Warren was matter of fact. "Hey, she left you, remember? You didn't know she was going to get killed that night."

"I know. But I'd been such a pain in the ass with you and Court about my broken heart and all. I just needed somebody."

"Hey, we all do, right? It's better than me thinking you killed somebody. I couldn't believe the police hadn't already picked you up."

"Well, I told the police. And Court. I just didn't want it spread around. Now I've really got to get some sleep, okay. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

Hardy still couldn't detect any warm air coming from the car's heater, and he only had another five blocks until he got to Frannie's. He wondered if luxury cars had heaters that came on hot. Then he supposed most people who bought convertible canvas-roofed four-wheel-drive vehicles, as he had done, didn't have heat on the top of their priority list. Ray Weir was lying. He hadn't told the police he had an alibi. To the contrary, in fact. So much so that if Louis Baker should somehow get himself clear, Ray Weir would pop up next on the Who Killed Rusty Ingraham hit parade. Especially with this new money angle. He had jealousy going for him as well as some significant monetary gain, to say nothing of his gun being the murder weapon. Warren had been right about his friend. Absent the alibi, Ray was a good call for the trigger.

And every bone in Hardy's body felt that the alibi was bogus. So Courtenay seemed to believe him. People tended to believe things that were confided to them, especially when, on the surface, at least, those things didn't speak too well for the confider. But for just that reason clever people -and Ray Weir was starting to look solid for that category -had been known to confide intimate lies.

An effective technique-and in this case it had gotten Courtenay to back up Ray. She was also predisposed, which helped. Hardy wondered if she'd pressed Ray at all about who he'd been with, where they had gone. He figured not. The fact that he had 'opened up' to her about it would have been enough for her. The details wouldn't have been important. Ray was feeling guilty about sleeping with someone else, betraying the object of his adoration, and on the very night of Maxine's death, as it turned out. He just had to bare his soul to someone, to his close friend Courtenay. It was haunting him, tearing him up. Oh yes.

Hardy parked across the street from Frannie's door and turned his front wheels into the hill to prevent runaway. He sat shivering, hands tucked under his armpits, wondering if Glitsky might start to care again if he found out about the $85,000 insurance money. It sure couldn't hurt to bring it to his attention...

But why? Why not be happy about Louis Baker being off the streets again? Wasn't that the goal? Shouldn't he just move back home and go back to bartending at the Shamrock on Tuesday and pick up his life where he'd left off and be grateful he'd survived?

Except what was he going to pick up? Frannie might have called this a "window in time," and maybe for her things could go back to being the same-he didn't really believe that. Frannie was in his life now in a far different way than she'd been before. And, of course, that had changed the space where Jane had been so carefully placed.

And what about old Diz himself? He'd always thought of himself as a pretty good citizen, a man of some principle, if not part of the solution then at least not part of the problem either.

But now, a little shake of the cart, and Diz the white knight is ready to give up Louis 'cause he's done some bad shit sometime? Maybe not what they're getting him for, but something. He wondered, not for the first time, how he'd feel if Baker hadn't been black.

But, shivering in his Suzuki Seppuku, since he was being honest with himself, he knew absolutely how he'd feel-he'd feel outraged that Louis Baker was being denied due process, that Louis Baker was being railroaded because of his background. Not that he might not have done it, but whether or not he did, they weren't checking it out the way they should.

So why wasn't he outraged?

Is it, Diz, because maybe this black/white thing here in the liberated '90s was really only a matter of degree? Turn the fear up a notch and take a look at your true stripes. Hardy perceives his life threatened by Baker-whether or not that's reality-and to protect himself, Hardy is delighted to lock Baker away forever or sit him in the gas chamber.

But wasn't that always the reason? You perceive that your way of life, your neighborhood, whatever, is threatened, and your instinct is to protect yourself. You don't worry about justice, the right thing. You just want the damn threat to go away. The fear to go away.

And you don't really care, finally, if the fear is baseless.

You just don't want to be confronted by it. You don't want to live with it or even see it. So you don't let them on your bus. Or in your neighborhood. Or date your daughter.

Hardy rubbed his eyes, feeling defenses rise against this vision of himself. That wasn't him. Some of his best friends, etc., etc. Look at Abe Glitsky, for Christ's sake.

And remember that just last night Louis Baker had, in fact, shot at the police while breaking and entering Jane's house. This wasn't some poor lamb he was dealing with here.

