Here was a man who’d lost a son only a week before. Just that morning, Hardy had seen him break down into tears. But here, now, sitting next to his wife, he was hanging in there for her, in spite of his own hurt. Hardy thought he might be the bravest man he’d ever met.

“Thanks for the drink,” he said. “I think it’s time I called a cab.”

Frannie walked with him outside. “How are you making out?” he asked her. “Can I ask you one more question?”

“Sure.” Her red hair gleamed in the porch light. She looked like she’d finally eaten something. Her eyes were clear.

“You said Eddie left right after dinner?”

She nodded.

“Do you have any idea what time that was?”

He hated to ask, to see her eyes cloud over again, but he had to know.

“It was still light out. Pretty early, I guess, sevenish. Why?”

The cab pulled up. “Because it shouldn’t take two and a half hours to drive from your place out to China Basin.”

“No, it’s only like fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He admired the way when her shoulders started to sag she tightened up her jaw. He leaned down and pecked her on the cheek. “I’m checking this stuff out, Frannie. You keep hanging in there.”

She put her arms up around him and held tight for a moment. The cabbie honked. She let go.

When the cab got to the corner, Hardy looked back. Frannie was still standing out by the curb. Hanging in there, Hardy thought.

“Nope.”

“Abe, come on.”

“You said yourself he’d never seen the guys before. How can there be a connection?”

“It’s too big a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t think.”

“But that plus the drug thing with Ed’s boss?”

“Possible drug thing. What’s the matter with you, Hardy, you taking drugs yourself?”

After another minute, Hardy hung up. What more did Glitsky need? Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? And there was enough smoke here to cure meat.

It was ten o’clock Saturday night. The deputy hadn’t yet arrived back from Gonzalez with his car.

Not for the first time, Hardy wished he didn’t have a rule about keeping hard liquor in his house. He went into his bedroom, fed the fish, walked back to his office. He picked the six darts from the board by the fireplace and stood by his desk, just at the tape line he’d put down there, and threw methodically, trying to let his mind clear.

Frannie was positive that Ed had left the house around seven. Cruz said that he had left work around eight-thirty and nobody had been either in the building or the lot at that time. It was about a fifteen-minute drive from Ed’s to Cruz’s.

Hell of a lot of time to kill, and that was the minimum. He might not’ve gotten to Cruz’s until ten. Nobody knew.

Damn Glitsky. There was something here, Hardy was sure of it. A little manpower and they could at least get a fix on the whereabouts of all the principals. Where, for example, had Cruz gone at eight-thirty? Maybe he’d just sat in the lot, waiting for a meeting. And Polk-what had Polk been doing Monday night?

Maybe Ed’s meddling in his private business was going to cut into Nika’s lifestyle, and he couldn’t allow that.

All right. He had the background. It was beginning to look as if he’d have to do some old-fashioned police work, and he didn’t relish the thought. That’s why they have police departments, he thought. Because the legwork is awesome. It’s why they have rookies, and he hadn’t been a rookie in nearly twenty years. But if Abe wouldn’t help…

He reached again for the phone, intending to give it one more try, even if it was a Saturday night and Glitsky was at home relaxing with his wife. He turned off the answering machine in the office and plugged the phone into the jack.

The doorbell.

Oh, my God! Jane!

He dropped the darts on his desk and sprinted around the corner, through his bedroom and kitchen, and down the hall. It wasn’t Jane.

“Mr. Hardy?”

Hardy nodded.

“Your keys, sir, and the sheriff says thanks again.”

Hardy remembered his manners. “You want a cup of coffee? How you getting back down?”

He had stood up Jane. There was no way she was still waiting for him.

“Highway Patrol will pick me up if I could borrow your phone? The sheriff-he got it okayed.”

Hardy made a pot and the two men talked baseball for most of an hour while they waited for the Highway Patrol.

After the deputy had gone, Hardy stood outside on his front lawn. The fog had come in, though it wasn’t heavy. It presaged a return to normal weather. Without a coat on, he walked up to the corner and saw the restaurant where he was to have met Jane. The lights were still on.

He stood outside its front window looking in. Jane wasn’t there. Cold now, he jogged back to his house. Coming up the steps, he heard the telephone ringing, but it stopped when he was inside, running back to the office. Maybe if it was Jane he could meet her for a nightcap, explain what had happened. Maybe she’d even believe him.

But there was no message on the answering machine, because he had unplugged it.

Somebody’s trying to tell me something, he thought, picking up his darts again. He hit every number from twenty down to the bull’s-eye in thirty-four throws.

HE AND Jeffrey had to get it straight.

It had eaten at Cruz all day, from the early-morning jog along the Marina to brunch at Green’s. It had kept him from his Saturday nap, had even driven him from his house to the office in the middle of the afternoon. Now, after the late dinner and two bottles of wine, in the afterglow he saw no way to avoid it any longer.

Jeffrey lay flat on his back half covered with a pink sheet. He appeared to be asleep, but Cruz didn’t think he was. He was very much like the cats he loved so much. He just relaxed completely, with his pilot on slow burn. At the gentle touch, Cruz running a finger from armpit to nipple, he opened his fantastic eyes, visible as blue even in the half-light.

“Hi,” Jeffrey whispered. “I’m right here.”

This was the boy’s element. The trick, to Cruz, was to be happy with him here and to quit trying to turn him into something he wasn’t. He’d thought about it all day. Jeffrey wasn’t made for intrigue or business-he was made for pleasure, for relaxation.

“You are here, aren’t you?”

“Always.”

Cruz sighed. God, he loved him. “Can we talk a little?” Funny how he wasn’t really the boss here at home, and it didn’t bother him at all.

“Sure.” He sat up, pulling the blanket around his waist.

“I think we have to get clear between us that Ed Cochran never came here.”

JeflFrey cocked his head. “But he did, Arturo.”

“I know, I know he did. But our story, yours and mine, should be the same if anyone else asks about it.”

Jeffrey opened his eyes all the way. “But why shouldn’t we tell the truth? We talked to him. What’s wrong with that?”

“In itself, nothing. But there are people who might try to make it something.”

“But why?”

“Because, Jeffrey, he was killed in my parking lot.”

“But he wasn’t killed. He killed himself. You said he did.”

“Of course,” Cruz said, speaking slowly now. “I know that. That’s what I meant. But his death is connected to me by that very fact. And I think it would be smarter not to draw any further attention to it.”

Jeffrey reached out a long hand and drew his fingernail across Cruz’s jaw. “ ’Turo, you didn’t kill him, did you?”

Cruz folded his hands in his lap and forced himself not to lose his temper. Jeffrey tended to keep missing the essential point. “No, Jeffrey. I didn’t kill him.”

“But you did see him? That night, no? When you came home so late.”

“We agreed I came home before nine o’clock, didn’t we? We’ve already told the police that.”