buy it, with a passing guilty look of his own. "Yeah, well," he muttered, "I've got a system."

"All yours, then," Mark said, a little too quickly to be completely nonchalant. "I can start supper."

He'd gotten past him and halfway up the stairs before he even remembered the blinking light on the answering machine. How many times was he supposed to be able to walk by that without having noticed? Anyway, it was a few minutes after five; chances were the caller would be on his way out of the office by now.

He shouted over his shoulder. "There were some calls."

"Who?" he heard the judge, slightly muffled, as though he were bent over the boxes, turned away from the door.

"Dunno," Mark said, after only the briefest hitch. "The light's blinking." There, that was technically true. He hadn't denied checking and he hadn't recognized the name of the caller. It worried him, though, all these half-truths compressed into such a short period. The need for them. It was a bad sign, he thought.

Only a grunt from down below and that meant Hardcastle would definitely not be reaching anyone from the parole board tonight. Mark continued up the stairs and then into the kitchen, willing to put off whatever trouble there might be for another day.

00000

Pork chops a la McCormick didn't take all that long to make, especially when Hardcastle stayed out of the way. He had it on the table, and was heading for the stairwell to summon the judge up, when he heard his voice from the study. It was just audible, the words not clear. He was obviously taking to someone on the phone.

Mark headed in that direction, not consciously intending to overhear, but something in the tone stopped him before he got to the doorway. From near at hand in the hall he could now hear every word clearly—spoken heavily.

"Yeah, Jake, I thought you mighta heard. Things were going okay for a while, but the last month, well, not so good."

Mark resisted the urge to stomp in there and protest, partly because it was true, and, even if it wasn't, he'd always known the parole board had the last word on these things. All the rules went one-way only.

Whatever Jake had said in return, it got a grunt from the judge, followed by, "Uh-huh, better to haul him in now than wait until he really fouls it up. I agree."

McCormick turned halfway, leaning against the wall, trying to take deep enough breaths. He only vaguely registered that the judge was saying good-bye and, then, that the conversation had stopped. He made no effort to retrace his steps. He was only a few feet from the door and he made it there, and into the room, before he had even thought through what he would say.

So it came out as, "The pork chops are ready." He was at the bottom of the two steps that lead down into the room, but still had the handrail in a tight clutch.

Hardcastle had been staring at the phone with a rather thoughtful expression. He lifted his eyes and almost immediately frowned, the look followed closely by a harshly interrogatory, "What the hell's wrong?" and then, not quite so harsh but loud enough to break through the rather annoying buzz, "Dammit, siddown, McCormick."

And then he was sitting, without quite being sure how he'd gotten there. It was on the bottom step with his forehead resting on his knees and someone's—Hardcastle's—hand on the back of his neck.

". . . like you saw a ghost."

The buzzing was nearly gone now, and he tried to lift his head.

"Hold on a sec." The hand still put up a little resistance, then finally backed off to his shoulder, letting him straighten up but not stand. "You okay?"

McCormick looked sideward and up. He said, "Yeah," which, except in the most literal sense, was a lie.

The judge let go, the pulled a chair over and sat down in it, leaving him on the step. Mark started to rise, got a sharp look and a shake of the head from Hardcastle and subsided back down.

"The pork chops," Mark muttered.

"Yeah, I heard," the judge replied. "They'll wait." He was looking over toward the phone.

McCormick stole another quick glance up and said nothing, but it was obvious that the other man was assembling the chain of events. It wasn't ten seconds before the judge blurted out, with a jerk of his chin in the direction of the desk, "That was it, huh? The call."

This time Mark avoided eye contact. He just shrugged and gave an almost imperceptible nod. The judge's immediate "Hah!" took him completely by surprise.

"Thought it was about you, huh? Guilty conscience, that's what I'd say," Hardcastle continued. What was left of his concern now drifted into a smile.

McCormick was looking up now, more confused than relieved. He finally stuttered out the obvious. "It wasn't?" He frowned and looked back down at the floor between them for a moment, then cocked his head back up. "Who the hell was it about, then?"

The smile lost some of its amusement and McCormick thought for one brief moment that he was going to be told, 'None of your business,' but it actually came out as a half-muttered, "Just a guy I was interested in from a couple years back. Don't think you'd know him. Wasn't ever in Quentin."

"Try me," Mark said with an odd sense of precognition, not that he figured he would know the guy, just that he thought he might have a passing familiarity with the name.

"Harney." Hardcastle frowned. "Terry Harney."

It was good that he'd had the inkling; he kept all look of surprise off his face, merely nodding as if it he was thinking about it and then finally saying, "Nope, don't think I ever met him. What happened? He got off on a technicality?"

"Nah," the judge said, "he did his time. Been out for 'bout nine months now. Bank robbery."

Mark couldn't help it; a little surprise crept out via some eyebrow elevation. He didn't know if Hardcastle had noticed; he seemed to be mulling something else over. But a bank-robbing Tonto would seem to have limited applications. Maybe the guy had a lot of experience in landscaping.

All this came out as a very non-specific sounding, "Oh?"

"Well, he was the driver," Hardcastle hastily amended, "which counts even if you don't get out of the car while the bank's being robbed. He did a whole song and dance about not knowing what the other guy—his cousin—was planning to do."

Mark gave him a hard look and finally said, "So, he got in on a technicality."

"Not really, hotshot," the judge shook his head. "He made the mistake of taking the stand in his own defense. The assistant D.A. got him to admit he saw the money when his cousin got back in the car, and he hit the gas anyway. They were caught about three blocks away."

Mark gave that a moment's thought and then said, "Reflexes . . . and three blocks, huh? Doesn't sound like he was trying very hard."

"Yeah," Hardcastle admitted, "sounded that way to me, too. Not much of a record before that, either. Couple of petty theft beefs. He got a minimum sentence in a medium security facility."

"I'm sure he appreciated that," Mark said dryly.

"Listen, he admitted his cousin didn't hold a gun on him. He may not have had a whole lot of time to think about it beforehand, but when the hammer came down, he was willing to be a getaway driver."

"To protect his cousin."

"Well, that's what he said."

"Okay, so what's going on, now?"

"Aw, just some little stuff. Jake's been keeping him on a pretty short leash. You never met Jake, huh?"

Mark shook his head.

"Yeah, well, he's tough, but fair, and he says Harney's been hanging with the wrong crowd, spending some money he shouldn't have from the dishwashing job. Stuff like that. Nothing he can take him down for, and he's really not looking to do that, if he can help it. Like I said, Jake's fair."

Mark thought he knew the answer to the next part, but he asked it anyway. "So, what are you gonna do?"

If he'd blinked he might have missed it, but he would swear the judge had fidgeted slightly on hearing that question. Almost immediately, though, the answer came out, very matter-of-fact.

