Читать книгу Civil Twilight - Susan Dunlap - Страница 5

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“I NEED A FAVOR, Darce. An easy one, this time.”

“What, and ruin your reputation?”

An instant passed before my brother let out a hoot. “Where are you?”

“At the zendo. I’m doing that car stunt downtown tonight, the one on California and Market. I want to get down there and scope out the street. It’s”—I didn’t want to say dangerous, not to him—“a one shot gag and—”

But he was talking over me. “I need you to . . . hang with a client . . . just an hour or two. Take her window shopping, to the beach, for a walk, get her mind off things.” When it comes to attorneys, my brother Gary’s a virtual Goliath’s nightmare. Which means when one of his Davids calls at 3 A.M., he’s there, pronto. Gary’s a hero to his clients—and to me. He’s always taking huge chances—financial and legal—and when he says there’re things I don’t want to know, I believe him. He’ll go to prison himself to protect a client’s rights, but window shopping? Not hardly.

“So, what are these terrible things she can’t be thinking about: Indictment? Jail?”

“Divorce.”

“Hey, if she needs a hand to hold about that, she’s in the right place.” He’d had three of his own.

He started to say something, but must have thought better of it.

“Besides, you don’t handle divorces,” I pointed out.

“This is different.”

“Different how? Divorce and what else?”

“Listen, are you going to do this for me or not?”

He was my nearest and closest brother, but the truth was all I really knew about him were the parts of his life that could be easily discovered, not the nooks and nuances of who he was. Until recently, I’d steered clear of San Francisco and my entire family. Now I was cautiously feeling my way back.

“Okay, okay. Sure.”

“Great. I appreciate it. I mean it.”

“So when do you need me?”

“Now.”

“Now! The shoot’s at six-thirty! It’s almost five now!”

“She’s waiting at Washington Square. Her name’s Karen Johnson.”

Jesus. “Okay.” What was I thinking? “But only for an hour,” I added.

“. . . Darce?” His tone had changed.

“Yeah?”

“Rabbits it.”

Our old childhood signal was barely out of his mouth when he clicked off. So I couldn’t ask him just why I shouldn’t mention it, particularly to the one for whom the code had been created in the first place—our oldest brother, John, the cop.