"You think somebody's going to talk to you at one of those places?"

"Well, it's either that or we start slogging through twenty-five years of old records and find every case Allan ever won. And they'll talk to me at the gun shows. I won't wear my uniform."

"Yeah," Lanier replied, "that'll fool 'em."

Glitsky's Friday afternoon had originally been scheduled to be taken up with addressing the Pakistan Association of San Francisco at the Bay Area Band Shell Music Concourse in Golden Gate Park. When he got back to his office from lunch, he debated with himself for the better part of five minutes before placing a call to Frank Batiste.

He told the Chief that there had been a possible development in the Boscacci matter and he personally wanted to look into it. Perhaps, he suggested, one of the department's senior press officers could stand in for him at the Pakistani gig and deliver some poignant remarks, which were certainly to be better received than his own in any event. On his way out the door to his office, Deputy Chief of Administration Bryce Jake Longoria called out and stopped him. Although he ran around as much as any deputy chief, Longoria was again behind his desk, again at his computer.

"I'm out the door, Bryce. What can I do for you?"

"Don't let me slow you down. I was just wondering if you'd had any luck with your jury question."

"My jury question?"

"The last time we talked? Somebody who'd been on a jury somewhere a hundred years ago?"

Glitsky closed his eyes, trying to bring it back. He shook his head, about to give up when the name came. "Elizabeth Cary," he said.

"Maybe. I don't know if you ever told me."

"That was it. Shot at her doorstep last week."

"Still nothing, though?"

"Not with her. Last time we talked, I recall, was about five minutes before LeShawn Brodie broke, and since then Boscacci. Those two washed Mrs. Cary clean out of my brainpan and she hasn't had much opportunity to come back. But why? You got an idea?"

"No." Longoria shook his head, lifted and dropped his shoulders. "It just seemed vaguely like real police work, so it got my attention."

A chuckle tickled at Glitsky's throat. "You, too, huh?"

Longoria waved a hand at his surroundings. "The desk," he said. "You know."

"I hear you."

"So where are you off to?"

Glitsky took a step into the room. "Between us, Bryce, I'm cutting school. Checking out a gun show."

"What for?"

"See if I can pick up a line on somebody selling suppressors illegally. Nobody heard the shot that killed Boscacci."

Longoria held up a finger and turned to his computer, tapped a few keys. "Look at this first," he said. "I may save you a trip."

Glitsky, not particularly wanting to save himself a trip, crossed to the desk and leaned over it. "What am I looking at?"

"I just ran a search for 'gun suppressor.' You know how many hits I got?" He scrolled down to the bottom of the screen. "Five thousand eight hundred twenty-eight. And you're going to a gun show?"

"Got to be quicker than checking all of those."

"Plus, you're not stuck in the office."

"There is that." Glitsky was stuck on the screen. "When did suppressors get legal?"

"Oh, they're not," Longoria replied with a breezy air. "All these listings, they clearly state that sale of suppressors is only permitted for government agencies and police departments."

"Police departments? We don't use 'em."

"Yeah, we do. TAC has a couple. The tactical unit. You don't know that?"

"I haven't done much business with TAC."

"Yeah, well, they're on the roof of a building with hostages downstairs, they want to zap bad guys they meet on the way down without waking up the whole block. That's legal, at least under federal law. But these websites. Check 'em out."

Longoria scrolled through several screens. "Here. These journals on how to make your very own sweet little suppressor from common items in your home shop. 'For information purposes only,' of course, or 'academic study.' I'm sure no one has ever bought one of these books and actually made a silencer."

"No," Glitsky said. "That would be wrong." But he'd already decided that he was going to do some old-fashioned footwork, outmoded though it was. He told Longoria good-bye, then at the door turned around. "You think of anything I can do about Elizabeth Cary, I'd love to hear."

"I'll keep it in mind."

On any given weekend, gun shows are common in Northern California. Glitsky had checked the internet, then made a couple of calls, and discovered that this weekend would feature Gun & Doll shows in several communities- Santa Rosa, San Jose, Fremont, Sacramento and the San Francisco Cow Palace, which was actually in Brisbane, in San Mateo County. The more he thought about the idea- given that they weren't going to waste time looking for a professional hit person- the more he liked it. The suppressor angle might actually give him a lead. And at least, as he'd told Longoria, he was away from his desk and the endless meetings on one of the first truly lovely days of the year.

In his hiking boots, Dockers and a camouflage blouse, he was far more comfortable than he would have been in uniform. Beyond that, he didn't think he much resembled a cop- the camo actually worked to his advantage that way. On his way down to the Cow Palace, he finalized arrangements for his event number detail to hit their snitches and cover all the shows over the weekend, then report back to him on Monday. If everybody struck out, Glitsky might have them begin culling the internet suppliers for their mailing lists and customers. Even if he could get the not-automatic cooperation of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, it would be an enormous and tedious job, pretty much comparable to assembling the list of Boscacci's convictions over the past twenty-odd years. Still, it was early afternoon and he was on the road. An added bonus was that he still had the services of his driver. Paganucci pulled the black Taurus up to the Cow Palace parking lot and Glitsky gave him two hours off.

The right half of the huge, hangarlike structure boasted well over three hundred booths, with ordnance of nearly every conceivable type, as well as all the ancillary clothing, equipment, ammunition and literature. From the smallest imaginable single-shot pistols to shotguns to assault and sniper rifles, to every type of hand-held six-shooter and semiautomatic gun, the sense Glitsky had of the place was that if it fired bullets, you could buy it here. And, of course, the weapons displays weren't limited to firearms- dealers were showcasing a spectacularly wide assortment of personal-use and paramilitary gear, including crossbows, slingshots, hunting and/or combat knives, leather accessories.

The NRA had a booth at each end of every aisle. Business seemed to be brisk. Glitsky couldn't help but make the observation that in spite of an apparently continuous assault from the antigun lobby, the Second Amendment seemed to be holding its own, even in the liberal mecca that was San Francisco.

He was glad to see it.

As a cop, although concerned with the idea of loaded guns getting into the hands of children and/or burglars, he was comfortable enough with the idea of home protection and private weapon ownership; somewhat less thrilled with the assault rifle booths, the really vicious-looking knives, the weapons whose only function was essentially military, their only potential targets human beings.

But no suppressors.

Silencers were illegal in California, but then again, so was marijuana. Glitsky didn't believe that the former were nearly as commonly available as the latter, but the street snitch he'd called on his cellphone, a two-time loser named Walter Phleger, had set him straight. At the Cow Palace, you had to ask for Mort. You had to have a hundred-dollar bill, then about another grand in cash.