"Though I'd look him up, have a little talk with him."

"Read him the riot act, you mean?"

"Reason with him," the judge said mildly. "He seemed like a smart-enough kid."

"It doesn't work with everybody," Mark pointed out, "even if they are smart. Especially hearing it from the judge who sent you up."

Hardcastle frowned as if he wasn't willing to concede that point, but there might have been something else bothering him as well. Mark waited patiently for the other shoe to drop. Failing to hear it, and knowing the pork chops were getting colder by the second, he finally let the judge off the hook.

"And even if he does listen while you're talking, soon as he's back with the guys, they're all he's going to hear. That's how it is, you know?" Mark half-nodded to himself, and then speculated almost idly, "Unless you could get him away from all that for a while, until he got himself sorted out."

The judge was smiling again. He looked as though he'd just heard the catechism recited properly by one of the dimmer Sunday school pupils—and will wonders never cease. Mark felt a bit of a fraud, but it wasn't like telling the donkey otherwise would ever convince him. They'd just have to go and hunt this guy up and see how receptive he was to reform.

"That's about what I was thinking, you know?" Hardcastle said effusively. "Maybe we could have him stay here for a while, get him back on the straight and narrow before it's too late."

McCormick couldn't help it, the 'we' had been a pleasant surprise; he'd been fairly certain that if he hadn't gone ahead and made the suggestion, he would have been hearing it as something more than that very shortly. After all, the judge didn't need to consult him about anything.

"Okay," he finally got to his feet, "but don't blame me if it turns out he can beat us both in the pulse rate department. Now can we eat?"

00000

Jake Withers had invited Hardcastle to meet Harney at his next scheduled parole appointment, which was the following day. Mark was mildly irritated to find himself included in the deal and went, muttering and grumbling.

Withers had steel-gray eyes and a military cut that matched his delivery perfectly. And the news that he was delivering, in a clipped cadence that suggested he was accustomed to command, was that Harney was a no-show.

"It's not you, Milt. I was keeping that as a surprise." He didn't attempt a smile; obviously he wasn't pretending it was supposed to be a pleasant surprise. "Don't know if he mighta found out, though."

He eyed McCormick as though he thought he might be somehow to blame. Mark kept his expression flat and his demeanor bland. It wasn't his fight and he had no intention of being an all-purpose substitute parolee.

"Nah," Hardcastle said collegially. "It's just like you said; the boy was starting to slip. Once that happens, it's only a matter of time before they fall off the wire."

Jake pondered this and nodded, as though it were a great and eternal truth.

The judge finally cocked his head and asked, "Listen, you think maybe you could give me a day—just one—before you yank his ticket officially? That and maybe an address to start with?"

Withers rubbed the side of his nose. "Well, yeah, I suppose. Not like he hasn't already had six days to make himself scarce, but guys like that, they don't tend to stray too far from the old haunts. I can give you a known associates list, too."

"That'd be fine, Jake."

"You sure you want to take this on by yourself? The kid might not be too fond of you."

"I'm not doing it by myself," the judge said matter-of-factly, hooking a thumb in McCormick's direction. "Got the hired hand."

Mark wasn't sure if he should be pleased with the description, but since he was sleeping out in the bunkhouse and helping round-up the occasional stray, he supposed it was pretty accurate. He smiled wanly. In this case the stray might wind up sleeping in the bunkhouse as well, and he was still sorting out how he felt about that.

Hardcastle and Withers kept up a steady exchange of current events, and McCormick sat with his mouth shut, while they waited for the P.O.'s secretary to return with the essential copies. That done, the judge wasted no further time. He hammered out the plan, swift and succinct.

"He comes with me or he gets handed over to your guys; that suit you?"

Withers nodded. "'Less, of course, you've got evidence of any new felonies," the P.O. amended. "If he's gone and done that, then all bets are off."

00000

They'd taken the truck. Mark presumed that had been in case Harney had agreed then and there to Hardcastle's version of rehabilitation. Now McCormick let the judge drive, while he perused the papers they'd been given. All standard stuff—the residence was a rooming house in a neighborhood not too far from where his own apartment had been. He worked at a diner near there, and the job description was dishwasher/kitchen help. There was enough space between the lines to fill in the details.

He looked out the window, not really seeing the passing sights, and said, "You can't live on minimum wage."

"Sure you can," Hardcastle said. "Just requires imagination. Lots of ways to cook beans."

Mark shot him a quick sideward look. The man was smiling blithely. McCormick knew better than to challenge him on lack of personal experience. He knew the judge could see him an impoverished childhood and raise him an entire Depression. He probably even understood that it was different when you had family. The younger man wasn't willing to go there, but he was feeling contentious.

"Okay," he admitted, "you can survive, but you can't really live."

"Now that depends," Hardcastle said with a shrug, which at least meant he understood they weren't talking about beans anymore. "What's it say in there about family?"

"Nothing . . . well," Mark admitted, "that cousin, but he's still up in Folsom. They didn't even wind up in the same prison."

"Yeah, the cousin flashed the gun, and then hit one of the tellers with it—a lady in her fifties. She didn't move fast enough for him."

Mark winced, then sat there staring down at the papers for a while. He finally said, "Whaddaya think? Did this guy know they were going out to rob a bank or not?"

"Well," Hardcastle said after a moment of apparent thought, "I don't think they sat down and talked it over, and that's mostly because of where he parked, and a couple other things that the defense never brought up. A good lawyer probably coulda gotten him off."

"So, was he guilty or not?"

"He was found guilty," Hardcastle said insistently, "by a jury of his peers, and that's pretty much that. He never even appealed."

"So," Mark said, almost tentatively, "what makes you think you can turn him around?"

"I dunno. Gut feeling, that's all. I get 'em sometimes."

"Like with J. J. Beale?" Mark knew that was a dangerous thing to tease about, but sometimes if he got Hardcastle angry enough, he'd actually answer a question just to end the conversation.

This time he got nothing. It might be that the judge wasn't listening, or knew he was being baited and wasn't in the mood. They made the rest of the trip in silence

Since it was nearly noon, and Harney supposedly worked the day shift, their first stop was Tony's Diner. It was not a great surprise to Mark to find out that the guy had been a no-show a week earlier and had been fired. Hardcastle looked slightly disappointed, though.

"Whaddaya think, kiddo?" he said, after they'd gotten back in the truck. "Is it easier to live off minimum wage?"

"Depends on how much imagination you have," Mark said grimly.

At the next stop, the rooming house, McCormick followed instructions and covered the back, but again they tapped a dry well. They were eventually ushered into a room—nothing left but a couple of magazines, a hot plate, some unopened cans of beans, and an air of abandonment. The landlady said it was paid up until the end of the week and she hadn't seen him since the night before last.

