Hardy dug into his pocket, produced McGuire’s key ring, and tossed it onto his lap. “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.”

McGuire tried to whistle, but it came out wrong-his mouth wasn’t at a hundred percent. “That’s good. You just make that up? And I’m not drunk.”

“You want to run that whistle by me again?”

“Cause I miss a whistle doesn’t mean I’m drunk.”

“Say ‘miss a whistle’ three times.”

McGuire tried it once, then, “What are you, my mother?” He settled back in the seat. “Miss-a-fucking-whistle,” he said.

Hardy pulled the car up at a light and turned toward his friend. “So what don’t you get?”

McGuire took a minute to answer. Hardy reminded him. “You said you don’t get it. What?”

“True love,” he said finally.

“You mean Frannie and Ed?”

“Nope.” McGuire faded out for a minute, then came back. “I mean Ed’s parents. Tell me you didn’t notice her, Erin?”

“I noticed her, Mose.”

McGuire tried a whistle that came out better. “I don’t care how old she is, she’s the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen.”

Hardy nodded. Even burying her son, Erin Cochran was something far beyond reasonably attractive.

“And with Big Ed for going on thirty years. How do you figure that, if not true love?”

“I didn’t really meet the guy. He was just at the door. Nice enough, broken up, trying to keep it under control.”

“But Erin and him?”

“Why not?”

“Hardy, the guy’s been a gardener at the Park for his whole life. Okay, he works for the city, probably a good gig, but where’s the romance? I mean, the guy’s gotta live in horse manure.”

“Who needs romance?”

“Wouldn’t you think Erin would?”

Hardy shrugged. “Interesting question. I don’t know.”

“Gotta be true love, and I don’t get it.”

Hardy pulled the car up a block before the Shamrock. The day was hot and still. McGuire had put his head back against the seat. He looked beat, breathing heavily, regularly. “You sleeping, McGuire?”

His friend grunted.

“You sure you want to open the bar?”

McGuire lifted his head. “That priest… he’s the kind of guy she ought to go for. Don’t laugh, it happens.” His eyes were bleary and red, the muscles in his face slack.

“You can’t buy true love, huh?”

“It’s a beautiful thing for a night or two.” McGuire leaned his head back again, sighed. He spoke with his eyes closed, slumped down, his head resting on the back of the car seat. “You think Frannie’s okay? She seem okay to you?”

“She’ll make it, Mose. She’s a tough one. You going to open or not?”

McGuire covered his eyes, noting where the car had stopped. “I don’t think I’m up to the fast-lane glamor of the bar business today, you know?”

Hardy nodded, turned the key, started his car up again. As he pulled into traffic heading toward McGuire’s apartment in the Haight-Ashbury, Moses said, “How do they do it, Diz?”

“What’s that?”

“Hold together. All that family stuff.”

“You and Frannie do it.”

“We had to do it.”

Hardy looked over at his friend, head back, mouth open, eyes shut. He looked strange in dark pants, a tan dress shirt, his tie loose. Normally Moses was a jeans-and-workshirt guy. Hardy noticed for the first time that his black hair was beginning to be shot with gray.

“Maybe they have to do it, too,” Hardy said, “for some reason.”

“Not like me and Frannie did.”

Hardy knew he was right. Moses had raised his younger sister from the time he was sixteen and she was four. When he’d gone to Vietnam, which was where Moses and Hardy had met, she had just been starting high school and Moses was paying to have her board at Dominican up in Marin County.

“And ’sides,” Moses slurred, “I’m talking sex. Not brothers and sisters. Ed and Erin. How do you keep that going thirty years?”

Hardy found a place to park in front of Moses’s building. He pulled into it. “Practice, I guess.”

LINDA POLK got up from her desk and walked the twenty feet down the hallway to the women’s room. At Army Distributing, the women’s room was Linda’s exclusive domain-she was the only female employee, and guests were few and far between, especially lately. Alphonse coming in, hassling her about where her daddy was, had been the only person who’d been in the whole day. And he’d gone long before noon.

She flicked the light switch and walked in front of the mirror to look at herself. Not too bad. Rings under the eyes were covered pretty well. The blondish bleach job was holding up okay. She liked the purplish tint to the eyeshadow. Maybe a touch-up on the mascara, not that it really mattered here.

No, she’d pass on that. She didn’t come in here to fix herself up. She smiled. Yes, she did, she thought, only not that kind of fix.

She’d rolled the stuff at home, hidden it in the package of Virginia Slims, and taking it out, smiled again in anticipation. She’d really come a long way, baby.

It was the very best of the third world-C & C. Colombian and crack, although just a tiny bit of the latter. She lit the joint and inhaled deeply, holding it. Before she’d even let out the breath, the first jolt of the crack kicked in. She allowed herself one more. It was a good mix. The crack pumped you up to the sky, but the marijuana made coming down very nice.

Putting half the joint back into the cigarette box, she checked herself out one last time in the mirror and smiled prettily at herself. “Linda means pretty,” she said aloud, and giggled.

The mood was nearly wrecked immediately as she came out to the hallway. First, the heel on her shoe slipped on the tile and broke off. She would have fallen but for the wall.

“Fuck.”

Holding the wall with one hand, she was balancing herself to take off her shoes when an unknown face looked out from her office. “Can I help you?”

A man, and not bad-looking. Not too well dressed, but not a slob, either. She smiled crookedly, suddenly feeling dizzy with the rush of drugs. Damn, here she’d been alone all day and-it was just her luck-the minute she decided to let go just a little, someone shows up.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the man, standing there in the hallway with her shoes in her hand. Next she’d probably run her nylons.

The man shrugged. “No problem. I was hoping to find Mr. Polk? Is he in?”

She walked toward him, then brushed against him as she went around to her desk. She’d be better if she was sitting down. The man looked at the nameplate on her desk. “Are you his wife?”

She laughed at that, shallowly. “No, his daughter.”

Suddenly she stood up again, extended her hand. “Linda Polk, daughter of Samuel Polk and descendant of U.S. President James K. He was just after Lincoln, I think.”

The man had a firm, dry, no-nonsense shake. “I think maybe a little earlier,” he said.

“Whatever.” The glow was coming up roses. She could feel herself expanding, becoming nicer, easier to talk to, to like.

“Is your father in today?”

“No. He had a funeral this morning, then he and Nika-” She stopped. Nika. She didn’t want to get concentrating on Nika.

The man smiled. He had a wonderfully inviting smile. “I came from the funeral myself. I’m a friend of Ed Cochran’s. Or was.”

He extended a card that seemed to hover a long way away in his hand until she reached out and grabbed it. “My name’s Dismas Hardy, Linda. Do you expect your father back today?”

“I never expect him back.”

Whoops. She hadn’t meant to say that. “I mean, back the way he was.”

“Was when?”

“Back before Nika.”

“When was that, Linda?”

She liked the way he kept saying her name. He really was a nice-looking man, maybe a little old. Thirty-five? Good tan for a city guy. Maybe he did a lot of work outside.

“Pardon?” she said.

“When was before Nika?”