Glitsky leaned forward. "So what did you talk about?"

"Mostly the Giants, I guess."

Glitsky could have guessed, too. The Giants were in the thick of the pennant race.

"I think they'll stay in the city."

"Who?"

"Who we talking about, man? The Giants. I mean, a pennant is what we need. No way are they gonna let 'em go to San Jose if we get another pennant. The team is happening. Who'd Baker kill?"

"We don't know if he killed anybody. He's a suspect is all."

"He probably did."

"Why do you say that? You just said he was a nice guy."

Nolan shrugged. Glitsky wondered if people here all had shoulder and back problems from the shrugging. "So he's a nice guy. That just means he's got manners. I mean, everybody says Ted Bundy was the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet, and how many people did he ace, twenty, thirty?"

"So you figure Baker killed somebody. Why? Did he say anything to you about last night?"

"These guys kill each other."

"The victim wasn't black, Mr Nolan."

"No shit. I just assumed."

"Caucasian woman."

"Well, maybe he was just unloading after all that time in." Nolan looked at Glitsky man-to-man. "You know." He pointed at his crotch. "No conjugal visits at the Q. Lot of guys get out and that's the first thing they do."

Glitsky, suddenly very weary, shook his head. "No, it wasn't that."

Nolan, thoughtful, chewing. "Well, they kill white guys too."

It was still early afternoon, balmy with a light breeze. Glitsky had the windows down on both sides of the Plymouth. Driving down Mission, he had intended to get on the freeway and head south to Holly Park and see if he could get a few words with Louis Baker.

But Al Nolan had gotten inside of him-young, hip, ponytailed Al Nolan with his 'Ralph' fifties-style bowling shirt, probably seriously thought he did a real job. And real clever to boot. Above it all with that glib shit that all these cons were just passing time before they went back. Jive about the Giants. For a minute Glitsky thought about bringing Al to the Hall and booking him for obstructing a homicide investigation. See how funny he thought that was.

He drummed his fingers on the dash. Then there was Marcel Lanier and the other cops in homicide with their damn golf clubs. What was the use?

He tried to get his mind kick-started back on Louis Baker. About why was he going down now to see Louis Baker. Sure, Hardy had his reasons. But for him, wasn't it the same reason Al Nolan had for assuming Baker was guilty-because he was a black ex-con?

There wasn't any hard evidence making him a suspect. There was Hardy's suspicion, and Hardy's fear. But Hardy, all white, points the finger at Baker, all black, and Abe Glitsky-half and half-jumps on the white wagon with both feet. Well, shit, why is that, Abe?

Look at the facts. Okay, so Hardy is your friend, and an ex-cop. Ex-cops also kill people. And Hardy was apprehended-let's not forget that, apprehended-there at the scene with a loaded weapon. Sure, he had his stated reasons, but why didn't Glitsky suspect him? Well, he knew Hardy. Also, Hardy's gun hadn't been fired. Still...

He pulled over and glanced at the yellow pad full of notes next to him on the seat.

Start at the beginning, Abe. Like you've done a hundred times before. Look at the victim. There aren't two victims, not yet. In spite of what Hardy might think, or say... There is one known victim. Her name is Maxine Weir and she lived at 964 Bush Street.

Louis Baker and Holly Park could wait. Let's see who the facts point to.

He put the car back in gear, passed the freeway entrance and turned up Van Ness toward Bush Street.

Hardy didn't even feel safe at the Hall of Justice.

He'd been there since before noon, trying to get his gun back. He had called Moses McGuire at home and asked him to trade shifts at the Shamrock. He had looked in at Judge Andy Fowler's-Jane's father's-courtroom, but they had been in recess and the judge was not in his chambers.

They were being pissy about the gun. Glitsky was not above giving his friend a little object lesson in the letter of the law, and he had taken the weapon downtown so that Hardy could sign for its proper return, so the registration could be validated. Thank you, Abe.

But the gun had not even been logged in yet, and no one seemed in a hurry to get it done so Hardy could retrieve it.

Finally, realizing he probably wasn't going to have much luck, he took the elevator upstairs to the third floor, where the assistant D.A.s had their offices.

