Chapter 6

The light was on in the den, but there were no extra vehicles in the drive, when he finally got back to the estate. He got the Coyote off-loaded, paid the driver and thanked him, and then stood there for a moment, pondering the meaning of the silence.

Eventually he gave up, or maybe he thought he'd figured it out but decided he didn't like the answer. He reached into the Coyote and fetched out the original pages, along with the crumpled copy he quietly recovered from where it had been knocked in the scuffle that surrounded Cartori's arrest. Their very existence made him nervous, not so much for his own role as agent provocateur, but because Westerfield's signature was on them. He was contemplating a quick fire in the gatehouse hearth.

Besides, he'd decided he was already in so deep that one more act of defiance really mattered very little. But he thought he wasn't in the mood for a confrontation tonight, not that it looked like he was going to get one. All he really wanted to do was wash his face off, destroy some evidence, and stare at the ceiling over his bed for a while. Everything else could wait until morning.

He slunk off to the gatehouse.

Even with all his well thought-out suppositions, he was half-expecting to find Hardcase sitting on the sofa, and had already measured out a very calm greeting. But finding the living room empty hardly surprised him either.

He put the papers down on the edge of the hearth, then went into the kitchen to find some matches. He almost didn't hear the very un-Hardcastle-like tap on the door. He sighed as he went to answer it, thinking if they were reduced to tapping and waiting, things were very bad indeed.

But it was Westerfield.

"Oh," Mark said, and then pasted a small and belated smile of welcome onto his look of surprise. "Oh," he said again after a very brief moment's thought and a gesture to usher the man in. "It's Sunday. You want a ride home."

The doc had stepped past him, into the room, and was giving the place a sweeping look, not unlike when he had first entered the judge's den.

"Well," Mark shut the door and followed him in, "one of the tires on the Coyote is shot and . . ." His smile became slightly more genuine. "I mean shot." He made it half-way to a grin and then that fell apart. "Maybe the truck . . . um, is he home yet?"

Westerfield was by the sofa. He glanced over his shoulder and nodded. "Yeah, 'bout an hour ago. Said everything was settled but he didn't go into the details much. The lieutenant came and got Mrs. Cartori. No handcuffs, though." The doc looked pensive for a moment. "I think I'm going to recommend another therapist to her."

Then he looked up again. "I don't need to get home right away. It can wait."

McCormick gestured him to sit and he did, almost immediately looking more focused.

"So what happened?"

He told him, and to his surprise he started the story way back at the kitchen, complete with machinations, as if telling the truth now could somehow make up for lying then. Or maybe it was that he needed advice, and advice based on lousy data wouldn't help much.

It didn't surprise him that Westerfield's pensive look was back. Told outright, in uncompromising detail, it sounded pretty bad.

"Well, I suppose that explains the grim atmosphere." Westerfield leaned back and slowly crossed his legs, as though it was a definite three-pipe problem. "Not that I recommend sulking as a method of conflict resolution."

Mark didn't ask who was doing the sulking. He suspected the answer would be, quite reasonably, 'Both of you.'

"But," the psychiatrist continued, "I think I'm the one who ought to be offended. There I was, all ready to do the hero thing, and I get yanked out and benched at the last minute."

"Hey," Mark's smile was only a little chagrined, "remember how that guy in the E.R. said your arm would snap like a matchstick if you fell on it?" he pointed to his own cheek. "The guy weighed at least 225."

"I suppose," Westerfield sulked just slightly.

"Anyway," Mark sighed, "I have a feeling you don't really need the points." He paused, thinking the next part over briefly before he started up again. "You were in 'Nam, huh?"

The doc looked slightly startled. "Milt told you about that?"

"No," McCormick shook his head quickly, somehow not surprised either that he was right in his supposition, or that Westerfield had already confided in the judge. "He didn't say anything about it. I just figured, from what Louie had said—"

"Oh, yes." The doc frowned as if in sudden recollection of the conversation in the alley. "Yeah," he nodded, "a tour. But combat psychiatry isn't combat—hot, wet, lots of bugs, but not actually combat. All I did was tell them who was in good enough shape to go back to being shot at. Pretty easy." Something in the man's eyes belied the words.

Mark nodded; he had a sort of abstract understanding of the difference between doing something yourself, and telling someone else to do it. There were days that were like that for him now, too, and sometimes he deeply missed the simplicity of the recent past.

"But you're good at it," he finally said, "at giving advice."

"I try not to do that too much, you know. It's really better if people figure things out on their own. I just sometimes hold up the map, maybe point out the obvious."

Mark slid down into the chair opposite the sofa and scrubbed his face with his hand, wincing when he brushed the raw spot. "Oh, Doc, I think I'm way beyond the 'find your own way back' point." He looked up slowly and then shook his head. "I'll be the first to admit, I've screwed up plenty, but this is different; he's never shut down on me before. He's not usually the shutting-down type."