Mark sighed. It looked to be a long afternoon of checking out seedy characters all only to hand the guy over to the authorities in the end. Presuming he wasn't living on air, he had to have broken some kind of law.

Contentious again, he said, "None of these guys on the associates list have to talk to you."

"Sure they do. Half of 'em are still on parole themselves. They talk to me or they talk to their P.O.s. And a couple of the other ones, they're just citizens." He took his eyes off the road for a moment, glanced to the side at the list Mark was holding and reached over, tapping it with a finger about midway down. "That one, see? Auggie Threet. He's got a trucking business. That's who Harney used to work for. 'Course now he can't because of the parole. It's all long-haul."

"How 'bout this one? The girlfriend. 'Yolanda Melons'." Mark made a face. "Lemme guess. She's a dancer, and that's not the name on her birth certificate."

"You'll have to ask her mom about that, but it ain't the ballet," Hardcastle admitted. "Place called 'An Ace in the Hole'. Ever been there?"

"No," Mark said, immediate and very certain. "I have you to thank for many life-broadening experiences."

"Well, Hardcastle half-shrugged, "sounds more interesting than a trucking operation."

00000

"More like 'A Hole in the Wall'." Mark said, as they stood looking up at the pink and black sign, paint peeling, half the little light bulbs burned out. The windows, even the small diamond shape ones, set at eye-level in the otherwise solid doors, were painted black on the inside. He sighed. "Want me to cover the back again?"

"Nah," Hardcastle gestured him along, "I'm bettin' those spiky high heels make it hard to run fast."

They stepped inside into what at first appeared to be pitch darkness. There was a spotlight though, over at the other side of the room. The slightly-raised dais barely qualified as a stage, and on it was a woman, doing her shtick to taped music. Their entry had nearly doubled the audience.

Hardcastle headed to the bar. Mark spent a full five seconds trying to be appreciative, then finally decided some people looked better putting their clothes on. He sidled over to where Hardcastle was now speaking to the barkeep.

"We're looking for Miss Melons."

That kind of question was bound to come out sounding cop-like, especially in a place like the Hole, so the judge did something very un-cop-like, adding a folded ten to the inquiry. It was an amount qualified to be mildly interesting, without giving the impression either that there was anything big going on, or there was more where that came from.

The man behind the bar managed to take the money, and look insulted at the same time, but, more important, he gestured with a thumb over his shoulder. "Dressing room, but you can't go back there. I'll have Randi tell her she's got company when she's done up there." Another gesture, this time the chin toward the stage, where Randi was getting down to things held on by spirit gum.

Mark scooted himself onto a bar stool just in time to get a look from the judge and a shift of his eyes toward the front exit. He stood again, frowning, then muttered, "Guess I'll get some fresh air. Try and save me a seat for the next act."

00000

He was back out into the sunlight, momentarily blinking in near-pain, then down the street and around the next corner to the alley that ran along the back of the establishment. He counted his way in to the unmarked and inauspicious rear entrance of the Hole. He took up his stance against the opposite wall, far enough from the dumpster that he could breathe. He waited.

It wasn't long. Hardly three minutes had passed—Randi apparently had gotten no standing ovation or pressing demands for an encore. He saw the door open fractionally, then enough to permit a thin man to slip through. The guy stood there for a moment. He seemed just as blind as Mark had been a few minutes earlier. Then he took two steps down the alley in the direction of the nearest street, all before he'd noticed McCormick.

His limping walk turned into a half-lope. He wasn't wearing spiky heels but there was definitely something wrong. On spotting Mark he paused in his gait, leaning back against the wall, breathing heavily. He fumbled for something in his jacket pocket and a moment later had a knife in his hand. It was nothing fancy but he held it like he meant it and he now had his back to the wall, as if he was ready to make a stand.

"Hey," Mark said. He'd closed to within a couple feet before stepping back, instinctively, with his hands held clear, palms out on either side to show he was no threat. "Lemme guess," he added, with what was supposed to be an equally non-threatening smile, "you must be Terry Harney. Listen, I'm not from the parole board."

"Stay the hell back away from me. Tell Auggie I'll get out of town; I won't be a problem, but if he sends anybody else I'll sure as hell kill 'em."

"'Auggie'?" Mark shook his head. "I'm not from him, either."

The knife was still snaking back and forth, but the look on the guy's face was confused disbelief and he was starting to slump a little. He looked up from under a raft of dark, sweaty hair and said, "Then who the hell are you from?"

As if to answer the question, the back door opened with a thump and a thud against the wall alongside it. Milton C. Hardcastle stomped out, looking cross and briefly shielding his eyes.

The man against the wall went one shade paler, if that were possible, and broke a sweat. The knife was drifting down and he blinked the drops out of his eyes, though his expression was otherwise no less determined. McCormick saw his chance and took it, reaching out and snagging his wrist. Bending it sharply against very little resistance, he heard the blade clatter on the ground.

All the fight went out of the man. What was left was just exhaustion, and a fair amount of loathing. He looked ready to spit as Hardcastle approached, but he let Mark pat him down, and then hold him upright by means of one fist gripping his jacket.

"Great," Terry muttered. "Perfect. Hardcase after me, too. I thought I'd heard you retired."

"I have," Hardcastle grinned. "It's more fun when it's a hobby."

Harney cast one longing look down the alley, then glanced down at the fist holding him in place and the guy attached to it. Then he shook his head as if to clear it.

"You don't look so hot," the judge said.

"Just roughed up some," Harney said, now more hopeless than belligerent.

"Yeah, well, you look like maybe we should stop off at the hospital, get you checked out."

The other man shook his head again, wearily. "Waste of effort. I'm gonna be dead an hour after you put me back in."

"Huh?"

The man said nothing more. Mark didn't ease up on his grip, though he was becoming increasingly convinced that if he did, Harney would go straight to the ground.

"What now, Judge?" he asked.

Hardcastle scratched his head. "He's not bleeding anywhere, is he? Breathing seems to be okay. I guess he doesn't have to go if he doesn't want to. We'll just haul him back to the house and sort things out there."

It seemed to take a moment for Harney to wade through that. He blinked once and dragged his gaze back up. "What house?"

"Mine," the judge said matter-of-factly. "Gulls Way. We're gonna have a talk about your backsliding. You coming willingly or am I calling Jake Withers and having him send a black and white?"

The look of confusion briefly slid back into fear. "No . . . no cops." He frowned. He was looking back, past Hardcastle toward the still-open door. "It's okay, Lani." The skinny woman in the doorway, wrapped in a robe and shaking slightly, didn't look convinced. "You should maybe go away for a couple of days. Go up to your sister's or something."