He found himself breathing more easily as he walked the long halls, hoping to recognize someone and give himself an excuse to stay inside and off the street. Up here, almost everyone wore a coat and tie or a uniform and most were white. Hardy did not suppose Louis Baker would get up in costume to blow him away. Downstairs, every black man Hardy saw had been turning before his eyes into Louis Baker, walking around free as a breeze, carrying a bullet with Hardy's name on it. If he felt that way in the Hall of Justice, where they had metal detectors at all entrances, Hardy did not want to think about what he would feel like outside.

There were about one hundred assistant district attorneys in San Francisco. Almost all of them-except a few political appointees who worked for the man himself, District Attorney Christopher Locke-plied their trade, two to a room, in ten-by-twelve offices equipped with two desks and whatever files, bookcases, posters, plants, mementos, and bits of evidence might have accumulated in the course of two busy people working on too many cases with not enough time.

There were no names on doors, no indication of rank or personality. Most of the doors into the hallway were closed, and a significant number of rooms with open doors were empty. Hardy did not remember if it had been like that when he had worked here. Probably, since nothing else seemed to have changed very much.

He passed the case-file library and leaned across the counter, looking in at the banks of color-tagged folders.

"What you want, Hardy?"

It was still Touva-a tiny round woman with Brillo hair who had already been an institution when Hardy started out. She forgot nothing and filed with a fanatical precision -if nothing else went right in a case, you could at least always get your files when you needed them. She looked at Hardy impatiently, by all signs unaware that he had not worked there in almost a decade.

"How you been, Touva?"

"I been busy, of course. You got a case number, Hardy? I got no time to chat."

"No case."

"Okay, then. Later."

Dismissed, he kept walking. A couple of faces looked familiar to him, but he was surprised that he saw no one he actually knew to talk to. Had it been that long? He felt like he'd gone back to his old high school.

Finally he stopped near a doorway where a studious young man was sitting in a chair studying blowups of photographs that Hardy did not want to look at too carefully. He had seen enough of that stuff firsthand this morning. He had already decided who he had to talk to.

"I'm trying to find Art Drysdale's office," he said.

The kid tore himself away. "Probably a good idea anyway," he said.

"Pardon?"

"Oh, sorry. Talking to myself. Probably a good idea to get away from this for a minute. Drysdale, you said?"

They walked back past the file library. Drysdale's office was two doors beyond it on the other side of the hall. As Hardy knocked, the kid, into his work, was already halfway back to his room.

"It's open."

Drysdale was turned away from the door, his feet propped up on the windowsill, talking on the telephone. There was no one at the other desk. Hardy moved some folders from a chair to the floor and sat to wait.

"No," he was saying. "No, we don't know that."

He listened. Hardy noticed his knuckles white on the receiver.

"You want my opinion, it's not even likely. I think it's a big mistake."

He said 'uh huh' and 'right' a few times, loosening his collar with one hand, the knuckles on the other one staying white. "All right. It's your decision." A beat, then loudly, "Course I'll do it. It's what we do, isn't it? But it sucks, Chris. Sir. It really sucks." He slammed the phone down. "Son of a bitch."

He swiveled in his chair. "Yeah?" he began. Then, recognizing Hardy, "Hey!" He stood up, extended a hand. "Here's a sight for sore eyes. What brings you downtown?"

Pushing sixty, Drysdale still looked like he could put on a uniform and be right at home on the ballfield. Before turning to law he had been a star for USC and then played three years of pro ball, including forty-two games as a utility infielder in 1964 for the San Francisco Giants. A framed newspaper article on the wall of his office was headlined 'Drysdale No Relation to Dodger Don,' which was an important point to make in a town that hated the Bums. Don Drysdale, the Dodger pitcher, had a last name in common with Art, but no genes.

Art had been with the D.A.'s office for over thirty years. At one time or another he'd been in charge of Misdemeanors, Vice, White Collar and Homicide, and now served as a kind of minister without portfolio, unofficially doing much of the work that the citizens elected Christopher Locke to do.

