Hardy couldn’t bring himself to look at his friend, who kept talking. “I mean, you used to be a cop and all. You know the procedures-”

“Mose, I was a street cop a couple years before law school. That’s a long way from homicide.”

“Still, you could find out some things. Make sure they’re doing it right.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t do that anymore.” He looked down. “And I’m out of Guinness.”

“Fuck the Guinness.”

“And fuck you.”

The two stared it down. “Well, I don’t know, Mose. Maybe I’ll ask around a little. That’s all. No promises.”

“Okay, but I want to pay you. And I’ll pay you for the time off anyway.”

“Don’t pay me. That makes it like a job.”

“That’s what makes you tick, Hardy. Call something your job.”

“How about I do it for Frannie?”

“And what’ll you live on?”

“Spongecake, man, shrimp and Guinness. Same as now.”

McGuire threw a round. “How about twenty-five percent of this place?”

“The Shamrock?”

McGuire looked around. “Yeah, that’s this place.”

Hardy sat down on that, drummed his fingers on a table. “Why don’t we first wait and see what the cops come up with?”

“And what if that’s suicide?”

Hardy threw a dart. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I could look into it.”

CARL GRIFFIN knew he had to get over it, but it wasn’t easy. He’d gone up for his performance review on Monday, yesterday, knowing that his performance had been more than adequate, and knowing it might not matter at all. Glitsky and Batiste, a mulatto and a “Latin surname”-Christ, he loved that, Frank being as absolutely white as he was-were also up for promotion, and there was a formal mandate in the entire city and county bureaucracy to move minorities up. He thanked God there wasn’t a gay guy in homicide. He’d be a shoo-in for the next lieutenant. On the other hand, maybe Griffin should announce that he was gay, was coming out of the closet and because of his new status should be acclaimed the next lieutenant.

So he’d entered the office for his review with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. What he actually said was: “Look, I got any chance for this or not? ’cause if not, let’s cut the bullshit and I’ll go back to work.”

And Frazelli had looked over at Rigby, the Chief, and they’d both gotten that uncomfortable expression that seemed to come with upper management, passing it along to Carl’s union rep, Jamie Zacharias, who had said: “If Glitsky or Batiste fuck up at all, you’re in.”

So Carl, before he’d even sat down, found his interview over. What had they been planning to talk about? he wondered. He’d gotten the bottom line out of them in about a second. Waiting for Glitsky or Batiste to fuck up would be like waiting for one of them to die. Eventually they would, but you didn’t want to set your watch by it.

Maybe he should have asked if Abe or Frank had done anything better than he did, were better cops. But he knew it wasn’t that. They had to pick somebody, and in today’s San Francisco if that somebody was a honky on any level, there had better be a compelling reason. This was a city where people like Ralph Nader and Cesar Chavez were considered near-Fascists by some. Hell, Griffin had interviewed people who believed that Karl Marx himself had been right wing because he hadn’t invented women’s lib, while he was at it, along with communism.

So he’d stomped out, slamming the door, then sulked in his cubicle the rest of the day, leaving his interviews to Giometti, then letting Abe follow up the Candlestick stiff, which left him the only logical choice when, an hour later, the call from down in China Basin had come in.

Now Carl Griffin was sitting in his car outside his partner Vince Giometti’s apartment on Noe Street. The fog almost completely obscured the streetlight at the intersection in front of him, forty yards away. The steam from the cup of Doggie Diner coffee clouded the windshield. The stuff seemed to stay hot about half a day. Maybe it was the acid they put in it.

His partner and he had been up until after two, breaking it to the wife. So today was starting late. He honked his horn again. C’mon, kid, put your pecker back in your pants and come to work.

Christ! he thought. They ought not to let homicide guys be married. So what if he was married-it wasn’t anything to talk about. It had never kept him home and never would, that was for sure.

He kept thinking about instinct.

If there was one thing that separated the good cops from the very good, it was instinct. You didn’t want to overdo it, Griffin knew, and ignore evidence, but every once in a while a situation came up that seemed to point in an obvious direction and your instinct made you stop and reevaluate.

Glitsky was up for lieutenant. He was up for lieutenant. Frank Batiste likewise. Okay. So at this moment one of those two was standing in the roadway, trying to direct traffic, point Griffin in the obvious direction.

Nine years a homicide cop, and not once before had Abe Glitsky showed up at a scene with his two cents’ worth.

Why do you think that could be?

Maybe Glitsky knew something he didn’t know. Okay, the Cochran kid could have done himself, maybe not. But why would it benefit Glitsky if he- Griffin -came down for a homicide, which was the direction Glitsky was pointing?

Did he know something? Who was that guy he brought to the scene?

Giometti, cleanly shaved, smiling, opened the door. He had a thermos of what was probably fresh coffee with him, a paper bag full of goodies.

“Want a bagel, Carl?” he said.

“Something tells me Cochran might have done himself,” he replied. He took the bagel.

“But the gun was fired twice.”

“Yeah, I know. First time could’ve been three weeks ago, two months, a year even.”

“And the wife said-”

“Wives don’t know how their husbands feel about squat.”

Giometti, he could tell, was thinking about saying something and decided against it. He chewed his bagel. “What changed your mind?” he finally asked.

Damned if Griffin was going to tell him everything. People talked, even partners. Word got around. It would be good for Glitsky’s career if he fucked up. And Glitsky was pushing him- okay, subtly, but it was there-to decide it was a homicide. And Glitsky, he was sure, knew something he didn’t, something that led in another direction.

Put it together, Carl, he told himself. Make damn sure you’re not being set up.

“Instinct,” Griffin said.

Charles Ging’s nose was a map of capillaries, and his breath smelled like gin. His son didn’t often get close enough to smell him, but now, leaning over the blond desk in his father’s office, it was nearly overpowering.

He was leaning over in anger. His own face was smooth, as though he hadn’t started shaving yet. His eyes were pale blue, hair light brown. He was impeccably dressed in an Italian suit.

What he was saying was, “It’s beyond me. Absolutely. You think you’re doing the right thing, you’re the nice guy, doing everybody a favor. It’s bullshit, man. What you’re doing is gambling with my future. And don’t reach for the goddamn bottle, please.”

Ging shrank back into his padded chair. “I don’t like you to use that tone of voice to me, Peter.”

“The hell with my tone of voice! Listen to what I’m saying, will you? We get blackballed by the Catholic Church and I am personally screwed. You understand that?”

“Of course, but we’re not going to be.”

Peter slammed the desk. “Yes, we are. Don’t you see that? Times are changed. Not changing, changed. Past tense. You don’t play straight, it ever comes out, you’re dead. And it doesn’t matter to you, you’re already finished. Me? I gave up being a doctor to get this place, continue the clean business of covering people with dirt, and now you put the whole thing on the line for what? For a favor to some asshole owns a bar? Jesus, it kills me.”