She said nothing. She ducked back inside.

"She won't go," Harney said.

"You think she needs protective custody?" Hardcastle asked.

"She wouldn't go for that, either." He let out a sigh. "She's got habits. Nothin' illegal, but she's gotta have a couple of shots of vodka with breakfast, you know what I mean?" He looked at Mark again. "You gonna read me my rights? Oh, yeah, I'm on parole—don't got any." There was a half-smile on his face.

"I'm not a cop."

The man frowned again, then looked back and forth between the two of them. "You ain't, huh?" He licked his lip nervously. "And you are retired, Hardcase. Really?"

"Yup, over a year now."

"I don't have to go nowhere with you, then, huh? I mean, you could call the cops but—"

Hardcastle smiled and shrugged as if to admit it was all true. Harney twitched a shoulder. Mark got the drift from both men and let loose.

"Okay . . . okay." Harney was breathing a little fast and looked as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. He didn't ask for his knife back. He turned, leaving the support of the wall behind and heading for the open end of the alley. He made it five steps before he stumbled and started to go down.

This time Mark had him under one arm, just before he would have hit the ground flat out. He jerked him back to his knees, and let him settle down on those, palms on the blacktop in front of him.

"Wanna bring the truck around? Probably be easier," he said to Hardcastle, who nodded once and took off. There was no protesting refusal from Harney. "You'll like it," Mark said firmly. "Got a nice bunkhouse and everything."

00000

The damage consisted mostly of bruises. Lots of bruises. The rest appeared to be exhaustion, pure and simple. McCormick parked him on the gatehouse sofa, and headed back to the main house, where he caught the tail end of a telephone conversation.

"Yeah," Hardcastle said, "maybe two days. I haven't gotten to the bottom of it. I'll keep you posted."

He sat back in his chair, looking thoughtful after he'd said good-bye and hung up.

"The bottom of it?" Mark said, hands in his pockets, leaning against the doorjamb. "You haven't even scratched the surface. Somebody did a number on him and he's not saying why."

"Auggie Threet?"

"Yeah, well he had something to do with it. I thought you said he was legit."

"Not all the bad guys are in the mug book."

"Tell me about it." Mark let out a breath and shook his head. "Oh, and he hates you."

"I think 'hate' might be a little strong."

"No, it's exactly right. Or maybe 'loathes', somewhere in-between those two."

"Well, you used to hate me, too."

Mark gave him a hard look. He shook his head slowly. "I dunno. I'm not sure how I can explain this to you. You have a little success and it goes right to your head. Hardcase, I am a fluke. You're just going to have to learn to live with that."

This got him a grin, but no signs of having dampened the man's enthusiasm.

"Whaddaya think? Should I go over there and have a little talk with him before he gets his second wind?"

Mark rolled his eyes. "No. Bad idea. If I've gotta be the ref here, then he's down for the ten count. You make some calls, figure out what this Threet guy is all about. I'll go work on my Good Cop routine with Harney. Maybe I'll get lucky."

He turned and headed down the hall and into the kitchen. Hardcastle's selection of cold cuts didn't have green spots on them. He made two sandwiches and pulled two beers out of the fridge. Then he departed via the back door.

00000

Harney was trying hard to appear asleep, but the lines of tension on his face were a dead giveaway. Mark nudged him with a knee as he put the plates and bottles down on the coffee table.

"Food."

The other man opened his eyes narrowly, not even pretending to have just woken up. Mark thought it might be a good sign, honesty being an important foundation to any relationship.

"I don't get this at all," Harney said.

"What? They're sandwiches."

The other man grimaced, then pulled himself halfway up, groaned, and finally finished the job, breathing hard and cradling his right ribs. He looked at the sandwiches, then at Mark. Then he said wearily, "You know what I mean." He gestured one-handed to the place around him with a final, broader sweep that might have been intended to include who was out there, across the drive in the main house. "Him," he said, as if to make it official. "This."

"Have a sandwich." Mark nudged a plate in Harney's direction.

Harney looked down at the sandwich, then up at the guy doing the nudging. "And you. Who the hell are you?"

"I work for him," Mark said vaguely.

"Yeah, well, I heard somethin' about that, too, from the same guy who told me he'd retired. You're an ex-con."

"Yeah."

"And he sent you up."

Mark hoped nothing showed on his face. He thought he'd gotten that pretty much under control the past few months—the almost involuntary grimace when people brought it to his attention, like he might not have noticed. This time he said nothing. No explanation, no justification. He didn't think he'd have any more luck with this guy than with the donkey over in the main house.

"Well," Harney said, finally reaching for the sandwich, "I dunno what he wants from me, but he ain't getting squat." He took a bite. He chewed defiantly.

"What's the deal with you and Auggie Threet?" McCormick asked, trying to change the subject.

Harney frowned and swallowed. He shook his head once. "Uh-uh. Nothing."

"The guy's trying to kill you," Mark said. "Least it looks like it. You think you want to protect him?"

"Nothing from me. You got that? You know what Hardcase did to me?" Harney didn't wait for an answer, didn't even acknowledge the brief nod McCormick had made. "My cousin said he was going in to cash a check. All I did was give him a ride to the bank, dammit. Then all hell breaks loose, there's alarms, and people shouting, and he comes barreling out and jumps back in the car screaming at me to haul out of there."

"He had a gun, and a bag. You must've realized what had happened."

"It was a damn reflex. He was my cousin."

"Did you think he would shoot you? Were you a hostage?"

"Nah," Harney shook his head. "He was my cousin." He frowned. "He got ten years. Woulda been a lot more if I'd said that."

"Were you a hostage or not?"

Harney was still frowning.

"Hell," McCormick said, "if you aren't even sure, how'd you expect the jury to figure it out? Anyway, sounds like you took your two and kept your mouth shut. You know that's the least you could have gotten. That's the bottom end for robbery."

"I had a job, and a girl," Harney said grimly. "Now I got Lani, and I'm supposed to be washing dishes."

"And you won't even have that if you don't get a clue here," Mark said, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.

Harney shot him a quick look. "Don't matter. It's all over. Hardcase'll throw me back to Withers; my ticket's yanked. That's a couple months inside and I won't even last a couple days."

Mark set the first assumptions to the side and honed in on the second part. "Why?" he asked, straight up. "And what's the thing with Auggie? Look, if you're already a dead man, what difference does it make if you tell somebody?"

Harney sat there, staring down at the sandwich. For a moment Mark thought he'd hit a dead end, that nothing more was coming. Then the man began to speak, low and bitter.