Drysdale himself wasn't the District Attorney because his pragmatic view of life was out of sync with the political structure in San Francisco. He did not favor affirmative action in the District Attorney's office, and he had once been foolish enough to make the point to a group of reporters and editors who had been doing profiles on potential candidates for public office.

"If you were elected D.A.-"

"But I'm not running for D.A., or anything else."

The early denial being part of every campaign, that didn't slow anybody down. "If you were the D.A., what percentage of new hires would be-substitute one-gay, black, Hispanic, female?"

Drysdale's answer, now famous in the lore of the city, was "If they could do the job, I'd hire chimpanzees. If they can't, they're worthless to me."

Of course, the media played this to mean that Drysdale thought women, gays, and other minorities of all stripes were worthless. He had followed his aphorism with the more balanced statement that some jobs-airline pilot, brain surgeon, prosecuting attorney-ought to be filled by qualified candidates, not by quota, but San Francisco reporters know news when they hear it, and calling chimpanzees smarter than minorities was good copy, even if that wasn't what he said, much less meant.

Now it was old news either way. Art Drysdale didn't worry about it. He coached his inner-city baseball team that had finished second the previous year in the city's Police Athletic League playoffs, went home to his wife, who had her own design firm, and otherwise counseled the young female, gay, black, Hispanic, Caucasian, or (he sometimes felt) simian attorneys who weren't succeeding in putting bad people behind bars, which was their job. He was the most popular man in the office.

"So to what do we owe this surprise, Diz?"

"I think the big surprise is hearing you yell at someone."

Drysdale waved it off. "Aw, that's just Locke. Sometimes the old seniority isn't the blessing it's cracked up to be."

"What's he doing?"

"Somebody's got to investigate a couple of cops."

"That's ugly."

"Yeah. Plus it's nothing we'd ever charge on our own. But we're showing our continued sensitivity to the plight of harassed gays by the fascist police force. Subtle stuff like that."

"Why'd you draw it?"

Drysdale grinned. "Cause it's such a lemon. Locke gives it to a rookie here and bingo, end of career, or at least end of cooperation for a year or two with the department. Me, I'm immune I guess. Seniority. I've offended everybody at least once anyway. Can't do any more harm."

"Who are the guys?"

"Clarence Raines and Mario Valenti. Homicide. You know 'em?"

"No. But Homicide guys?"

"I know." Drysdale picked up an autographed baseball and tossed it back and forth. "Plus there's my well-known discretion." He flipped the ball across to Hardy. "But you, sir? Coming back to the trade?"

Hardy laughed, said no and ran down his last twenty-four hours.

Drysdale was thoughtful for a moment. "Ingraham left here after you, right?" He shut his eyes, remembering. "Something went wrong."

"What was that?"

"Gimme the ball."

Hardy tossed it back to him. It flashed from hand to hand, faster than Hardy could follow it. Drysdale closed his eyes again, a juggler in a trance. Finally he stopped. "Nope, it's not there."

Hardy lifted his shoulders. "Well, he's dead anyway. I guess it can't matter too much anymore."

"I know a guy, though, hates his guts. You might want to talk to him. Tony Feeney."

"He should've died a long time ago."

Feeney was Hardy's vintage but a different grape. Dark hair, pressed three-piece suit, trim body, shined shoes. No hint of mellowing out.

"Well, he did die this morning."

Feeney seemed to gather something inside himself. Then he astounded Hardy by giving himself a thumbs up and saying, "Fuckin' A," like he'd just won a big one.

Then, realizing what he had done, he came back to Hardy. "If he was your friend I'm sorry, but-"

Hardy stopped him. "Before yesterday I hadn't seen him in half a dozen years."

"How'd it go down?"

"Looks like somebody shot him."

"I hope he walks, whoever did it."

"Well, whoever did it shot his girlfriend too."

"You know who it was?"

"Yeah, they think so. I think so."

Feeney opened his desk drawer and popped a life Saver. He offered one to Hardy. "Fuckin' Ingraham. Always gotta be a woman around. Girl should've known better."

Hardy didn't know what that meant, but he'd come back to it. "What'd he do to you?"