“Ray, open the door.” Glitsky often surprised Hardy, but never more than with his patience. “We’re just here to talk.” He put a light hand on Hardy’s arm and nodded, reassuring.

In twenty seconds they heard another rustling inside, and then a chain being released.

The door opened, and Ray was walking away from them, across the smoke-filled room, to his couch. Hardy and Glitsky followed, stepping over pictures, fallen leaves, of Maxine.

Ray huddled sideways at one end of the couch, legs hugged to his chest. Glitsky motioned for Hardy to sit in one of the director’s chairs and sat himself on the couch two feet from Ray, hands folded in front of him, feet flat on the ground.

One of the lamps was knocked over on the floor. This wasn’t vu zjahday, but the other one. The scattered pictures, the broken lamps. Did somebody break lamps for a living around here?

“She took it all.”

Ray had finally raised his head. Hardy had seen more life in store-window mannequins. His eyes, Jesus!

“Took what, Ray?” Abe, unfazed, gentle.

Ray put his head back down into his knees. Hardy saw the hands tighten around the legs he held close to him. Trying to get collected. Back up. Over to Hardy. There was no look of surprise-he recognized him but couldn’t say from where.

“Took what, Ray?” Glitsky prompted.

“Everything,” he said. “She took it all.”

“The insurance money?” Hardy asked.

Ray shook his head, all inside himself. “I mean, we were splitting that. That was always understood. That was our deal. We’d still be friends.”

Hardy and Glitsky exchanged glances.

Abe leaned back into the couch. “What happened to the money, Ray?”

“She cashed it.” His eyes went to the wall of pictures, half torn down. “She split it with Ingraham. They just took it.”

“Which brings us-” Hardy began, but Glitsky held up his palm again.

“Where did they take it, Ray?” The repetitious first name, like a mantra keeping them close.

“It must have been to Ingraham’s.” Ray met Abe’s eyes. “You guys didn’t find it at her apartment.”

“At the barge, you mean?”

Ray nodded.

“So was it there, Ray?”

No answer.

“How ’bout it, Ray? Were you there?”

“No. I didn’t, I don’t even know where it is.”

“Maybe they put it in the bank.”

Ray turned to Hardy. “No, I went to the bank. They took it in cash.”

Glitsky’s eyes told Hardy to shut up. “You didn’t go to Ingraham’s last week at all? The night Maxine was killed?”

“No, I told you. No. I’ve never been there.”

“But your gun was there. Your gun killed Maxine.”

“I told you that, too. I gave it to her before. I told you.”

Glitsky leaned over, patted Ray’s knee. “I know, Ray. I know what you told me. The problem is, you also told me you were here by yourself that night, and we’ve run across somebody who says you weren’t.”

“Your friend Warren,” Hardy said.

Recognition dawned and Ray glared at Hardy. “You weren’t a cop last time. You were with Court the other night.”

Glitsky came back in. “That doesn’t matter, Ray. What matters is what you were doing that night. If you weren’t here.”

“I was here.”

“Maybe we should all go visit Warren, huh?”

“No, we can’t do that!”

“Why not, Ray? Is he lying?”

“I don’t know, I can’t think.” He put his head back down on his knees.

“You have to think, Ray.” Glitsky closing in. “Is Warren lying? We’ll get everybody in one room under oath if you want.”

His eyes were wild now, skitting from Hardy to Glitsky, across the room, as though he were giving some thought to running.

“Come on, Ray. Just tell us. You were here or Warren was here. Which one was it?”

“You can’t tell him.”

“Tell who what, Ray?”

“Warren.” He shook his head. “No. I promised I wouldn’t tell. We can’t.”

Suddenly the light went on for Hardy. “You were both here,” he said. “You were in bed with Courtenay. You couldn’t answer the door for Warren because then he’d find that out.”

Ray nodded. “He might not have finished the movie. He would have thought we’d both betrayed him.”

“Which you did,” Hardy said.

“No! It wasn’t like that! Court came by to see how I was doing. She was worried about me being so bummed out about Maxine. Then we had a glass of wine and got a little stoned, and you know…” He looked from Glitsky to Hardy. “You’re not going to tell Warren, are you?”

“Let’s go, Diz.” Glitsky was on his feet, Mr Nice Guy gone with the warm breeze. He was already halfway to the door. Hardy was up behind him.

“I promised Courtenay,” Ray whined. “You won’t tell Warren, will you?”

Glitsky turned at the door. “Not unless it comes up,” he said.

“If he’d done it, forget all the Warren-Courtenay bullshit, he’d have tossed the barge for the money. And there wasn’t any sign of that. I believe Ray doesn’t have the money.”

“So do I.” Glitsky didn’t take his eyes off the road. They were heading back downtown on Geary.

“So where do you suppose it is, the money?”

“That question has crossed my mind,” Abe said. “The money is a new angle.”

“People get killed for money all the time, don’t they?”

Glitsky stopped at a light. “So I’ve heard.” They sat. The light changed.

“Green means go,” Hardy said.

The car moved forward. Hardy told Abe he thought they ought to go talk to Louis in the hospital. Something about a car, but Glitsky’s mind was still on the money.

“Baker doesn’t have the money,” he said. “He never had any money.”

“But he might be able to tell us what kind of car Rusty Ingraham was driving.”

Abe didn’t reply.

“But he might be able to tell us what kind of car-”

“I heard you,” Abe said. He hit another light. “Here’s the thing, Diz. I’m following the thread of who was there. Baker, okay. But he’s on the shelf, for the time being, anyway. For a while there we thought it might have been Ray, but I believe Ray. Rusty was schtupping Maxine. You believe that?”

Hardy nodded.

“Okay. So now we’ve got Hector Medina and Johnny LaGuardia.”

“Hector was on the barge?”

“He’s says not. He worked a double. But hey, since it seems to be our day to be thorough, and we’re going right by there anyway…”

The Sir Francis Drake hadn’t changed much in the week since Hardy had last been there. A plaque read ‘Security’ on a door on the third floor at the end of a long hall of doors.

Hector was sitting at his desk, reading a newspaper.

He didn’t have any outer office, much less a secretary. Glitsky and Hardy pulled up a couple of wooden chairs.

“I don’t know if you’d heard,” Abe said. “Treadwell’s in the can, or was as of this morning.”

Hector’s hands were crossed over the newspaper. “Yeah, Clarence called with the good news.” He looked at Hardy. “I thought you weren’t on the force.”

“Just spending the day with my buddy Abe.”

“The funny thing is,” Abe said, ignoring the exchange, “in the course of clearing Clarence and Mario you’ll never guess what came up.”

Hector looked at his hands.

“He’s not guessing,” Hardy said.

“You’re not here for that? The dog thing.” He turned his hands up. “C’mon, you guys. I put a little fear of God in him. And it worked, right? What’s the deal?”

“I guess the deal,” Abe said, “is that my friend Hardy here and I were talking about Rusty Ingraham and it came up how you treat people you don’t like. You didn’t like Rusty much, am I right?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it doesn’t seem to go with your personality, with how you do things, that you would call up Rusty and just get cold feet and hang up. It seems more like, if you had a message for him, you’d go see him.”

Medina pushed back a ways from his desk. “I never really had a message for him. Not like I did with Treadwell. I realized that when I called him.”