Fine. Grant that. But is he a murderer? More particularly, did he kill Rusty and Maxine? What happened out at Holly Park doesn't have shit all to do with Dismas Hardy, does it, Diz?

Yeah, but here's what it does have to do with. If Baker hadn't killed Rusty-and okay, maybe that was still a big 'if-then the guy (or woman, thank you, Courtenay) that did it... Ray Weir, for instance... was sure getting helped out by Dismas Hardy pointing at Louis Baker and saying, "Trust me, I'm an ex-cop and that's your man." Which Hardy had in fact done.

If any of this was so, and if Baker, admittedly no saint, had not killed Rusty, then Hardy found himself in a position that pissed him off. Because somebody had put him in this thing, maybe even helped him set up Baker for a fall. He thought he'd like to find out who, and kick some ass.

Hardy opened his car door and stepped out into the street. He had no desire to go back to his house, or to start bartending in two days. He owed it to himself to find out what was really going on here.

He looked up at the stars. Louis Baker could personally rot for all he cared. He knew that. But the situation surrounding him was tying Hardy in knots, and until he could get some of them untied he wouldn't be free to get on with his life.

Chapter Sixteen.

*It's a fantastic opportunity!"

Manny Gubicza was afraid of this reaction. Treadwell was excited and didn't seem to understand his lawyer's reluctance. Manny should have asked him to come down at lunchtime to discuss this in person, but he had another appointment at lunch, and with his powers of persuasion all he would have to do to Treadwell was pass along the D.A.'s offer and explain how stupid it was-that is, if Treadwell listened to him.

"It's a trap," Gubicza said.

"How can it be a trap? I didn't make this up, remember. The bastard did kill my Poppy!"

"I know."

"Well?"

Fred was really hot for this. The lawyer spoke in a measured voice. "I think we can assume, Fred, that the D.A. isn't suggesting a polygraph because they want to help your case."

"But it doesn't matter! Once I-"

"Please, let me finish. The offer is that you come down and go over the statement you've already made, and if the polygraph checks, they'll proceed on the Medina angle."

"Right. That's what I want."

"No, it's not what you want."

"Manny..."

"Fred, listen. They're going to have to come up with at least a hearing anyway, and eventually an indictment. They've already got your statement. Medina did it and he'll be punished for it."

"But they said they weren't going to. I know they didn't believe me. They were going to interview Medina and he'll deny everything and they won't have any evidence and they'll drop it."

"They might try, but haven't we been using the media to tell this story as much as anything else? Hasn't that been working?"

He heard the change in his ear; Treadwell had switched him from the speakerphone. "Look, Manny, this whole thing hinges on my credibility." Treadwell was whispering insistently. "You think I'll let them get me on Raines and Valenti. No way! If you know it's a trap, you use it for your own ends. I know you think only a lawyer can be any good under questioning-"

"That's not true, Fred," Manny lied.

"-but all I do is tell them what happened again, and they'll see it's the truth. Think what the media could do with that! It's perfect for us!"

Manny punched up his own speakerphone, putting Treadwell on it, and stood up. He paced behind his desk. "Fred, here's a hard truth. In the legal world, to the extent that something is not completely controlled by you, it's the enemy. This is not a friendly little parlor game. Lives are at stake. Yours, for example. Valenti, Raines, Medina. People cheat in these situations."

Manny didn't think he had to point out that he and Fred were cheating from the git-go. That wasn't the point. The point was to build your case from what you decide are the facts you're going to use. They were doing that very well.

He didn't want Fred anywhere near a polygraph. Though the results of a lie-detector test were not admissible at trial, it could be a damaging tool, especially at the pre-hearing stage. He stopped at his window, looked down the street, across at the Pyramid. He walked over to his desk again. "I can't let you do it, Fred."

"So we're just going to pack it in, admit that we lied."

"It's not that!"

"It even seems like it's that to me. Think what the D.A. will do with it."

"The D.A. will just continue plodding along."

"And drop Medina."

Gubicza hung his head, putting his weight on the back of his chair. "They will probably not pursue it with much vigor," he admitted.

"But Medina has to be punished."

"Fred, compare that good-Medina being punished -with the much greater good of you not going to jail for murder." He hated to raise his voice, but it was happening. "If they trip you up on Raines and Valenti, not only do those two guys walk, it's likely you go down. And once they've got you seated and hooked up to a polygraph, they might just ask you anything. And it might not be about Hector Medina and Poppy,"

"So just make them promise they won't."

Gubicza cleared his throat. "Make them promise they won't," he repeated.

"Sure. Make that a condition."

