"If you don't mind."

"No, I don't mind, but I've got to say it breaks my heart to think about the work we put in on that house only to have it all go up in smoke. It was a beautiful job. And the people, too, of course. A tragedy."

"You knew them pretty well?"

"Well, they were clients, you know. I'd done some work for him before, rebuilt his kitchen, maybe three years ago, and it went okay. So we got together again."

"But this time was mostly her?"

"More than mostly. She wrote the checks, so she was the client."

Glitsky filed that bit of information. "And how was she to work with?" he asked.

"Uncompromising, but without a personal edge to it. She wanted things a certain way, and if you didn't give her what she wanted, she'd have us do it again, down to the floorboards if need be. But she was just firm, that was all. Give me that anytime over somebody who changes her mind seventeen times."

Something about Leymar's phrase stopped Glitsky. "So you're saying she did not make lots of changes as you went along?"

"No." He thought about it for another minute. "If you want to see, I've got all the change orders…"

"That's all right. I'd just heard somewhere that she kept adding to the job."

"No more than anybody else. Less than some folks. No, what happened was we got a good design and went ahead and built it."

"So the initial bid was for a million dollars?"

Leymar laughed out loud. "A million dollars? You think I make a million dollars a job and I'm laying my own sprinkler system?" He shook his head, still chuckling. "A million dollars. Jesus Christ. A million is nearly the gross on my best year ever. The gross. Hanover was a good job-hell, a great job, I'll give you that-but it went out for five hundred, maybe a little less. And that's what we brought it in for, too. Give or take. Where did you ever hear a million?"

"Several sources," he said.

"Well, I'd go back to them and tell 'em they've got their heads up their asses. You want, I'll show you my books on it."

"I won't need to do that." Glitsky wiped his own brow. The sun was directly overhead now, the temperature nearing eighty, about as hot as it ever got in San Francisco. "Okay, let's leave the money. I'd like to eliminate the possibility that she was the target instead of him, so I'm hoping to find somebody who might have known her a little bit, see if she had enemies."

"Who wanted to kill her?"

"Maybe."

He shook his head. "That'd be a stretch, I'd say." He thought another minute. "Except maybe if there was some other guy before Hanover."

"Did you get a feeling that there had been?"

"No. It's just that she was…"-he glanced over his shoulder-"I don't want Maggie to hear me, but she was an unbelievably attractive hunk of woman. My crews would trade off with each other so they could work on her place and get a glimpse of her. If she'd dumped some guy for Hanover, I could see him maybe taking it out on both of them."

"Did she or Hanover ever say anything to make you think that?"

"No. We didn't talk personal. They were clients, that was all. We didn't hang with the same social crowd." He gestured around him. "As you probably figured anyway, huh?"

Dismas Hardy came down the stairs from a rare Saturday afternoon nap to find Abe Glitsky in his kitchen, helping Vincent cut up vegetables on a cutting board on the counter, the two of them working silently next to a rapidly diminishing pile of tomatoes, onions, peppers, okra. When he stopped in the doorway, Glitsky glanced his way and, just loud enough to be heard, said, "Here he is now, Vin. I'll tell you later."

Hardy crossed to his boy and put a hand on his shoulder. "Have I ever told you your Uncle Abe's Indian name, Vin?"

"His Indian name?"

"You know, Dances with Wolves, like that? A phrase that captures a person's essence. Abe's is People Not

Laughing. Why? Because every time you see him he's surrounded by people who are not laughing. But I do think that actually crying real tears is taking it a little far." "It's the onions," Vincent said.

"That's what they all say." Hardy threw a chunk of tomato into his mouth. "What are you guys making?"

"Gumbo," Vin said. "I need it for school on Monday and wanted to make a test batch."

Hardy squeezed his son's shoulder. "I love this boy. Make it hot," he said.

"I'm thinking of calling Treya, inviting her over, too," Glitsky said.

"That would be swell, and I love your wife even more than I like you, but weren't you guys just here? It seems like only yesterday."

"It was yesterday. Maybe we should all just move in since we're spending so much time here anyway. We'd save a bundle on rent. And Vin, you could get in time with that critical small-child experience you're going to need when you have your own kids."

"I'm not having kids."

"Sure you are."

"No, I'm not. I'm going to be a rich bachelor." "There's a noble calling," Hardy said. "How are you going to do the rich part?" "I'm thinking the lottery."

"He got that from you," Hardy shot at Glitsky. "The adults in this house don't play the lottery. And you know why? Because we're good at numbers, and the lottery is the tax for the math-challenged. I believe I've even mentioned this to you before."

"Don't listen to your father, Vin. Somebody wins the lottery every few weeks, and you've got as good a chance as anybody else."

Withering Glitsky with a glance, he said, "Pathetic," and looked at his son. "You got a backup? Plan, I mean, to get rich."

"I guess if things got tight I could always be a movie star for a while."

"There you go," Glitsky said proudly. "Plan B, ready to go."

"Although traditionally," Hardy said, "doesn't the movie star come from within the ranks of the supremely attractive?"

Vin looked at Glitsky, sniffed theatrically. "He cuts me deep." "I heard it."

"It happens all the time. My self-esteem's in the toilet."

Hardy stopped in the middle of a bite of red pepper. "You'll live, I promise. I didn't even know the word 'self-esteem' when I was a kid."

"Isn't it two words?" Glitsky asked.

"It's hyphenated," Vinnie said. "And Dad didn't hear of it as a kid 'cause it wasn't invented until after the Renaissance."

Hardy deadpanned his son for a minute, said, "Too bad Abe's Indian name is already taken." He turned his attention to Glitsky. "But callously leaving for a moment the discussion of my son's future plans for wealth and world domination, what really brings you here?"

Glitsky laid his knife down. "This morning I talked to Nils Granat about the towing business. As I was in the neighborhood anyway, I thought I'd stop by since you seemed interested last night. He says nobody he knows would ever consider using strong-arm tactics to accomplish their business goals. Those may have been his exact words."

"Well, what did you expect? He's not going to tell you they've got a team of hit men out whacking people who get in their way. I still think it's a pretty good theory."

"Well, I'm going to have a few conversations with Tow/Hold management, see if any of them get nervous. Meanwhile, though, I also talked to Hanover's secretary, who seems to think it's probably somebody in the family who stood to lose the inheritance."

"You already had that one. What was her name again, the daughter-in-law?"

"Catherine Hanover, but I don't think so. I can't believe she would have spelled her motive out so clearly if she'd had any part in it. Still, the family connection's on the table. But you know the most interesting thing?"

"The uncertainty principle?"

"What?"

"The most interesting thing. The uncertainty principle. Actually, quantum mechanics in general, in fact. All of it damned interesting, although I'm not sure I get most of it."