Now someone was trying to kill him, and he didn’t want to suspect him for the wrong reasons. She got up and went around behind him, putting her hands on his shoulders. “You and I both know you’re not a racist,” she said. “Not even close.”

Hardy shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think of it as an issue anymore. Maybe that means I don’t care about it. All I know is that Baker was an animal ten years ago, and we put him in a cage and he swore when he got out he’d kill me and Rusty, and Rusty is dead and gone the day he gets out. What would you think? How much more evidence would you need?”

She thought a moment, then leaned over and kissed him on the top of the head. “I don’t think much.”

“That’s the right answer,” Hardy said.

Abe Glitsky, returning a little late for work, parked in a space behind the Hall of Justice and went in through the back door, nodding to the pair of uniformed officers who stood by the metal detectors. He turned left by the booking station and went around to the elevators, stopping to pick up an early morning candy bar.

There were six elevators in the bank, and he waited, by his watch, three and a half minutes for the first door to open. During this time he spoke to no one and munched his candy bar, thinking about Hardy’s problem, deciding he probably had one. He owed it to his friend to talk to Louis Baker-at least talk to him, see where he had been two nights ago.

It was dead quiet on the floor. For a moment he thought there must have been a sick-out or some other protest a little more formal than golf clubs. He stuck his head in Investigations and found no one around. No one.

He had been around when Dan White killed Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, and the Hall had the same feel it had this morning. He opened the door to Homicide, passed through the small reception cubicle, which was empty, and opened the door.

The wide-open room was jammed with what looked like every investigator-homicide, robbery, white collar, vice -in the department. The chief himself, Dan Rigby, was talking in front of Lieutenant Frank Batiste’s office.

No one even acknowledged Glitsky’s arrival. He leaned back against the doorpost he had come through and folded his arms, listening. Rigby was speaking very quietly.

“… persons responsible for this will be let go. You got a message to give me, any of you, you come deliver it in person, or you want to memo it, that’s fine, too. But this, this…” He paused and Glitsky saw the vein standing out on the side of his neck. “These insulting, demeaning, unprofessional acts not only won’t be tolerated, they will be investigated with the whole weight of the department, and the perps here will be charged with criminal trespass, criminal contempt”-he was hammering the word criminal-“destruction of city property, vandalism and anything else me and anyone on my staff can think of.”

Rigby stopped talking. A couple of guys had come in behind Abe, catching only the last words. One of them said “What’s up?” which everyone ignored. Several people were smoking in the room, and even through the smoke Abe could detect a locker-room smell beginning to rise. People were nervous, moving in the few seats, shifting from foot to foot.

Rigby looked around the room, making eye contact with everyone who had the guts to meet it. It took a long time, and nobody else said a word.

“So,” he said finally, “I’m giving you perps-and I know you’re in this room-one chance this morning to own up. You come to me, to my office…” and at this a couple of people snickered. “You think it’s funny?” Rigby bellowed. Even Glitsky jumped. The snickering stopped.

Rigby went back to his near whisper. “You come up to see me, wherever I am, by noon. Save the department the time and expense of finding out who you are and you’ll get to keep your pension. If we’re forced to launch a full-scale investigation to find you, you’re out of the department, you lose your pension and if I have any clout at all with the D.A., and I do, you’ll do time.”

The guy behind Glitsky whispered again. “Somebody get killed? What’d I miss?”

Rigby was coming through the massed bodies in the room, following one of his aides. Glitsky moved from the doorway to let him pass. Others started streaming out behind him.

Frank Batiste had been standing next to Rigby and now motioned to Abe. He threaded his way around the outer wall, overhearing snatches of people’s remarks: “Guy can’t much take a joke, can he?”

Impersonating Rigby’s whispered voice: “Criminal trespass, criminal criminal…”

“At least he’ll get out of his office for a while, maybe see what’s going on around here.”

“… my office by noon. Right. Like noon some day next month.”

Laughter. And some people making noises under their breath as they left the room, sounding like cluck cluck cluck.

“Jesus. What happened, Frank?”

Batiste motioned Abe inside his office and closed the door behind them. “Just tell me you didn’t do this, Abe. Please tell me that.”

“Do what?”

“Come on, Abe.”

“Swear to God, Frank. I just walked in this morning to this. I have no clue what’s going on.”

Batiste searched Glitsky’s face for some sign that he was lying. Perhaps satisfied, he went around his desk and sat down wearily. “Last night somebody let themselves in Rigby’s office with about four chickens.”

Glitsky had been to Rigby’s office a couple of times. There was a rug on the floor that had been a gift to the city from the Shah of Iran; a heavy, stunning mahogany desk; several pieces of leather furniture that, Glitsky guessed, cost about what a patrolman made in a year. It took a moment for the significance of the chickens to sink in, and when it did, he smiled. “Pretty clear message,” he said.

“It isn’t funny,” Batiste said. “The room is floating in chicken shit.”

“You don’t think it’s funny?” Abe said. Then, at Frank’s scowl, “No, sir, me neither. That sure isn’t funny.”

“Rigby doesn’t think it’s funny.”

Glitsky bobbed his head. “I picked that up. I’m a trained investigator.”

“Abe, your ass is in a major sling if you did this. I mean it.”

Glitsky rolled his eyes and came back to his lieutenant. “Frank, what in the world makes you think I had anything to do with this? There’s a hundred-odd people in this department.”

“Yeah, how many of them are applying to L.A.-?”

“Thinking of applying-”

“Okay. But who just happened to use the phrase ‘chicken shit’ the day before this-this fiasco?”

“I think I used ‘horseshit,’ Frank.”

“Horseshit, chicken shit, same difference.”

Abe was fighting back his laughter now, wanting to get into the difference with Frank, but feeling it wasn’t really a good time, maybe never would be a good time. Instead he said, “If somebody’d trotted a horse in there-”

But Batiste had had enough. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Back at Glitsky’s desk, Marcel Lanier was waiting. “So the judge says, ‘Farmer Brown, you are charged with the most heinous, of crimes, the crime of bestiality, of having sexual intercourse with animals…’ ”

“Not now, Marcel,” Abe said.

But Lanier continued. “ ‘Specifically, you are charged with carnal knowledge of horses, cows, sheep, dogs, cats, chickens.’ Just then Farmer Brown holds up his hand and says, ‘What kind of pervert do you think I am, your Honor? Chickens? Yuck.’ ”

Glitsky found the paper he’d been looking for, making sure of what he had written under ‘Reason for Leaving Present Employment.’ He wondered if it was strong enough.

Hardy had fond feelings for the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. When his father returned from the Pacific Theater after World War II he had spent his first night back in the States in a VIP room the hotel had reserved for returning POWs. Later he and Hardy’s mother had the honeymoon suite; it was possible that Hardy had been conceived there.