"I worked for him—for Auggie—before. I knew there was some shady stuff going over there, but that wasn't my end of it. I just drove and kept my mouth shut. Then I get out of the joint, can't do that job anymore. Can't go out of state the first year, Withers says, and I gotta be there every Wednesday to check in. So I take the damn dishwashing job; nobody else will hire me. The guy who owns the diner looks at me like I'm dirt. Won't even let me come up front. Don't want me within ten feet of the cash register. Always the looks."

He broke off, shaking his head slowly. "That's what he did to me." He lowered his head again. "Then Auggie comes round, says he heard I was out. Friendly. I tell him I wish I could drive for him. He says 'no problem, we'll work something out'. I start driving again, couple a short hauls, then some longer ones. I quit the job at the diner."

"You mean you were fired."

Harney shrugged. "I'm making three times as much working for Auggie."

Mark frowned. "Long-haul trucking pays better than that."

"Not when your ex-boss is doing you a favor, hiring you at all." Harney said, the bitterness edging back into his tone. "That's what I thought it was. Then gradually it dawned on me; he had me right where he wanted me. If anyone found out what I was doing, I'd go back in. All he'd get would be a slap on the wrist, maybe a fine.

"Then a couple days ago I get sent to pick up a load, middle of the night, told where to leave it, do as I'm told. Next day I find out it wasn't office furniture. It was some kinda hot property for somebody who kills people who mess up. The load's missing a couple of boxes off the top. Auggie brings me in, tells the customers I'm the responsible party. Then he watches them beat the crap out of me and drag me out of there."

"How'd you get away?"

"Got lucky. They threw me in a trunk. Then they had a flat. They musta thought I was in worse shape than I was," He flexed a fist and straightened it. "I got loose in there and I already had the tire iron." He paused a moment, as if he were relishing his one lucky break in the past three years.

"They'll go after Auggie," he finally said. "He'll be easier to find than me. He'll have to find me, turn me back over to them, to save his own skin."

"Unless you wind up in jail."

"Yeah, these are the kinda guys who have contacts, and all they kept talking about was how they were gonna make an example out of me."

Mark backtracked a couple steps. "Did you take the stuff from the truck?"

"Hell, no. I still don't even know what it was. Drugs, guns, who knows?"

"Bet Auggie does,' Mark said speculatively.

"That's a sure thing," Harney said bitterly. "Bet he knows where the stuff is, too."

Mark made no reply. He picked up his beer and took a swig. The other man sat there, eyes focused on something that wasn't in the room with them.

"Hardcase," he looked grim, as if it had been an effort even to bring the name up again, "he'd go after these guys?"

Mark nodded casually and took another swig.

"Auggie, too?"

"Oh, definitely Auggie," Mark said.

"What about me?"

Mark considered lying, then decided the novelty of the truth might be more productive. "You'll probably get your sixty days. I mean, you did violate your parole doing the interstate driving. But that's not exactly a priority right now, and he won't let you go back in unless he gets these other guys, first."

"That's what you think."

"That's what I know."

Harney was staring at him as though he wanted to ask a question. Mark took another swig. He thought he knew what was coming.

"How come . . .?" Then nothing.

"What?" Mark finally asked, feeling a little irritated.

"Nothing . . . just wondered why you work for him, that's all."

McCormick had answered that question at least a couple dozen times in the preceding year, invoking everything from humor, to the stone hard facts, depending on his mood and who was asking. But this felt almost like the first time; the whole thing was that raw and close to the surface after hearing Harney's story.

"I had to," Mark said. "I did something—it would have cost me another five or ten years, and I didn't have that kind of time right then. I agreed to help Hardcastle if he'd keep me out of prison so I could go after the guy who'd killed a friend of mine."

Harney seemed to accept this. He made no further comment, not even a doubtful expression. He just took a deep breath and let it out. He finally said, "I'd like to take Auggie down."

Mark heard that, along with the unspoken codicil. 'And Hardcase, too.' As long as it stayed unspoken, he supposed it could be ignored. He would keep Harney at least at arm's distance from the judge, and try to reinforce to Hardcastle that this one, at least, could bite.

000000

He went back to the main house, leaving Harney behind. The man didn't seem to mind. He still appeared worn out and somewhat bemused that he wasn't spending the night in the lock-up.

McCormick found the judge in the kitchen, working on a sandwich of his own. The older man didn't even look up as he entered.

"What ya get out of him?" he asked, as he scraped the bottom of the mayo jar with a knife that was too sharp for the job.

"What makes you think I got anything out of him?"

Hardcastle shot him a look that spoke for itself.

"Okay," Mark admitted, "we talked some. Mostly about Auggie."

"And probably some about me," Hardcastle said dryly. "So, is it 'hate' or 'loathe'?"

"Fifty-fifty. But the smart money says he definitely hates and loathes Auggie Threet even more, so he'll probably work with you for now."

"Sounds familiar."

"Strictly superficial," Mark cautioned. "And what'd you find out about Threet?"

"What makes you think I found out anything?"

The judge grinned as he got his earlier look handed right back to him.

"Okay, well, seems he had some trouble with the IRS last year. He's in deep water and his waders have holes in 'em. Looks like he might be sinking fast. A situation like that can make a guy look into alternative sources of financing, don't'cha think?"

"So, who's his new business partner?"

"A guy named James Rolofidori, who has been mentioned in connection with a Colombian drug cartel. Local distributor. Nothing proven yet, of course. Might be some of those boxes of pencil holders that Threet's trucks have been hauling are really full of white lady."

"Well, it all fits." Mark sighed, then relayed the rest of Harney's story.

Hardcastle gave it all a long, low whistle. "The boy's in trouble. Those Columbian guys don't take prisoners."

Mark nodded grimly. "And he's right, too. I mean about what's gonna happen if you throw him back inside. They have lots of affiliates. He won't last a week."

"I know that," Hardcastle grumbled. "I'm not gonna do that."

"Good." McCormick released a breath. "I thought so. I told him so. I just wanted to make sure, that's all." Then he tensed again, a moment later. "But what about Withers?"

Hardcastle gave him a glance and then waved it away as though it was a minor concern. "We've got a couple days. We'll just have to settle it, that's all, before Jake starts getting antsy."

"I dunno," Mark looked glum, "been two days since Auggie lightened Harney's load. How we gonna pin anything on him now?"

"It's not hopeless. This isn't the guy's regular line of business. He's freelancing. Right about now, old Auggie may be realizing he's got a tiger by the tail. He needed quick cash and, instead, he's got a few kilos of cocaine."

"Kinda hard, I suppose, to unload something like that without the wrong people finding out."

"Exactly. So I was thinking maybe if he heard there was an East Coast buyer in town—"

"Perfect," McCormick smiled. "I got the sunglasses and the leather jacket."