"Why do you think it's different this time?"

"I dunno." Mark looked at him in flat-out bewilderment. "I mean, besides being kind of blatantly defiant . . . and I wouldn't even say I've never done that before."

"And pretty sneaky," Westerfield suggested thoughtfully.

McCormick sighed in reluctant agreement.

"And maybe showing a basic lack of trust."

"No," Mark brought his head up suddenly, "not that. Damn, I know I really can trust him to be totally belligerent about these things. He'd stopped listening to me on this one. And I was right, too; this was not a good set-up for a guy who'd already gotten shot once this week."

Westerfield shrugged lightly. He very pointedly raised the bad shoulder just fractionally. "Maybe not your version, but he really had nailed down all the corners on the one where I was doing it." He smiled just slightly. "I can see why it makes him a little crazy when you pull stuff like this."

"'Crazy'?" Mark repeated the word with a hint of suspicion.

"Yeah," the doc's smile broadened just slightly. "In the common usage—stomp-off-and-tear-your-hair-out crazy. You scared him tonight and he's not someone who's comfortable with the idea that he can be afraid."

"But," Mark protested, "he's sent me into stuff at least as dangerous as this."

Westerfield's gaze was level.

"Well," McCormick admitted after having been subjected to a long, steady look, "maybe not usually this spontaneous, but plenty dangerous."

"You hate it when he works without a spotter," Westerfield pointed out.

"Yeah." It was spoken sullenly. Mark could see where this was going and it annoyed the heck out of him. "Yeah," he said again, as if he might get the damn insight over with a little faster that way.

"Okay, well, in his case it's probably a lot worse."

"Huh?"

"You feel concern from a sense of friendship and affection. He's a mentor, someone you're deeply attached to." Westerfield held one palm out flat, as though offering the obvious. McCormick recognized it as half of a familiar gesture.

He nodded. "I worry about him and I guess he worries about me. The same reasons, but maybe he wouldn't admit it so easy."

"Yes," the doc said, "not just the same reasons, though."

Mark looked at him, puzzled.

"There's all of that, to be sure, but on his side there's something else. A sense of . . . I'm not sure if guilt is the right word—"

"Well, I'm pretty sure it's not," Mark interrupted dryly.

"Okay," the other man conceded, "maybe we'll call it a sense of responsibility."

"I'm not his son."

"That's another matter entirely." Westerfield paused and sat back a little, as though he was trying to find the right words. "'With great power comes great responsibility,'" he said, half to himself.

"Oh no, now you're quoting Spiderman." Mark grinned. "I'm Tonto, remember?"

The older man looked at him speculatively. "Yes," he said, "and he made you that. And before that . . . well, he knows he made you that, too."

Mark shook his head firmly. "Uh-uh. Not really. Listen, it took me years to figure it out. That was the system. A jury of my peers—which means I must be an idiot," he added in quick aside and managed another grin, only slightly less than convincing. "He was just part of the system . . . and eventually he fixed what he could."

"'Part of the system'? If only it were that easy." Westerfield took a slow breath in and added, "He takes his responsibilities seriously—all those files."

"It's not out of guilt," Mark said flatly.

"But it is a responsibility, trust me. Lots of responsibility, but not much power."

He paused again for a moment, as if to let that sink in, and then continued on, a little slower but with absolute certainty. "If you did something rash, something he had no immediate control over, and if something went wrong, he'd still feel responsible. You've steered your ship by his star for a while now—"

"My choice."

"Not at the start, and the start is what determined the rest."

McCormick sat silently, brows knitted, but came up with no further rebuttal. He finally leaned forward a bit, propping his chin on the heel of his hand.

"So, what did you say to him about the sulking and the conflict resolution and all?"

Westerfield was smiling again. "Oh, pretty much the same drill. Oh, and I told him I was taking you both out for breakfast tomorrow morning. Kind of a thank you. I figured I owed you that much, at least, for fixing all of this."

"It wasn't your fault."

"Maybe not my fault, but," he gestured one-handed toward his shoulder, "definitely my problem."

"Anyway, I think I owed you one," Mark returned the smile. "Probably more than one."

"Well, I hope you don't have any more opportunities to even the score," Westerfield said soberly.

"Yeah . . . we'll try to stick to routine legal stuff from now on. I do a mean 'deed of trust'."

"I'll keep that in mind."

They sat there for a moment, Mark still leaning in a bit, wanting to ask one more question, but not sure he wanted to hear the answer. The psychiatrist was eyeing him.

"By the way, he said 'yes'."

"Huh?"

"To breakfast. Right after he told me it wasn't my fault."

