Glitsky pursed his lips, thinking for a minute. “Long story,” he said finally. “Politics.”

“You? I thought you didn’t do that.”

Glitsky made a face. “I used to think you got political to move ahead. Now you need it to stay even.”

Hardy sipped at his next to last cup of beer. “Gets to that point, it’s too much stress.”

“That’s how people live, Diz,” Glitsky answered. “It’s how you stay alive.”

Hardy took a long, deliberate drink. “Is it?”

Glitsky’s nose flared. They had come up to the concession area, still away from the others, the gurney. “Yeah, it is. I got a wife and three kids. What am I supposed to do?”

The vehemence took Hardy back a step. “You feel that locked in, Abe?”

“I don’t know how I feel. I’m trying to do my job right and not lose what I got.”

“Well, there’s your problem,” Hardy said, trying to make it lighter, “you’ve got stuff you care about.”

The gurney went by. Deecks and the Cougar followed it, talking quietly. One of the techs came up and started saying something to Glitsky. He listened, nodded once, started walking. “But to answer your question,” he said, “no, this wasn’t a murder. The gentle victim got a little overenthusiastic near the railing. Deecks’ll write it up. End of story.”

“So why’d you come out?”

Glitsky sucked his teeth. “Because, like you Diz, I am enamored of all aspects of police work.” He flicked a finger at Hardy’s cup. “You spare a hit of that?”

Hardy took the backup beer out of his pocket. “Boy Scout training. Be prepared.”

They walked out of the park and started down Cardiac Hill, both of them sipping beer. “The politics really that bad?” Hardy asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just on the rag tonight. Tired. This call came in, I was thinking about going home.”

“So go home now.”

“Yeah.”

They got to Glitsky’s green Plymouth. Hardy tipped his cup back. “You notice beer never gets warm here? It’s one of the great things about this ballpark.”

Glitsky squinted through the fog out toward the Bay. “Nothing gets warm here.” He stood without moving, maybe waiting for some signal. “I’m gonna check in,” he said suddenly.

Hardy eased himself up onto the car’s hood, waiting, wondering. What was Abe checking in again for after he should have been home with his wife and kids five hours ago? Hardy didn’t believe anybody had to be that much of a red hot.

But when Glitsky came out of the car, he was smiling his tight, scar-stretching smile. “Serves the fucker right,” he said.

“Who?”

“The guy who scammed this”-he motioned back to the stadium-“off on me. Two minutes after I left he got himself a righteous homicide. Ought to keep him up all night.” The smile tightened further. “You know, Diz, I think I better see how he’s doing.”

“That smacks of cruelty, Abe.”

“You know, I believe it does.”

They sat in the front seat and waited while Glitsky got patched through. “Carl? Abe. What you got?”

“What do you want to know for?”

“I got done here. Thought you might want some help.”

Hardy heard the voice change. “I don’t need no help, Abe.”

“I said want, Carl. Not need.”

There was a pause. “Okay. Sorry. No, we got it under control.”

“What is it?”

“White male, mid-twenties, tentative ID Cochran, Edward. Shot once in the head-”

“Find out where it is,” Hardy said.

“What? Hold on,” Abe said to the radio.

“Find out where it is,” Hardy repeated. “I know an Ed Cochran. It better not be him.”

The rookie, Giometti, was coming back from the fence that fronted the canal.

“You all right?” Griffin asked.

The kid tried to look brave, even smile, but it didn’t work. What he looked, even in the phony bright lights that had been set up for the techs and photographers, was ashen. His lower lip hung loosely off his mouth, as though he’d been hit and it had swollen. His eyes still had that watery look some people get after they throw up.

“Sorry,” he said.

Griffin turned back to look at the body. “Happens to everybody. You get used to it.”

No, he thought, that wasn’t true. You don’t ever get used to it. What you do is get so you don’t react the same way. Your stomach still wants to come up at you, you still get that dizzy, lightheaded yawing feel that you’re going to go out, but if you want to stay working as a homicide cop, what you do is move that feeling into another plane.

You observe small things better, maybe, which keeps you from seeing the big picture that will make you sick. Or you deny altogether and make light of the gore-something the TV cops do so well. Or you just look at it, say yeah, and concentrate on your job, then go drink it off later. Griffin knew all that. Still, he put his hand on his new partner’s shoulder and repeated, “You get used to it.”

The body lay on its side, covered now with the tarp. Giometti kneeled down next to it.

“You don’t want to look again, though,” Griffin said.

“I better, I think.”

“He ain’t changed. Come on, get up. Check the Polaroids you want to get used to it.”

Giometti took a breath, thinking about it, then straightened up without lifting the tarp. “Why’d he want to do that?”

“What?” Griffin asked.

“Kill himself like that, out here. Nowhere.”

They were in a good-sized parking lot between two office buildings in China Basin. In the middle of the lot a car registered to Edward Cochran, the presumed deceased, sat waiting for the tow truck to take it down to the city lot. Griffin and Giometti had looked it over, finding nothing unusual in or about it except for its distance from the body.

“Why do you think he killed himself?” Griffin wasn’t senior here for nothing. The boy needed some lessons.

Giometti shrugged. “It’s pretty obvious, don’t you think? The note…?”

“The note?” Griffin snorted. He didn’t know what it was, but calling it a suicide note was really stretching. A torn piece of paper in the front seat of the car, saying “I’m sorry, I’ve got to…” That was it. But he wasn’t in the mood to chew out his partner, the kid, so he spoke calmly, quietly. “Nothing’s obvious, Vince. That’s our job, okay? Take what looks obvious and find out the truth behind it. The best murders in the world look like something else. If they didn’t, nobody’d need us.”

Giometti sighed. He looked at his watch. “Carl, it’s eleven-thirty. The guy’s got a gun by his hand. There was a note. I think there’s a few things we can assume here.”

“Yeah, we can assume you want to go curl up with your wife and go goo at your new kid.” A pair of headlights turned into the lot, then another one. Photographers probably. If that was the case, it was time to go, but he wanted to make his point first.

“Get the gun, Vince, would you?”

Giometti walked the few steps over to their car. Other car doors were opening and closing. Griffin looked over but couldn’t see anything outside the perimeter of light.

He opened the Zip-lock bag and stuck a pencil into the gun’s barrel, lifting it to his nose. “Okay. It’s been fired,” he said.

“We knew that.”

“We didn’t know it. We found it next to the stiff and we assumed it. And we won’t know for sure ’til the lab gets it. But,” Griffin sniffed it again, “it smells like it’s been fired.”

Giometti rolled his eyes. “Are we detecting now?” he asked, looking over at the sound of footsteps. “Hey, Abe.”

Glitsky nodded to the boy. “That the weapon?” he asked Griffin.

“No, it’s a fucking garter snake. What are you doing here?”

“I got a potential ID.”

“Yeah, us too.”

Glitsky turned. “Diz?” he said.

Another man stepped out of the shadows. He and Glitsky walked over to the tarp. They both went down to a knee and Abe pulled up a corner of it. The guy put his hand to his eyes. Something seemed to go out of his shoulders.