"You know kid, you don't exactly look like ready money. Me, on the other hand—"

"Would be just right if we were trying to score a couple of cases of bootleg Geritol. Come on, Judge, you don't wear a parrot shirt and sneakers to a drug deal."

Hardcastle frowned ruefully and then conceded the point. "We're gonna need Frank, though. Maybe the feds, too."

"I dunno, what about Harney? You can't let him get busted yet."

"So far it's just parole violation stuff. If Withers doesn't put out the word, the cops aren't gonna come after him."

Mark hoped he didn't look as uncertain about that as he felt. He'd already gotten some substantial concessions. "Okay, lemme go dig up my sunglasses."

00000

"You're gonna do what?" Harney asked in disbelief.

"Nail Auggie in a sting." Mark was at the top of the stairs. He turned and opened the desk drawer. Sunglasses, yes. "We catch him with the goods; the word gets back to his partners, and you should be off the hook."

He had the closet open, leafing through it for the jacket. He'd become aware of a rather pointed silence from below. It was finally interrupted by a solemnly disbelieving, "You're nuts, you know that?"

"Nah," Mark closed the closet, jacket in hand. "I'll have a wire and back-up."

"Who, him?" He pointed vaguely in the direction of the main house.

"Yeah, him." Mark was on the stairs again, rifling through the jacket pockets one-handed. He fished out a pack of cigarettes, inspected it, and put it back, then a set of lock picks, which he tossed down on the side table casually. He picked them up a moment later and carried them upstairs, opening the bottom drawer of the desk and putting them carefully toward the back.

Then he went down to the main floor again, two steps at a time, slipping the jacket on. Harney was fidgeting on the sofa.

"What?" Mark asked. "You wanna come along?"

"Hell, yeah. This is my life on the line."

"I don't know. One look at you and he'd know it's a set-up."

"I'll stay out of the way."

Mark frowned. "Okay, I suppose. 'Course you'll have to hang with Hardcase. That's not against your principles?"

He could see the other man was gritting his teeth, though whether it was at the idea, or the remark, he wasn't sure.

"I wanna come."

00000

Frank hadn't asked too many questions, which was one of Frank's better traits in Hardcastle's opinion. But now, as he eyed the two men walking up the drive from the direction of the gatehouse, he leaned over and said, "Who's he?"

"An informant," Hardcastle said lightly.

One of Frank's eyebrows went up. "Should I be running his name?"

"No, and it's Terry Harney. He's on loan from Jake Withers."

"Another parolee?" Frank frowned. "You gonna set up bunk beds down there?"

Hardcastle said nothing.

Frank was still frowning. "Whaddya send him up for?"

The judge held out for a moment, then capitulated. "Bank robbery."

Frank whistled.

"He was the driver. He said he didn't know what was going down. He might not have, but he was still accessory after the fact. Okay?"

"Okay." Harper had a hand, palm out but not much higher than his waist. "No problem. You couldn't pay me enough to be a judge. Lotta tough calls." There was a momentary pause before he asked, almost tentatively, "How'd ya blackmail this one?"

But Hardcastle had no time to react before the other two were within earshot. He converted his expression into something a little more placid. McCormick seemed almost upbeat, though some of that might have been to encourage the guy who was with him. Harney looked tense and sullen. A casual observer might have picked him for the guy who would be putting on the wire.

00000

It was evening before the wheels were in motion. A well-connected undercover operative, loosely affiliated with vice, was out there acting as a go-between, and the four of them were ensconced in an office in the warehouse district, the perfect location for an after-hours, off-the-books transaction.

They ate pizza, and Frank had a police radio at hand. They were mostly relaxed. There'd be plenty of advance warning if they got a nibble on the hook.

There hadn't been a lot of conversation, though, and what there was, Hardcastle tried to steer in the direction of casual commentary. McCormick, who was usually annoyingly talkative at the outset of these things, was nearly silent, almost as if he'd already slipped into character. Harney had nothing to say. He just sat, chewing methodically and casting occasional tense glances in his direction.

Harper held that the Padres had made a show of it against Detroit, but it had only prolonged the agony. Any team that had a pitcher who could go the distance twice in one week was not to be bet against. Hardcastle agreed mechanically, grateful for Harper's steadying patter but increasingly irritated by the lack of a response on the drug-dealing front. They'd already figured this might require the investment of a few days' time, but he had hoped—

The radio crackled to life and Harper snatched for it. He ID'd himself and took the message, carefully worded to leave casual listeners-in uninformed. He turned to the others as soon as he'd signed off.

"It's a go. They're on their way."

Harney sat up straighter. Hardcastle felt himself tighten a little, and he leaned forward. Only McCormick looked unperturbed, a slight hardening of the expression, that was all, and that might merely have been a fine-tuning of the drug-buyer persona.

"Just make sure you're far enough back," Mark said quietly. "He might take a look around to satisfy himself it's all on the up-and-up. Let's not blow it on something stupid."

If Harper took offense at having his business explained to him, he managed to cover it with a tolerant smile. The guy with the wire was always cut a little slack. Mark got a pat on the shoulder from him. The remains of the pizza, and everything else except for the hard-sided briefcase, were carted off.

The other two men were already heading for concealment. Hardcastle hung back a moment longer.

"Listen," he said, leaning in and lowering his voice, "this guy isn't a professional."

"Heck, for that matter, neither am I." Mark suddenly grinned, all pretense of East Coast Bad Guy gone in that flash of a smile.

"What I mean is, he might be nervous, kinda unpredictable, ya know?"

McCormick nodded, slightly more serious. "Look, this'll be easy. All we have to get him on is possession, even if he just brings a sample. I think the guy will go down like a house of cards once he knows we've got something on him."

"You've never even met him."

"He saw what they did to Harney."

"But scared sometimes means desperate."

"I know that, too. I'll be careful."

The judge had to settle for that; it was time to get out of the way. Mark had packed up his smile and gone back to slouching. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tapped one out, lighting it and taking a quick drag.

The judge shook his head. "Those things are bad for you."

"Yeah," Mark said, "stale, too." One more flicker of a smile and that was that. The East Coast Bad Guy owned the room and Hardcastle departed for the shadows.

00000

It had been twenty minutes by the clock, though it'd seemed much longer. McCormick had snubbed out the butt end of the first cigarette and resumed an unconcerned posture before they heard the sound of a metal door opening on un-oiled hinges.

The greeting was a terse "Hello?" to which McCormick responded with an indolent "Over here."

Into the better-lit portion of the room stepped two men. Even from the back, and well off to the side, Hardcastle recognized Harper's guy, a wild-eyed and thoroughly believable player known on both sides of the fence as 'Fast Eddie'. Hardcastle suspected that was the reason his name hadn't come up in the preliminary discussions with Harper.

