I studied him as he computed this.
“So let it go,” I said. “Go back to your mother and Dobbs and let me go take a piss.”
He shook his head.
“No, I’m not going to let it go, Mick.”
He poked a finger into my chest.
“Something else is going on here, Mick, and I don’t like it. You have to remember something. I have your gun. And you have a daughter. You have to—”
I closed my hand over his hand and finger and pushed it away from my chest.
“Don’t you ever threaten my family,” I said with a controlled but angry voice. “You want to come at me, fine, then come at me and let’s do it. But if youeverthreaten my daughter again, I will bury you so deep you will never be found. You understand me, Louis?”
He slowly nodded and a smile creased his face.
“Sure, Mick. Just so we understand each other.”
I released his hand and left him there. I started walking toward the end of the hallway where the restrooms were and where Sobel seemed to be waiting while talking on a cell. I was walking blind, my thoughts of the threat to my daughter crowding my vision. But as I got close to Sobel I shook it off. She ended her call when I got there.
“Detective Sobel,” I said.
“Mr. Haller,” she said.
“Can I ask why you are here? Are you going to arrest me?”
“I’m here because you invited me, remember?”
“Uh, no, I don’t.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You told me I ought to check out your trial.”
I suddenly realized she was referring to the awkward conversation in my home office during the search of my house on Monday night.
“Oh, right, I forgot about that. Well, I’m glad you took me up on it. I saw your partner earlier. What happened to him?”
“Oh, he’s around.”
I tried to read something in that. She had not answered the question about whether she was going to arrest me. I gestured back up the hallway toward the courtroom.
“So what did you think?”
“Interesting. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in the judge’s chambers.”
“Well, stick around. It ain’t over yet.”
“Maybe I will.”
My cell phone started to vibrate. I reached under my jacket and pulled it off my hip. The caller ID readout said the call was coming from the district attorney’s office.
“I have to take this,” I said.
“By all means,” Sobel said.
I opened the phone and started walking back up the hallway toward where Roulet was pacing.
