He held up a finger, stuck his head through a door in the back, yelled, "Hey Chuck, c'mere." Chuck came, Burke put him with the kid, then led Rinker into the back and to a ten-by-twenty-foot plywood-enclosed office in the back. He shut the door behind them and said, again, "Holy shit. Clara. I hope, uh…"

"I need a clean car that'll run good, with good papers. Something dull like a Taurus or some kind of Buick. Sort of in a hurry," she said. "I was hoping you could help me."

His eyes drifted toward the doors, as though they might suddenly splinter. "Are the cops…?"

"No." She smiled again. "No cops. I just got back in the country, and I need a car. Not that you should mention it, if you happen to bump into a cop."

"No problem there," Burke said. He relaxed a couple of degrees. He liked Clara all right, but she was not a woman he would choose to hang out with. "I can get you something off a used-car lot. The guy'll have to file the papers on it, but he can push the date back-for a while, anyway."

"Not forever?"

"No, he'll have to put them through sooner or later, 'cause of bank inventories. If you only needed it for a month or so, he could fake it out that far. Then, if somebody inquired, the papers would show the transfer to the dealer, and he'd show the transfer to you, but there wouldn't be any license or insurance checks or anything. I can guarantee you that it'd be in perfect condition."

"That'd work. I won't need it for more than a month anyway," she said. "Where do I find the used-car guy?"

"I'll drive you over," Burke said. "You paying cash?"

"You think he'd take a check?" she asked.

Burke grinned, not bothering to answer the mildly sarcastic question, and said, "You're looking pretty good."

She smiled back and said, "Thank you. I've been down in Mexico for a while. Got the tan."

"Look like you've been working out. You've lost a little weight since… you know."

"Cut off a couple pounds, maybe," she said. "Got a little sick down there."

"Montezuma's revenge."

"More or less," she said; but her eyes were melancholy, and Burke had the feeling that the sickness had been more serious than that. He didn't ask, and after a pause, Rinker asked, "So where's your used-car guy?"

MUCH LATER THAT afternoon, as they were parting, she tossed her new Rand McNally road atlas onto the passenger seat and said, "If anybody from St. Louis calls, you never saw me."

"I never saw you ever," Burke said. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you make me nervous."

"No reason for it," she said. "Not unless you cross me."

Burke looked at her for a long three seconds and said, finally, "Tell you what, honey. If there was enough money in it, I might mess with the guys in St. Louis. But I'm nowhere stupid enough to mess with you."

"Good," she said. She stepped closer, stood on her tiptoes, and pecked him on the cheek. "Jackie, I owe you. I will get back to you someday and we will work something out that will make you happy."

She waved, got into the beet-red Olds she'd bought for $13,200, and drove away, carefully, like a little old lady from Iowa, down toward the freeway entrance. Burke went back inside his shop, dug behind a stack of old phone books, got his stash, got his papers, rolled a joint, and walked out back to smoke it. Cool his nerves.

Clara fuckin' Rinker, Burke thought. She was pissed about something. God help somebody; and thank God it wasn't him.

RINKER WAS HEADED east to St. Louis-but not that minute. Instead she drove north on I-5, taking her time, watching her speed. She spent a bad night in Coalinga, rolling around in a king-sized bed, thinking about old friends and Paulo and wishing she still smoked. In the morning, tired, her stomach scar aching, she cut west toward the coast and took the 101 into San Francisco.

Jimmy Cricket was a golf pro with a closet-sized downtown shop called Jimmy Cricket's Pro-Line Golf. He was folding Claiborne golf shirts when Rinker walked in, and he smiled and said, "Can I help you?" He was wearing a royal-blue V-necked sweater that nearly matched his eyes, and dark khaki golf slacks that nearly matched his tan. He had the too-friendly attitude of a man who would give you a half-stroke a hole without asking to see your handicap card.

The store was empty, other than Rinker, so she saw no reason to beat around the bush. "I'd like to buy a couple of guns," she said, her voice casual, holding his eyes. "Semiauto nines, if you've got them. Gotta be cold. I'd take a Ruger. 22 if you got it."

"Excuse me?" Jimmy's smile vanished. He was taken aback. This was a golf shop-there must be some mistake.

"I'm Rose-Anne, Jimmy," Rinker said. "You left me that gun I used to kill Gerald McKinley. You put it in a tree up in Golden Gate Park and picked up two thousand dollars in twenties. You remember that."

"Jesus," Jimmy said. His Adam's apple bobbed. "McKinley." He hadn't known what happened with the gun, what it would be used for. The McKinley killing had been in the papers for weeks, as had the somewhat (but not too) bereaved young wife and the very bereaved older ex-wife.

"It was a sad thing," Rinker said. "A man in his prime, cut down like that."

"Well, jeez, Rose-Anne, I don't know."

"Cut the crap, Jimmy. I'll give you two thousand bucks apiece for either two or three guns."

Jimmy processed this for a minute, and she could see it all trickling down through his brain, like raindrops of thought on a windowpane. Okay, he'd been offered money, in the face of his denials. If she was a cop, it'd be entrapment. And if she was a cop, and knew about the tree in the park, he was probably fucked anyway. And if she were Rose-Anne and he didn't sell her the guns, then he might be truly and ultimately fucked. Therefore, he would sell her the guns.

"Uh… maybe you should step into the back." The back was behind a green cloth curtain, smelled of bubble wrap and cardboard, and was full of golf-club shipping boxes and club racks. At the far end was a workbench with a vise. Jimmy pushed a couple of boxes aside and pulled out a tan gym bag, unzipped it, and said, "This is what I got."

Rinker, watching his eyes, decided he was okay, took the bag, stepped back, and looked inside. Three revolvers and three semiautos. All three semiautos were military-style 9mm Berettas. She took one out, popped the magazine-the magazine was empty-cycled the action a couple of times, did the same with the other two, and said, "I'll take them." She looked at the revolvers: One was a. 22, and she put it with the automatics. "You got any long guns?"

"No. I know where you might be able to pick some up, if you want to run down to Bakersfield."

She shook her head. "Naw. I can get my own. How about ammo?"

"I can give you a couple of boxes of Federal hollowpoint for the nines, but I don't have any. 22 on hand."

"Give me the nine," she said. "Silencer?"

"Um, I usually charge two thousand. Good ones are hard to get."

"Can you get it quick?"

"Yes."

"Another two thousand, if it's a good one."

"It's a Coeur d'Alene."

"I'll take it."

He fished around in another box and came up with a purple velvet bag that had once contained a bottle of Scotch. He handed it to her and said, "Quick enough?"

She took the bag, slipped the silencer out. It was a Coeur d'Alene, all right; the absolutely faultless blued finish was the signature. Somewhere, a master machinist was doing artwork. She screwed the silencer onto one of the nines and flipped it out to arm's length, to test the balance. "Good. I'll take the whole bunch."

Jimmy nodded, said, "Okay," moved some more boxes around, picked up a small one, reached inside, and produced two boxes of nine-millimeter ammunition. He handed them to her and asked, "You in town for long?"

Her mouth wasn't grim, but she wasn't exactly radiating warmth. "I was never here," she said.