"Don't you think that request might be showing our hand just a little bit?"

"How?" Warming to it now, Treadwell was making his case. "Look, they want to talk about Hector Medina, we say okay, but that's all. They'll understand that. I mean, we don't want to muck around with the murder investigation. This is a separate issue. Tied in, maybe, but separate. We build my credibility, we get Hector, it's perfect."

"Quit saying that, Fred. Nothing's perfect." He sat back down in his leather chair. "God, I hate this kind of Monday," he said.

Fifteen blocks downtown Art Drysdale hung up his telephone and walked down to his boss's office. He nodded to Dorothy, Locke's secretary, and just kept going. Christopher Locke, the elected District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco, was on the telephone himself, seated at his desk, and waved his old friend to sit down. Instead, Drysdale went back outside and helped himself to a cup of coffee.

"How's business?" he asked Dorothy, planting himself on a corner of her desk.

Before she could answer, Locke called from the other room. "Art!"

Drysdale shrugged. "We've got to do this more often," he said to Dorothy, then whispered, "do me a favor, love, and keep the phone quiet for about two minutes." He went back through the doors, closing them behind him.

"What?" Locke said. He was studying a file on his desk and didn't look up.

"That's why they keep electing you," Drysdale said. "The warm, charming exterior. The man behind the office."

Locke sighed, shaking his head, keeping it down. "What?" he repeated.

"You owe me a buck," Drysdale said.

It took a second, but then Locke stopped reading and brought his eyes up to meet Drysdale's. "Get out of here," he said.

"Swear to God."

"Gubicza agreed to it?"

"With conditions."

"What? That we don't ask any questions?"

"Nothing about Raines and Valenti."

"So what'd you do?"

"I agreed, of course."

"So what are you gonna do?"

"I said, and I quote, 'On my mother's grave I will never mention those names or anything about those cases.' "

"So how are you going to bring them up?"

Drysdale sipped at his coffee. "Well, I thought I'd have the polygraph set up downtown here. That way I'll avoid the temptation to go stand on my mother's grave, may she rest in peace. Which is where I said I wouldn't bring up the murder raps."

Samson wasn't really in Dido's class, or Louis Baker's. He had this sloppy way, heavy, not tight, with long dreadlocks none too clean, and didn't put out the kind of vibe Dido had done, where when it wasn't business he was okay. Dido could laugh and shoot a hoop or two. He bought Lace his shoes. Like that.

And even Baker, you could talk to him. Stuff about the cut, this an' that, the paint, the Mama. If Dido had to go, Lace could have maybe gone in with Louis-at least until Louis killed Dido. Then maybe not. But if Dido had just died, or moved on, 'stead of Louis having done it...

Yeah, but that hadn't gone down at all. Now they was both of 'em clear of the cut, and Samson was a whole different breed of badness moving in.

Like here Monday not yet noon, cold as the landlord, Lace and Jumpup only sitting at the curb and he come by just to show 'em and kick 'em into the street. Now what's that shit?

"This my cut now," he say, and they watch him walk, one end to the other, couple of his troops tagging.

Where they- he and Jumpup- s'pose to go now?

Nat Glitsky was seventy-two years old and spent most of his time now (since Emma had died) in the synagogue at Fulton and Arguello, which was where his son Abe had picked him up.

They drove north up Park Presidio through the city and took Lombard over to Van Ness, then to Broadway through the tunnel and into North Beach. Nat had a fondness for big Italian lunches, and if his son was paying you couldn't do better than Cap's, which had been serving the same meals since he was dating Emma. It had been one of the few good restaurants he could take her to that didn't mind having a black woman eating with the whites. Hard to remember those times, especially now when there was every kind of humanity seated at the tables.

Nat kept his yarmulke on but hung his jacket on the back of his chair. The waiter came and he said he'd have a Negroni-Campari, bitters and gin.

"How can you drink that medicine?" Abe asked after he'd ordered his iced tea.

Nat patted the hand of his only child. There certainly was a lot of Emma in him-she hadn't much cared for Negronis either. He wondered if maybe it was something about being part or all black. Negroni. Would he try to develop a taste for a drink called a Hymonie or a Kiker?

But his son was thrashing in deeper waters. All during the ride over here they'd been talking about Abe's projected move to Los Angeles. Nat wasn't for it. What was he going to do without his family around? But he didn't bring that up yet. No sense in getting all riled up about a maybe. And Abe was still just talking-he hadn't made up his mind. At least Nat didn't think so. Not yet...