But when it was time to convince the doubtful, Eddie was the go-to guy, and he was thus far un-made despite a long and creative career of setting people up. He was talking in staccato bursts, muttering about when and how much he was going to get paid, completely believable as a guy who hoped to take it out in trade. The judge suspected there was more than method to his acting.

Hardcastle couldn't make out the details of McCormick's expression, but it served to silence Eddie. There was a brief beat of further silence, during which Mark shook his head in what looked like disgust and shifted up a little in his seat.

Auggie Threet was stocky, with a short, bristly haircut. He looked like he ought to be more at home in a warehouse than either of the other two, but was still tense. He'd said nothing since the original hello. He was carrying a small satchel, which Hardcastle counted as a good sign.

"I was starting to think I'd be going home empty-handed," Mark drawled. "Can't say I think much of the way you guys do business out here."

Auggie was casting a nervous look around at the warehouse's interior. "Yours?"

"An associate's. I represent some independents from Jersey. Entrepreneurs. We're expanding our sources, doing a little comparison shopping. You know they've cranked up the heat some in Florida."

"Things are tough all over," Auggie grunted.

"So it seems," McCormick drawled. "But I hear you've got some product to sell."

"Might, if the price is right," Auggie said, obviously trying to match the other man's sang-froid. It didn't hold. Eagerness crept back into the next question, "How much you offering?"

"Fifty-thou for one kilo. I'll take it on spec. If it checks out okay, we can take nine more off your hands for pick-up this week." It was a price pitched intentionally low, for distraction value. Auggie looked suitably distracted, but was obviously on shaky ground here, working only off hearsay.

"Sixty a kilo," he said, with a nervous twitch of his hand on the satchel.

Mark gave that a considering nod, and then said the obvious. "Fifty-five."

He reached to his side and lifted the briefcase onto the table. Auggie looked wary and then half-startled at the snick of the latches. But what was visible within drew him forward.

"One kilo, on spec," Mark murmured, almost hypnotizing. He started lifting banded packages from the case. Five, and with his hand on the sixth, preparing to count off half. He lifted his gaze and said, nonchalantly, "Let's see the product."

Auggie licked his lips nervously, and set the satchel down on the table. He reached in and withdrew a smooth-edged white brick, sealed in layers of clear plastic. He put it down between them.

Mark looked up impatiently and shook his head. "When I do spec, I like to have my pick. Nobody forces a card on me."

"It's good, it's all good." There was an edge of nervous whining in Auggie's tone but he didn't back down, the magnetic draw of the money was too great.

"So, where you keeping it?"

"Outside," Auggie jerked his chin over his shoulder. "Got a truck and a driver." Fast Eddie was already drifting that way, back toward the door. Auggie saw that and frowned.

"Okay, then," Mark smiled sharkily, ignoring the interplay between the other two men, "give him a whistle, let's get him in here."

Hardcastle didn't like this part. It was admirably thorough and workmanlike, but one kilo and one guy were plenty enough for their purposes and Auggie was showing signs of strain. The judge cast a quick glance sideward at Frank, who also looked about ready to summon the backup and shut down the operation.

It was in that moment, when he'd been turned toward Harper, that things started to unravel. A noise—it was Fast Eddie slipping out the door, a perfectly reasonable action for a guy who always wanted to not be there when the heat came down.

Auggie shouted "Hey!" and looked alarmed, then jerked his face back to McCormick, who was feigning a little surprise and no understanding. The older man reached jerkily for the satchel, thrusting one hand down into it and Hardcastle could see Mark had drawn the same conclusion he had.

"A damn set-up," Auggie sputtered.

Mark leaned forward, but his relaxed pose had put him off-balance and Auggie already had the revolver half out of the bag. It was only the heft of the thing that slowed him enough for McCormick to lunge forward, over the table to get a grip on the man's wrist.

Hardcastle was closing the space fast. He distantly heard Harper behind him, the radio on and back-up being summoned. His own weapon was drawn but there was nothing to aim at. McCormick's momentum had carried them both down, onto the floor, on Auggie's side of the table, with Mark on top.

Auggie had weight, a surprising amount of muscle, and sheer terror on his side, not to mention the gun, still apparently in his grip though lost from sight. It was a short but very intense struggle, and Hardcastle was only a few feet away when he heard the muffled report and saw the look of shock on McCormick's face as he pushed back from the other man.

"Hit?" Hardcastle shouted.

"Ow," was the younger man's only response, which, though loud, seemed a bit off for a gunshot wound. McCormick was holding the revolver in his left hand, by the barrel, with his right hand clutched to his abdomen. Auggie didn't look too happy either.

"You idiot." Mark snuck a peek under his hand, then up at the other man's face. "You coulda killed us both."

Hardcastle could see it now, the scorch marks on the front of Auggie's jacket. McCormick had been down to shirt sleeves, and now that he'd lifted his hand Hardcastle could see some red through the elongated burn mark on his shirt.

Harper was there, sitting a still-shocked Threet up, and getting the cuffs on him. "How bad?"

"I'm okay," Mark said with very sincere disgust as he tried to push Hardcastle back a little. "Ow . . .really, just 'ow'."

Didn't matter what he said, though; Hardcastle was after the details. The shirt was untucked and lifted, and the shallow gouge across his lower ribs—which really was just a gouge—and the scorch marks were inspected.

He let out a breath and heard Mark say, "So, where's the bullet?"

"It's not in Auggie, either," Frank said cheerfully.

"You can breathe okay?"

"Yeah." Mark took a deep one in, as if to prove the point, and winced.

Hardcastle frowned. "Close."

"Only counts in horseshoes." Mark said, now grinning the way people do when they've been hit with too much, too fast. "But where'd it go?"

A figure detached itself from the shadows between the stacks of boxes off to the side, leaning a little.

"Found it," Harney said dryly, as he limped out into the light. He bent stiffly and uprighted a chair that had been knocked over in the scuffle. He sat down and tugged at his left pants leg, revealing a bruised entry wound midway up the lower leg at the outer side and a slightly more impressive exit wound a few inches behind that. "Well, sort of." He looked over his shoulder. "Must be back there somewhere."

Mark looked at it for a moment and then back up at the man. "You're kinda unlucky, huh?"

"Well, you told me I shouldn't come," he said ruefully.

0000

The next bit got interesting. The driver outside had been corralled. Seven more packages of powder were discovered in a box marked 'Business Calendars, leatherette, black, one gross'.

Mostly all the late arrivals on the scene were fairly distracted by the haul, and everyone was used to Fast Eddie slipping off into the night. There was that guy who was always with Hardcastle, the one with the smart mouth (Mark heard one of the guys from the Cocaine Interdiction Group say, "Oh, him? That's just . . . ah, McSomebody"), so it was no great stretch that there should be another snitch just standing around, not getting properly introduced.

