That was also smart planning on the crook’s part.

“Don’t you think you should tell me what this is about?” Donnally said. “Maybe you’ve got the wrong guy.”

The gun jabbed him in the back again.

“Raise your arms.”

Donnally followed the order and felt the tug and rip of Velcro and the yanking of his semiautomatic from its holster. He then felt two barrels against his back.

“I know exactly who you are,” the man said, “and I’ll tell you exactly what this is about. First, I want to know where my money is, and second, what was the deal you had with Hamlin.”

“What money?”

“Don’t fuck with me.”

“I found some money, but it’s been seized by SFPD. I couldn’t get it for you now even if I wanted to. And with that gun at my back, trust me, I want to.”

“I don’t believe you. The only reason you’re involved in this is because you and Hamlin had to be partners and you’re protecting your interest. Last thing you’d do is let the police grab a quarter of a million dollars.”

“I didn’t find two-fifty. I found about one-forty in cash, that’s it. There are witnesses who watched me count it and hand it over. A homicide detective and Hamlin’s assistant.”

The man didn’t respond. Donnally felt the gun barrels move against his back, the man’s outward movement reflecting inward uncertainty.

Finally, the man said, “What do you mean seized? Like forfeited?”

Using the word “forfeited” sounded to Donnally like an inadvertent admission that the funds were the proceeds of crime.

“No, just booked into evidence.”

The man mumbled to himself. Donnally could only make out the words “none” and “cash” and “¯d·u má,” a Vietnamese swearword that Janie’s father had taught him: motherfucker.

“I take it that it wasn’t supposed to be in cash,” Donnally said.

“That son of a bitch.”

“Maybe you should’ve checked into that before you killed him.”

“If I killed him, we wouldn’t be standing here. I would’ve gotten what I wanted first.”

“Sometimes accidents happen.”

“Keep playing the fool and an accident may happen to you.”

He’s wrong about that, Donnally thought. Nothing would happen to him as long as the slick-shoed gunslinger believed Donnally controlled Hamlin’s money.

“You have to give me a hint,” Donnally said, “How will I go about finding it if I don’t know who it’s from, or what it’s from, or why you gave it to him, or how you gave it to him.”

The man didn’t respond.

“Or were you expecting me to write a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar check made out to To Whom It May Concern?”

The man still didn’t respond.

“There was no inside deal that brought me into this,” Donnally said. “And I didn’t want to do it. Other than when Hamlin cross-examined me in homicide trials, I only talked to him once. And that was a year ago and on the phone.”

The man mumbled again. Donnally could only make out the swearwords, and they seemed directed at himself, rather than at Donnally or Hamlin. There must’ve been something the man had been good at, or at least good enough to afford the clothes he was wearing, but it wasn’t kidnapping. As if to confirm Donnally’s opinion, what the man said next just sounded stupid.

“If he had the cash you found,” the man said, “maybe there’s more. In fact, I’m thinking that there has to be. Lots.” Another jab with a barrel. “And you’re going to find it and hand it over.”

“You got a business card or something?” Donnally said. “We’ll need to keep in touch.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll hear from me.”

“Maybe we can do lunch.”

“Fuck you.”

Donnally heard the shoe scrapes of the man backing away, and asked, “What about my gun?”

“I’ll . . .” The man hesitated. He hadn’t thought this part through. Donnally guessed he had to decide whether he was a crooked businessman trying to recover money or a just a mugger. “I’ll leave it in the wheel well of the car nearest the stairs.” He forced a laugh. “I suspect you’ll need it. Mark Hamlin kept a lot tougher company than me and I need you alive.”

“That’s something we can agree on,” Donnally said. “I need me alive, too.”

Chapter 30

As Donnally slid his semiautomatic back in its holster and descended the ramp to the sidewalk, he was less concerned about a second visit from the flustered Vietnamese gunman than about what Hamlin was doing with the quarter-million dollars. There was no question in Donnally’s mind that it was crime proceeds, but what crime and by what device had Hamlin received it, and what had the crook expected him to do with the money?

The easy answer, maybe too easy, was that Hamlin was laundering it.

The man expected the money to still be in cash, while the problem for drug traffickers was to find ways to convert it into untraceable assets. That suggested Hamlin would’ve received it just before his death and hadn’t had time to launder it.

After again stepping into the flow of pedestrians and heading in the direction of Hamlin’s office, Donnally thought of his conversation with Lemmie. Maybe it wasn’t about money laundering, at least not directly. Maybe Hamlin had chased the dragon all the way into the drug trade and he was supposed to have used the money to purchase opium from his connection in Thailand.

What better cut-out for a drug trafficking organization than a white lawyer with a confidential trust account to move money to Asia to purchase narcotics?

But again, the man expected Hamlin still had the cash, which implied that the deal—if it really was a drug deal—hadn’t been done yet.

In either case, where was the money?

Donnally suspected the man felt a little foolish as he’d left. He’d come with a gun only because he fantasized that Donnally and Hamlin were partners and that Donnally was a crook like him who could be intimidated because he couldn’t run to the police for protection. But there was no basis for that belief other than a wish that it be true.

Now, standing in the same spot at the same intersection, Donnally felt an itch between his shoulder blades, wondering who would be next to press a gun barrel against his spine.

By accepting the role as the special master to investigate Hamlin’s murder, Donnally realized that he had become a proxy for the man, the living dead, and he didn’t want to become the dead dead.

Donnally took a few steps up around the corner to separate himself from the crowd, then called Navarro and asked him to find out whether the garage had a videotape surveillance system and to get a copy of the recording for the last two hours. That would be enough time to spot the gunman casing the garage, if he did, and him and Donnally walking inside, and then exiting.

As he turned toward the corner, he noticed patrons lined up in front of Café La Maison across the street, queued up men and women dressed in suits and long coats, confined by woven stanchion ropes. Stepping forward, then pausing. Stepping forward, then pausing. Sure that when they arrived inside the wine would be exquisite, the dinners would be satisfying, and the desserts would be just.

Maybe that’s what he needed, Donnally told himself. A series of lines, or perhaps chutes, to organize all those who had unresolved issues with Hamlin—and perhaps even for the one who had resolved his issue through murder.

One for the tricked.

One for the cheated.

One for disappointed crime partners.

One for those denied justice.

And one line labeled “Other.”

He suspected that the last would be the longest.

“Wait” changed to “Walk” and he continued on, arriving at Hamlin’s office five minutes later.

The door lock made the kind of hollow click that sounds when a room is empty, and this was.