"Yeah, they found a gun, but I had a hunch she wasn't poisoned anyway."

"Maybe it's Dismas."

"Oh, it's partly Diz, no doubt about it."

"What part, huh?"

He nodded. "That's the thing." He extricated himself from her legs, ignoring her "hey!", and walked to the door of the bedroom, flipping on the light switch.

"Diz has got Louis Baker coming in here and blowing Rusty Ingraham away. Diz is not dumb. And he is legitimately scared."

"Right."

"But the problem is, where is Rusty's body?"

"Maybe out in the bay?"

Abe walked over to the back door and leaned against the sill. "Washed out by this raging torrent, huh?"

She had gotten up and stood next to him. "Maybe."

"And the girl-excuse me, woman-Maxine Weir? Why was she killed?"

"Because she was here, Abe. That makes sense. Louis Baker killed her too."

"Okay, but why the neck brace? M.E. report says her neck was fine."

"That I don't know."

Glitsky sat down on the bed again. "Why is everybody so quick to believe it's Louis Baker?"

Flo came beside him. "Well, that's obvious, isn't it? He threatened Ingraham and Hardy both. He said he'd do it, Abe."

"It's pretty convenient. Or stupid. I'm not sure which more. The actual day he gets out of prison..."

Flo shrugged. "Crime of passion. Waited a long time and couldn't wait anymore."

"Then he would've done Diz too, wouldn't he? Or tried?"

"Maybe he did. Maybe he couldn't find him."

"If he found Rusty..."

She was silent.

"I think what bothers me, still, is that it might be because he's black and an ex-con-"

"Black ex-cons can be bad people, Abe."

"So can white ex-cons. How about whites with no records? How about a husband who's jealous as hell and comes out here and kills his wife and her lover with nothing to do with Louis Baker?"

Flo was rubbing his back again. "You said you're checking that, aren't you?"

He nodded.

"So check everything-as if you wouldn't anyway."

"And meanwhile what if Louis Baker kills Diz?"

Flo stopped rubbing. "Ah," she said. "Getting to it."

"Right. You know me, Flo. I never think of this black, white bullshit. Maybe I should've arrested Baker already. Maybe I'm just dragging my heels 'cause he's black and I'm-'

"Abe, you've arrested tons of black people."

"Yeah, but usually, I hope, with a little evidence."

"And you don't have any evidence here? Then that's it, not race."

He shook his head. "Maybe that's why I had to come here. I want to get that son of a bitch off the street and I got motive to burn, attitude like you wouldn't believe and no hard evidence at all."

Flo was silent a moment. Then, quietly, "And you're not sure he's a son of a bitch?"

"No, I'm pretty sure he's that. I'm just not certain he committed this particular murder. But I don't know if I want to risk Hardy's life on it one way or the other."

Glitsky's wife stood up again and came around in front of him, pulling his head into her chest. "Is there anybody else who worries about doing the right thing as much as you do?"

Glitsky grunted. "I should just bring him in, shouldn't I?"

She kept him hugged close. "Maybe a lot of people would."

He pulled away and looked up at her. "I can't, Flo."

"I know," she said. Stepping back now, businesslike. "So given that, what do you see here?"

"What I want to see," he corrected her, "is... okay, the door maybe forced, but some sign of cat and mouse, Ingraham trying to get away. I mean, look, he's sitting here thinking Baker is going to come and kill him. Then, lo and behold, Baker shows. What would you do?"

"The woman was naked. He was on the bed. Could be they weren't paying attention."

Abe shook his head. "Not if he thought someone was going to come and try to kill him. Nobody pays that little attention."

She smiled. "You have."

But he wasn't playing. "Not in a situation like that, I wouldn't."

"How about this?" Flo asked. "The whole night before, he's been up worrying about it. He lies down for a nap. The woman is in the shower. Baker knocks open the door, but it's more a bump than any big noise. Ingraham rolls over but doesn't wake up. The woman goes on with her shower, thinking the barge just moved against a piling or something."

"Okay," Abe said, "okay..."

"So Baker comes in and shoots Ingraham in bed. No doubt now the woman hears the shot and comes running out. Bam, bam, bam. Baker runs, knocking over the lamp on the way out in the dark. Ingraham, it turns out, isn't dead yet. He staggers out of bed and goes outside and over the side."

Abe sighed. "To be washed away by the tide?"

"Maybe."

"Why the neck brace?"

"I don't know."

"What about the gun in the canal?"

Flo had no answer. Abe put his hands in his pocket and walked back to the open door. The moon was higher, its harvest quality gone. Now it was a bright silver coin above the bridge. Flo's was a theory he at least hadn't independently arrived at, and it was as plausible, or implausible, as any of the ten he'd come up with. And what really happened might be one of the ten, or Flo's, or something else altogether. Lots of people were good at theories. What made a good cop was finding one with evidence to back it up or-more-finding evidence and going from there.

Flo came up behind him, putting her arms around him. "How 'bout dinner?" she asked.

"It's all bass ackwards," he said. "I don't see anything I hoped to find here."

Flo turned him around and put her hands up to his face, closing his eyes with her thumbs. "Just set it in that brain of yours, what you see and feel now, and it'll click in when you need it, if you need it."

He felt her up against him and closed his arms around her. "Like you do when I need you."

"Yep," she said, "just like that."

Chapter Nine.