Harney, who looked nervous at first, eventually made it to bored and tired, and the second time Hardcastle suggested maybe he should get that leg looked at the hospital, he nodded in agreement. Mark had his jacket back on. He'd already let a paramedic take a look and put a bandage on him and had taken a pass on his own ride in an ambulance.

"I can take him, Judge," he volunteered.

"You gonna get looked at, too?" Hardcastle said approvingly.

Mark shrugged, something which couldn't be proven later on to have either been a yes or a no. They got out of the increasingly noisy and crowded crime scene and into the night. Harney was back to being nervous, as he lowered himself gingerly, on his good leg, into the Coyote.

Mark had been expecting it long before he heard it. "I don't really want to go."

"You oughta get it looked at; might get infected."

"Nah . . ." Then that trailed off, as if Harney had been on the verge of asking for another favor, probably to be just dropped off somewhere on a street corner, maybe near a phone booth.

"I'll take you back to Gulls Way. You can clean it up there."

He got a reluctant nod and not much more conversation, just a few sideward glances on the trip back. The hour was late by the time they pulled into the drive. Mark handed him the key and pointed toward the gatehouse.

"I'll get the first aid kit and meet you there," he said, heading up to the front door of the main house with the rest of the key ring in his hand.

He took his time about it, even though he knew all too well where the necessary supplies were. Then he sauntered back to the bunkhouse. He was slightly surprised to find Harney still there, sitting on the sofa. He reassessed his assumptions as he took out the antiseptic and bandages. Harney looked pensive and took care of the rest himself.

"You might want to put that up for a while," Mark suggested, with more meaning than were in the words alone. "It's gonna hurt like bejeezus tomorrow if you keep walking around on it."

That got him another nod, but no moves toward lying down and elevating the leg. Instead, after a particularly long pause, Harney said, almost matter-of-factly, "He's gonna tell me he wants me to stay, huh?"

"Most likely."

"Is it gonna be that, or the sixty days for my parole violations?"

Mark winced at that one. It sounded pretty harsh, though he didn't think it was all that unlikely, and supposed Hardcastle wouldn't see it as a stick, more like just the necessary order of things, assuming the guy wasn't making himself available for more useful duties. He knew Harney was reading it all off his face.

"Yeah," the other man sighed. "I figured." He shook his head slowly. "I'm tired of it. All of it. My cousin, he said 'drive' and I drove. And ever since then I've had no choice. All of it taken away 'cause of one bad decision." He was staring down at the floor. He finally took another deep breath and said, "It's blackmail, you know? Just like what Auggie did to me. They've got the leverage and we don't."

Mark found himself standing silent. He didn't know of any way to explain the difference, none that Harney would understand. He didn't think he could have explained it to himself a year ago, and what he understood now didn't have words to go with it.

The man probably took his silence for agreement. He cast up a nearly sympathetic look and then got his feet under him and stood. A quick glance at his watch and then he said, very calmly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, "I think I'll go for a little walk."

And though it wasn't a very logical farewell to a guy stepping out for a stroll, Mark said, "Good luck," to the other man, just as he got to the door.

All he heard in reply was a very quiet, "Yeah, you too," and Harney closed the door behind him.

00000

It was several hours later, when he heard the familiar sound of the truck pulling into the drive. Several times during the wait, he'd considered turning the lights off, but that would have merely prolonged the inevitable. Now he waited for the expected sound at the door.

"Hey, McCormick?" Muffled, but no hesitance before the latch turned and the door opened and then, much more clearly, "You still up?"

"Yeah," he said casually, having snatched a magazine off the table next to him and opened it randomly.

The judge came in, but, oddly, didn't look around at first. He simply stepped over, planting himself fairly directly in McCormick's line of sight.

"Long night," he said, surprisingly quiet. Then a "How's the . . .?" That trailed off, completed with a gesture toward his chest.

"It's fine," Mark shrugged his shoulders experimentally and took a moderately deep breath. "I took some aspirin."

"You got it looked at? What'd they say?"

Mark was already shaking his head before the second part was out. "Nah. It's okay. We were tired, that's all. Just wanted to come home."

It was as if the 'we' had raised the other issue. Hardcastle looked around slowly at what was obviously an otherwise unoccupied space.

"He went out for a walk," Mark said flatly.

Hardcastle looked over his shoulder at the door, then back again. "When?"

"Oh . . . a while back."

He judge frowned and started to step toward the phone. Mark's "Wait—" halted him in mid-reach for the receiver.

"But he's probably—"

"I think you owe him a walk," Mark said quietly. "You can't be sure everybody will get the message about Auggie. Those cartel guys have reach."

Hardcastle grimaced. He hated being reminded of stuff like that. It had been a calculated ploy on McCormick's part. The older man grumbled almost wordlessly and sat down. He finally collected himself and said, "But he could've stayed. I would've—"

"Signed him up? Put him to work?"

"Yeah," the judge nodded, looking glad to see that McCormick got it.

"He said 'no'. He called it blackmail."

There was a surprisingly hurt look on Hardcastle's face. Mark found himself wishing he'd phrased it a bit more diplomatically, then suddenly realized why he hadn't.

"Well it is, you know." He stared the man down, very determinedly. "Not exactly blackmail, but it's getting someone to do what you want because of a threat."

The judge didn't break off the stare from his end, but his expression had taken on an element of surprise. There was a moment of hesitation before he finally said, "Is that what it is?"

"Yeah, well," Mark knew they had changed subjects just slightly, but was willing to pretend that they hadn't, just to make the next part easier, "it would be, at least at first. Sixty days back inside, that'd be the minimum. If you upped the ante, maybe the guy had a real beef hanging over his head—that kinda takes away the element of free will, don't ya think?"

The judge actually seemed to be giving this some thought, finally shaking his head, gaze lowered to the coffee table between them, fixed on that while he said, "Can't be—couldn't be—too much at stake. Wouldn't work if a person wasn't willing."

"Then it wouldn't," Mark said, easing back in his chair, putting one foot, then the other, on the coffee table, "not for him."

He wasn't sure if the old donkey had picked up on the very slight emphasis he'd put on that last word, but a half-second later Hardcastle cocked his head up, and flashed a quick smile.

"Nah," he said, "wouldn't have worked . . . but I guess I owe him a walk. I'll call Jake in the morning." He frowned again, a little cloud of duty darkening things for a moment.

Then he cast a sharp look at McCormick's new position. "Hey, feet off the furniture. Whaddaya think this is, a barn?"

"No," McCormick grinned lazily, crossing one ankle over the other, preparing to get swatted at, "a bunkhouse."