"Ah . . ." Mark straightened up. "Breakfast, yeah, that'd be good." There was a hint of a smile on his face.

00000

He watched the man return from his self-appointed house call, listing a little toward his bad side and looking too tired for there to be any clear indication what the results of the mission had been.

The front door was unlocked, and slightly ajar. As he heard it open his swiveled his chair around to face the desk and looked intently down at some papers there. He did look up at the almost inaudible steps in the hallway.

Westerfield entered without a greeting, leaning a little on the handrail as he descended the two steps. He lowered himself into the nearest chair.

"You okay?" Hardcastle asked, studying him with some concern.

"Oh, yeah . . . just tired. Don't know why. Didn't do much today."

The judge stared at him for a moment and then shook his head. "Not much, huh?" The he cast a quick glance over his shoulder, out the window in the direction of the gatehouse. "And how's he?"

"Not as sore as he's going to be in the morning," the doc assured him.

The harrumph was halfway between 'good' and 'serves him right'. Westerfield shook his head and the judge managed to look just slightly rueful.

"Anyway, he said breakfast sounds like a good idea."

This time Hardcastle delivered a nod with an air of neutrality.

The psychiatrist accepted the apparent compromise. "Just don't expect him to be too contrite," he said. "At least he seems to understand why you're upset. That's a start. And I think he's genuinely sorry about that."

"'Upset', huh? Try ready to wring his neck for a fool stunt like that." The judge frowned. "I had to walk away from him tonight or I might've said something that . . ."

"What?" Westerfield prompted.

"Ah," Hardcastle cleared his throat rustily, still looking down at the desk in front of him. The rest came out as a mutter. "Maybe something I mighta wished I hadn'ta said later on."

"Like how scared you were?"

The judge looked up sharply.

"Don't worry," the doc smiled, "you don't have to tell him. He gets that part."

"He does, huh?" Hardcastle sat up a little stiffer. "Then why the hell does he run off and do these things, really crazy things?" the judge asked in exasperation. "We talked about this once . . ." he hesitated and then settled for the vague, "a long time ago. He promised me if he got a notion to do something stupid, he'd come and talk to me first."

"Well, might be," Westerfield's smile had gone a little thin, "but maybe you didn't promise to listen."

Hardcastle leaned back in his chair, mouth opening, and then closing, on no particularly apt response.

"Okay," Westerfield said, as he got to his feet slowly, "breakfast. I told Mark eight, that all right with you?"

Hardcastle nodded.

"Good. I thought we could all use the sleep." He straightened up. "I know I could." Then he turned and mounted the two steps, launching a half-wave as he departed.

00000

By morning the scrape had been joined by some impressive bruises on his jaw and and a tendency to move slowly and stiffly. That might have accounted for McCormick's look of remorse, but Hardcastle shook his head, bit his tongue and limited his comments to an offer to drive.

And it was accepted, with a fair amount of grace and just a hint of self-deprecation. After that there was a period of necessary discussion: the best breakfast place, and then the best route to take. There was company present; it stayed civil. This got them there, and from then on things went relatively smoothly, assisted by strawberries and whipped cream on the waffles, a few cups of decent coffee, and bacon, extra crispy.

McCormick chewed gently. Westerfield favored him with a glance, slightly knowing, and said, "Don't worry, it gets better after the first day."

The younger man took no apparent offense at the remark, or Hardcastle's snort, and from then on things drifted, slowly and almost imperceptibly, back to normal.

Then somewhere about half-way through the second pot of coffee the judge seemed to segue a bit.

"Louie, he didn't have any next-of-kin?"

"No." Westerfield didn't have to think about that one very long. "No one on any of his records. He said he was raised by his grandmother, but she apparently had died before he went into the Army."

"Indigent? Did he get disability payments?"

"He would have been eligible. I honestly don't think he ever bothered to collect them. He did have a couple of stays in the V.A. hospital. He didn't like it too much."

Hardcastle nodded at all of this. "Give me a couple of days. I'll work on it. It'll be that long before the coroner will release him anyway. You know, they take their time when they know there's no family clamoring for the remains."

Westerfield said nothing, but nodded once.

After that they sipped their coffee in relative silence—more solemn than tense, though. In the end the doc was dropped off at his office, assuring them he could get home by cab. Then the other two proceeded to Pico Street, where Joyce, the secretary, looked only slightly aghast at Mark's face, and accepted the brief description of how it had happened with the sort of aplomb that could only be acquired with frequent practice.

McCormick smiled reassuringly, then stepped back to his own office, feeling like he'd been away for a few weeks at least, and finding, contrary to all expectations, that the dreaded piece of paperwork was still precisely where he had left it on Friday afternoon.

He sighed. He sat. He picked up his pen. And then, after pondering for a few minutes more, he began to chew on it . . . very gently.