"I'll bet a million dollars it's the prison guards' union," Brandt said. "He was going to shut 'em down; they took him out."

Farrell was shaking his locks. "Too obvious."

Wu agreed. "And the girl just happened to be there? I don't think so, Jason."

Tombo slugged back the rest of his wine. "Amy's right. We don't have to cherchez la femme here. She's already in it, the wife. She's going to be what it's about, guaranteed."

"Definitely the wife," Sam said. "She found out, confronted them, adios."

"Except I hear she wasn't home," Tombo said.

Sam shook an index finger. "You wait. It'll come out that she was."

"I'm with Sam," Fairchild said. "Either the wife did it, or she paid somebody."

"Any word on who the other victim is yet?" Wu asked.

Hunt realized that he probably had the latest news. "Devin says no. And even if he did know, he wouldn't tell me."

"Not even you, his close personal friend?" Brandt asked.

A nod. "I told him it didn't seem right and then cried a little, but it didn't work."

"Hunt breaks down," Wu said. "That I would like to see."

"Hey, now! That is so cruel." Hunt put a hand to his heart. "I cry. I feel things. I cry at Hallmark commercials, weddings. Sometimes I cry just for fun. Crying is the new laughing."

"I'll try it sometime," Wu said. "So how old was she? The girl?"

"Devin did know that," Hunt said. "Low twenties." Pause. "Palmer was sixty-three."

"Okay," Fairchild said, "now we're talking. That trial opens, every camera in America comes back to San Francisco. Especially if it's the wife."

"It's going to be the wife," Sam said again. "It's always the wife, except when it's the husband." She patted Farrell's hand next to hers. "That's the main reason Wes and I aren't married, in fact. So we don't kill each other."

Wu looked down at her engagement ring, then over to her fiancé. "I still want to get married," she said. "I promise not to kill you."

Brandt planted a peck on her cheek. "Me, too."

Tombo said, "You ought to put that in your vows."

Everybody had a laugh, and in the middle of it, Hunt glanced at Andrea Parisi, who seemed to be somewhere else until she caught him looking and put on a smile that was no less appealing for being so obviously forced.

Sam and Wes went home after dinner, while the rest of the party decamped to the Occidental Cigar Club, a short walk around the corner from Sam's, on Pine. The Occidental had a sign on its front door, THIS IS NOT A HEALTH

CLUB, for those oblivious to the clouds of cigar smoke who might otherwise have wandered in to work out, wearing their Lycra and sweatbands.

The Occidental's owners had figured a way to beat the city's stringent antismoking ordinances. No purveyor of alcohol, quoth the city fathers, could permit smoking in enclosed premises since secondhand smoke was unhealthy for the people who worked inside. The exception was where the owner of a small bar was the only employee of that bar. So at the Occidental, all the employees had a share of the business.

Hunt, sitting with Jason and Amy in the front window-they all had to work the next day-had backed way off on the alcohol during dinner and drank decaf coffee. Wu smoked a small Sancho Panza, and Hunt and Brandt smoked Monte Cristos.

Hunt's eyes kept returning to the bar. He saw that Fairchild, Tombo, and Parisi were now working on fresh rounds that came in snifters. Serious drinks. "They're going to be hurting tomorrow," he said.

Wu glanced over. "Andrea's been slamming 'em back all night, Wyatt, as if you didn't notice. She's going to be dying, but look at her now…"

"You don't have to tell Wyatt to look at her," Brandt said. "He's got that part down."

Hunt deadpanned him. "I'm facing them, Jason. Should I avert my eyes? Besides, there are far worse things to look at."

"Whoa, screaming endorsement," Wu said. "I'll tell Andrea you said that."

Hunt sipped his coffee. "I don't see my opinion impacting her worldview."

"Don't kid yourself," Brandt said. "She speaks very highly of you from time to time."

Hunt said, "I'm sure." Then trying to sound casual, "What does she say?"

Brandt blew some smoke. "She likes when you happen to meet up on your morning runs. Says it's often the high point of her day, just the two of you, puffing along the Embarcadero."

Hunt had been doing business with Parisi as the representative of her firm-Piersall-Morton-for nearly a year. He thought she was attractive enough, but the relationship was strictly professional. Then they had inadvertently met up during their respective jogs one morning a couple of months ago. Six A.M. in dense fog, Parisi telling him she didn't realize he was as much an idiot as she was. He'd run with her until she turned off at Bay, neither of them saying much.

Since then, it hadn't been inadvertence. Now most mornings, Hunt left his place at the same time and ran the same route, and without ever discussing it, they'd met up more than a dozen times. He never considered that she might have been timing it herself.

"What does she like about it?" Hunt asked.

"You don't hassle her," Wu said.

"That's true enough. I don't think I've said a hundred words to her."

"That's what she likes," Brandt said. Obviously, he and Wu had talked about this. "You treat her like a normal person."

"She is a normal person," Hunt said, his eyes flicking over to the bar again, "in sweats with her hair up." He lifted his chin, indicating the media trio. "But that person over there, that's not a normal person. That's a star."

"Well," Brandt said, "she's that, too. Although I don't think she's as happy with that or committed to being that person."

"She doing a great imitation, then," Hunt said.

"She's trying to figure it out." Wu exhaled smoke. "I mean, can't you see the attraction? New York. Fame and glamour. On TV every day. Huge bucks. You know what she's been making all this time she's been doing Donolan?"

"I guessed minimal," Hunt said. "I thought mostly it was advertising for her firm."

Brandt shook his head. "Nope."

"She started at five grand a week," Wu said, "and got great ratings. Now it's twenty."

Hunt nearly choked on his drink. "Twenty thousand dollars a week? For three sound bites a day if she's lucky?"

Brandt said, "She goes to New York, it's five hundred K a year-and goes up fast."

"Which," Wu added, "beats seventy hours a week with Piersall."

"It beats anything I've ever heard of," Hunt said. He took in the scene at the bar. "No wonder she's hustling it."

"Well." Wu, almost wistful, turned her head to look. "But as you say, she's a normal person at heart." Over at the bar, as they watched, Parisi clinked glasses with Fairchild, and her wonderful contralto laugh carried across the room. Wu sipped her espresso. "I'm just afraid she's fighting herself."

Hunt leaned in closer to Wu. "What do you mean?"

"She wouldn't have to tank herself up so much if it came easy. I mean the big personality, the star stuff. You don't need to drink that much if you're happy, Wyatt. Believe me, I know whereof I speak."

Hunt had his eyes on Andrea. "Maybe she's just partying."

"Maybe," Wu admitted, "but when I was partying like that not so long ago, I wasn't happy. I was hiding."

"And I found you," Brandt said.

She lifted his hand and kissed it. "And thank God you did."

"You guys should get a room," Hunt said.

Brandt's hand moved over Wu's back. "Maybe we should," he said.

Again Parisi's laugh carried over to them. At the bar, they seemed to have ordered yet another round and clinked their glasses again.