*Sometimes when Johnny LaGuardia was pounding into her, like now, Doreen Biaggi made herself think about the way it had started between them, when she had thought he was such a nice sweet man.

She had been walking out of Molinari's with some deli instead of a real dinner because she didn't have much money, when some of the young North Beach neighborhood boys started following her, teasing her as they had always teased "the Nose." Doreen keeping her head down, trying to walk faster, crying to herself. She was always nice to people. Why did they have to pick on her?

"What you got there, Noseen, some nose slaw? Maybe some nosadella?"

Ha. Ha. Ha. Snatching at her clothes, making honking noises, grabbing at her package of deli food.

And then there was this big man, not too old, chasing them away, walking her home. Johnny.

She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes closed now, rocking back and forth, taking his time...

Embarrassed at her tears, at her looks, she wanted to just thank him and go upstairs to her studio apartment. But he was so caring, or seemed so then. Brushing away the tears with a gentle smudge of his thumb. Taking her out to Little Joe's-now 'their' place-to cheer her up.

Opening up to him. Telling him that she hated herself, her big schnozzola, everything. And him saying (lying, but nice) it wasn't so bad, but if she hated it why didn't she just get a nose job?

But where was a clerk at City Lights bookstore going to get the money for a nose job? It had been nothing but scrape scrape since graduation from high school-three years now-and it was enough of a struggle paying rent, eating, wearing decent clothes. And so long as she looked this way she'd never be able to get out of where she was, going nowhere. It was a catch-22...

He was speeding up now, and she got into it a little, leaning back into it, maybe hurry him along. She reached back between her legs and ran her fingernails along the bottom of his scrotum and he made that sound that meant it wouldn't be too long now...

He had made it sound so easy. His friend Mr Tortoni could lend her the money for the surgery. With her new looks she could get hired someplace that paid better, then pay him back when she could. Until then there was only the vig to worry about, and for her it would be nothing, maybe a hundred good-faith money a week-which at the time, with Johnny Mr Sincere LaGuardia selling her not only on the idea of the loan but on her natural beauty, her chances for coming up in the world and glorious future, had seemed like nothing.

It started seeming like something soon afterward. The nose job had been a success and she now looked like a young Sophia Loren, but she couldn't parlay that into a job that paid any better, and after six weeks of buying nothing, not even going out to a movie, she couldn't come up with the vig.

And Johnny, who had been her friend and protector when she had been the Nose, had told her he could cover for her, just up the vig on a couple of other clients, but it was risky and he had to have some payment, some sign of good faith.

But she didn't have anything.

He'd put his hand on her, right there-the first time anybody had touched her there-and said that that was worth more than a hundred a week.

Then she was pulling away, scared, from that different Johnny-and didn't even see the hand come up so hard she thought he had broken her face-and then he was on top of her.

And she remembered listening to him explaining afterward that she didn't have a choice. Somebody had to come up with the vig. He didn't want her to be hurt and he could protect her. He hadn't hit her because he was mad at her. He wasn't mad at her. But she needed to take a little reality check. He was her friend...

"Oh, oh, Jesus Mary and Joseph." Johnny LaGuardia said the litany every time he came. Collapsing, he fell against her back, his arms wrapped around her.

She felt his weight on her, and she started to cry. She would never be able to come up with the vig. This was never going to end.

At Frank's Extra Espresso Bar on Vallejo, Umberto Tozzi was on the jukebox singing 'Ti Amo,' sounding like an Italian John Lennon. 'Ti Amo' was Angelo Tortoni's favorite song, and whenever he was in the place he played it at least once an hour. If anybody minded, they didn't say.

But the flip side was that nobody else played the song anymore. All the regulars, the owner Sal Calcagno, the waitresses, everybody, they were sick to death of 'Ti Amo.' It was a good song, and for a long time it had been Johnny LaGuardia's favorite, too.

Now, though, as he came up off the sidewalk behind the grilled fence, past the couples drinking their espresso or cappuccino or Peroni beer or sirops, he wasn't too thrilled to hear it because hearing it meant that the Angel was there already and he wouldn't have time to ask one of the boys why he'd been summoned down here again.

Not that he should be too worried. Mr Tortoni was his godfather. But he was also his employer, and certainly he was no one to get on the wrong side of, and this thing last night-having to explain Ingraham's disappearance, being six hundred dollars short-had not made him happy. Which Johnny understood. Johnny wasn't happy himself. He had never been short before. But Johnny thought he had explained it.

As always, Mr Tortoni was sitting all alone at the back of the room, back to the wall, under the poster of the Leaning Tower, at the small white table. Two of the other boys were playing pool, and Johnny nodded to them and then presented himself to Mr Tortoni, who took a sip of espresso and then motioned for Johnny to sit next to him.

"Can I get you something, Johnny?" the Angel asked in Italian.

It was amazing how quietly the man talked, how small and frail he looked. You didn't have to talk loud to get heard; physical strength was a small part of having power. These things Mr Tortoni had taught him.

Johnny realized his throat was dry and he said he thought a mandarino sirop would be good, and Mr Tortoni whispered up to Sal Calcagno at the counter and in two seconds Johnny's drink was in front of him.

"You wanted to see me?"

Mr Tortoni put his cup down and fiddled for a moment with a short cigar, which Johnny lit for him as it got to his mouth. "You've been busy, have you?" he asked through the smoke.

"Okay," Johnny said. "Trying to-"