“Say hi to her for me.”

Dang. How did she know?

But Alicia didn’t pick up when he called her on her cell phone, so he left a message and then tried her brother and got another strikeout. It was turning out to be that kind of day. So he drove back on Lincoln alongside Golden Gate Park, a plan for the next couple of hours developing in his mind.

When he got to the Panhandle at the east end of the park, he found a parking spot and walked back to the bocce court that hid itself very effectively beneath the cypresses. Maybe his luck was changing, because there, as he’d hoped, in the company of three other old geezers was his grandfather, lining up a shot. Mickey waited until he’d thrown-a damn good roll that stopped inside all the other balls and only a couple of inches from the jack. It must have been the last shot of the round, since it drew enthusiastic applause from Parr’s team and good- natured snarling obscenities from the other men as all of them started walking down the court to pick up.

When they turned back, Jim saw Mickey and raised a hand. “You see that shot?” he asked. “I’m on fire today. We’re up eight three this game. You know all these reprobates?” As Mickey nodded all around, Jim asked, “Everything all right? Tamara okay?”

“Yeah, she’s good. She loves being back at work, I’ll tell you that. Otherwise, everything’s fine except nobody in the world is home, which makes it hard to hook up with people. So since I’ve got the time I thought I’d go get something for dinner and then I thought I’d stop by and see if there’s anything you especially felt like.”

Jim shrugged. “You make it, it’s going to be good, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“Even goat?”

Another shrug. “Never had it. Can you just go out and buy goat?”

“Sure. Bi-Rite’s got it. They can get anything. You’d really eat goat if I made it?”

“I’d eat anything, Mick. You know me. You might check with Tam, though. She might have some thoughts on goat.”

“I’m thinking of inviting somebody else over too.”

“Whatever,” Jim said. “I’m easy.”

One of the bocce players called over and Jim told him to keep his fucking shirt on, then came back to his grandchild. “So how’s the case going?”

“Decently, I guess. Tam thinks Wyatt might have found the murder weapon. Meanwhile, I’m eliminating the bad tips and getting to meet a really fun whole new class of people that I’d never otherwise get to know.”

“What’s that?”

“Apparently sane whack-jobs.”

“No, not what’s the fun new class of people, Mick. What’s the murder weapon?”

“A tire iron, maybe.”

Jim Parr’s face hardened. “Bastard. You getting any closer to who did it?”

“Not that I know of. Maybe there’ll be fingerprints or something on the tire iron, but that would be a long shot. So probably not.”

“Shit. Maybe I should just go out there.”

“Where?”

“Sunset.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know. Talk to some people. See if they’d talk to me. Find out what was really happening.”

“I’ve got a better idea, Jim. Don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a really dumb idea, that’s why not.”

“Well, it’s hard for me to believe that nobody out there knows anything at all. I mean, Dominic just has a regular day of work and then goes home and meets somebody who kills him? Somebody must have known or seen something, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I do. But we can’t seem to get started down any trail that leads anyplace.”

“All I’m saying is maybe I could.”

“Right. And why is that? Because you’re a trained investigator?”

“Hey, smart-ass, I’m as trained as the next guy. If I heard something important, I know for damn sure I’d recognize it. I know those people out there.”

“But we don’t know it’s one of them.”

“Well, that just goes to show what you know.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, it’s staring you right in the face and you don’t see it.”

“What is?”

“The plain, simple truth about Dominic, which is that Sunset was his whole life. He lived and breathed it, morning, noon, night, weekends, holidays. His. Whole. Life. Get it? If somebody killed him, and it wasn’t completely random, it had to have something to do with Sunset. Period. Maybe only a little bit. But something. Which means it’s probably right there if you know what to look for.”

This speech, since there was little to refute in it, shut Mickey right up. He took a few deep breaths through his nose, his mouth a tight line. “You might be right about that,” he said finally, “but you going out there is still a dumb idea.”

“Oh. Okay, then. I won’t.”

“Jim.”

“No. You convinced me. I promise I won’t go out there.”

“A promise is a promise, you know.”

“Absolutely. Scout’s honor too. Now listen, I’ve got to get back to kicking some ass in my game, and you’ve got to go buy some goat. I’ll see you tonight, all right?”

“Right.”

Once upon a time, in the early days of the current administration of District Attorney Clarence Jackman, Gina Roake had been an original member of his “kitchen cabinet,” advising him on municipal and legal matters while he grew into the position to which-much to his surprise-he’d been appointed. The cabinet remained in its informal existence, meeting almost every Tuesday for lunch at Lou the Greek’s for about a year, and during that time, its members found that they had formed strong bonds with one another. Defense attorneys like Roake, her partner Dismas Hardy, and her then-fiancé David Freeman somehow managed to find common ground with the likes of Jackman, the city and county’s chief prosecutor, and Abe Glitsky, then deputy chief of inspectors of the San Francisco Police Department.

Also among the members of the cabinet was Jeff Elliot, the writer of the Chronicle’s popular CityTalk column. Elliot had contracted multiple sclerosis as a young man and over the years had gradually declined to the point where he now only rarely left his wheelchair or his desk in the basement of the Chron’s building at Fifth Street and Mission. Bearded, decidedly heavyset, and with thick graying hair grown well over his ears, he was nevertheless as sharp as ever, a repository of pretty much everything that could be known about the city, its residents, or its institutions, public or not.

Now, unable to allay her concern about her boyfriend Wyatt Hunt’s nonchalance in his attitude toward both his investigation into Como’s death and the presence of Len Turner in the mix, Gina Roake was sitting on a hard wooden chair catercorner to Elliot in his tiny cubbyhole of an office.

It was four-thirty on Tuesday afternoon.

“Actually,” Elliot was telling her, “if I believed in coincidences, I’d say it was quite a coincidence you happening to come by here today with that question.”

“Why is that?”

“Because just today, I…” Rummaging around on the surface of his desk, he extracted a sheet of paper from a small pile of them. “Well, here. Troglodyte that I am, I still ask for and get hard- copy galleys. They hate me for it, but what are they going to do? I’m a star. So, anyway, this is tomorrow’s column. You might find it somewhat interesting.”

CityTalk

BY JEFF ELLIOT

Everyone knows that the murder last Tuesday of community activist Dominic Como has left his flagship Sunset Youth Project (“SYP”) in a precarious state. But CityTalk has learned from sources in the city’s Health Services Department that its troubles may have begun before Mr. Como’s death. The sources, who wished to remain anonymous because the reports they spoke about were not due to become public until later this week, portrayed an organization rife with political intrigue and corruption.

Roake looked up from the page. “Let me guess,” she said. “Como and his pals were lining their pockets with grant money.”