Basketball wouldn't ever hold the place in his heart forever reserved for baseball, but besides shortstop, he'd played point guard on his high school team and still got in at least twenty-two games a year with a city league team that played through the fall and early winter, although ironically he wasn't much of a fan of the pro sport. He and Juhle called the NBA the TMA-the Tattooed Millionaires Association-and he also wasn't really fond of the music they played at the games.

But shooting hoops-shooting hoops was the best therapy in the world.

And tonight he needed some, self-administered. So he'd start right at the edge of his half-court hardwood, take a shot, move up a few steps, but still outside the three-point range, take another, get to the top of the key, then the free-throw line. Whenever he missed, he, of course, charged the basket for a layup, then ran it out for another round until he tired. He stood six foot two, and when he'd been a teenager, he'd considered his ability to stuff one of the great athletic achievements of his life, but somewhere in his twenties, that skill had left him. He still tried every time he suited up in his sweats, though-the springs might come back for one fleeting day, and he didn't want to miss them.

Finally, though, the industrial clock over the backboard said it was 11:42. He was dripping and about done in. He liked to go out with three in a row, and he'd made his first two and now stood at the free-throw line, bouncing the ball at his feet a couple of times. Then another two times. Then once. Held the ball for maybe thirty seconds. His breathing slowed.

Dropping the basketball, he stopped the bounce with his foot, pushed it back under him, and sat down on it.

Without taking that last shot, he walked off the court and turned out the lights on the playground side of his place, flipped on the overheads on the living side, went in and showered. When he finished, he went into his bedroom, opened his dresser, pulled out another pair of gray sweats and put them on, then opened another drawer and reached under the T-shirts where he kept the picture.

He hadn't taken it out in a couple of years. He didn't even remember the last time.

It was the only one he had kept of Sophie. The night he'd burned all the rest of them, he'd taken this one out of the frame, but something about it had stopped him. He hadn't been able to make himself erase all signs that she'd ever existed. He couldn't do it.

It wasn't a glamour shot, which was maybe what he liked about it the most-although God knew she'd had the capacity for glamour when the mood struck her-but it captured her. The laugh, the skin, the magic of her. It might have been the night she got pregnant, or, as her glow revealed, she may have already known. But in this shot, she was in her medical scrubs, just off her rounds at the Med Center, on a Saturday evening at the Shamrock Bar where they'd met.

She'd given him a new telephoto lens for his birthday, and Hunt had been shooting extreme close-ups of birds in Golden Gate Park all day. When she'd come in and sat down at the bar, he'd been in the bathroom-timing was his specialty-camera and new honking lens around his neck. When he'd come out, she hadn't seen him. She was talking to the bartender there, laughing at something he was saying. And Hunt had raised his camera, brought her up close enough to touch, and caught her in that moment. When he saw what he'd captured, he'd blown it up to eight by ten and framed it and put it next to their bed, along with her favorite shot of him-on a windboard flying over the bay.

Now he moved the glossy over under the light and laid it flat on the dresser. His face softened by degrees until he put his hands down on either side of the picture and leaned on them.

He'd considered sharing his life with someone back when he was with her. But since then, that feeling had left him. There had been a few women since-nice enough, attractive enough-set-ups by Connie, that type of thing, but if the kind of involvement he'd had with Sophie was going to empty his soul out so thoroughly, his own preservation demanded that he avoid it. He just wasn't going to open that door again. It wasn't worth the pain.

He didn't even know Parisi. Not really. And what he did know wasn't all good by a long shot. But she'd gotten inside him.

"How dumb is this?" he said aloud to the picture.

But, of course, Sophie couldn't answer.

The following morning-Thursday, June 2-Hunt was moved by two considerations to walk the fifteen-odd blocks from his home to his detective agency's two-room office over the Half Moon Café on Grant Avenue in Chinatown.

First, an unexpected break in the fog had created a glorious morning.

The other was that the waiting period was over today-he'd circled the date on his calendar-and he could stop and pick up his new gun, a 380 ACP Sig Sauer P232, which gave him about an inch less barrel and an inch less height than the weapon he'd been carrying for the last couple of years, the Sig P229.

He'd fallen in love with the new weapon the last time he'd been to the range with Devin Juhle, who'd been trying one out and ultimately decided against it. For Devin, it was too small, and he didn't feel he could be as accurate with it. But Hunt had found the opposite to be true. Lighter and easier to handle, the gun performed better for Hunt than anything he'd ever shot. Plus, though the actual spec difference in size wasn't that great, it felt far less bulky in his back-of-the-belt holster.

Armed with his new toy, knocked out by the beauty of the day, Hunt surprised himself by stopping in and buying a bag of freshly made, still-hot char siu bao-sticky dough buns filled with pork in a sweet sauce. The Chinese food last night with Juhle had been so good that he was unable to resist the craving for more this morning. Back out on the street, Hunt's sense of well-being got so much the better of him that he emptied his pockets and put all his coins in the hat of a homeless guy who was sleeping in one of the doorways.

In his office, Tamara was out from behind her desk watering the plants. She wore a red miniskirt, red low-heeled shoes, and a demure white blouse that nevertheless stopped in time to display a couple of inches of taut flat stomach and a faux-diamond navel stud. "If you ever get a job in a real office," Hunt said, "you know they probably won't let you show off your tummy."

She flashed him a tolerant smile. "That's why I won't work in a place like that. Craig likes my tummy."

"It's a fine tummy," Hunt said, "but old guys like me-not saying me personally, but guys like me-might find it distracting in a business environment."

"Well, that's their problem. Not saying you personally, but people like you. We're never going to have this be like a real office, are we? With dress codes and everything?"

"It's unlikely," Hunt said. "Except maybe if Craig pierces anything I can see."

"Does his tongue count?"

Hunt held up a hand. "Tam. Please. Not before breakfast. He hasn't done his tongue, has he?"

"No, but we were talking about maybe the two of us…You wouldn't really fire us, would you?"

"No. Never, I hope. But I also would find it a little hard to have a casual little chat like we're having right now because I would be creeped out."

She smiled at him. "Maybe I shouldn't tell you, then, about Craig's…"

Hunt stopped her. "Better left unsaid," he said. "But speaking of the boy?"

"He's process serving. Six subpoenas."

"Six in one day? Don't tell me somebody's actually getting to trial."

She nodded. "Believe it or not. One of Aaron Rand's clients. Craig's on his cell if you need him." She pointed to the white bag in his hand. "Tell me those are fresh bao."