Kate let her question hang there, making the rest of it seem indelicate. Maude loved women who still thought about indelicate subjects.

Maude sat on the bed, crossed her stockinged legs, leaned back on her elbows, and stared down at her perked nipples as if just noticing them and laughing as if a secret shared between two sisters. Kate looked as if she’d swallowed an entire egg.

“IF My PARTNER KNEW I was meeting you here, he’d eat my liver out with a side of onions,” Tom Reagan said.

“I wouldn’t eat your liver, Tom. I guess it’s pretty used up.”

“Funny, Sam,” Reagan said. “What do you want?”

“I came to watch the sea lions wrestle. You know, they look just like dogs to me. Look at that tough old bastard up on that rock. He looks like someone has taken a few good ole chomps out of his hide.”

“I can’t talk about Arbuckle.”

“And I don’t want you to talk about Arbuckle.”

Sam leaned into the railing of Pier 56, mashing the last of his cigarette against the wood and losing it in the waves beating the crusty pilings. He lit another and stared thoughtfully at the pilings, waiting a few beats before he was going to get to the point, but instead of great timing he found himself in the middle of a coughing fit that nearly brought him to his knees. He covered his mouth, splattering the cotton with phlegm and blood, and hearing bigheaded Tom Reagan say, “Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ.”

“No need to say his name twice,” Sam said, recovering. “God hears you the first time.”

“You never told me you were a lunger.”

“You never asked.”

“Worse in the cold.”

“Doesn’t help.”

Tom was dressed in his city detective tweeds and no cap. His boots were shined and his milky Irish skin was so clean-shaven the blood vessels across his cheeks and nose glowed blue.

“Why would someone conduct an autopsy without permission?”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

“You got to bring the man’s family into it? I’m just being hypothetical, Tom.”

“No, you’re calling in your marker for saving my ass in the train yards.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“Why?”

Tom peered down at the waves beating the pilings and out at two sea lions barking at each other and play-biting mouths before one did a somersault back into the bay.

He shrugged. “We don’t know.”

“But you wouldn’t have known about the girl dying or thought of it as a murder without that anonymous tip. Could it have been Delmont?”

“The call came from the hospital. It was a nurse.”

“Can I get a copy of the report?”

“It will all be handed over after the grand jury sees it today.”

“Did you at least ask for a second opinion? Did the coroner look at the body?”

“He did.”

“Tom?”

Tom looked skyward and readjusted his coat, making himself stand taller, as if standing at attention. He leaned into Sam’s ear. “It’s tough to make a good inspection when some of the parts are missing from the machine.”

He walked back on the dock toward the Embarcadero.

“Tom?”

The police detective waved back over his shoulder but never turned around.

7

Sam handed the man his card. “I’ve already spoken to the police, Mr. Hammett.” “You been the hotel dick here long?”

“About a year.”

“Rotten work.”

“You ain’t kidding.”

“You got to play babysitter to the lot of ’em.”

“Sounds like you know.”

“Lots of my jobs have been about the same,” Sam said. “My boss, Phil Geauque, said you were a good egg. Said we always trade out for some fair business.”

The hotel dick, Glennon, pocketed the Pinkerton card in the lobby of the St. Francis and screwed up his face.

“I don’t want to make trouble for you,” Sam said.

“Don’t look too quick over my shoulder, but you see that fat-cheeked fella in the glasses?”

“The one with the scowl?”

“You got it,” Glennon said. “That’s Mr. Boyle. You see, earlier today Mr. Boyle brought in the staff and said he’d fire us if we were even to say the word Arbuckle and to forget that Labor Day even came already.”

“Mr. Boyle doesn’t look like much fun.”

“How’s Mr. Geauque?”

“Soft as a bed of nails.”

Glennon leaned up on the toes of his dress shoes and sucked on a tooth. Loud enough for the lobby to hear, he said, “Mister, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” and in a lower voice, “John’s Grill, thirty minutes.”

The restaurant was a couple doors down from the back of the Flood Building on Ellis Street. They served a solid sandwich, and a mean plate of chops with a baked potato and sliced tomatoes when a man could afford it, and if you were lucky enough to catch a good waiter they’d dish out something a bit warmer in your coffee cup. The floor was honeycombed black and white tile and set with small tables and café chairs. Ceiling fans scattered the cigarette smoke.

The dinner rush hadn’t started yet, and Sam found a place by the open windows. He said hello to the owner, a tough old Greek he knew, and they talked about ball teams and fighters and some of the tong action that had been popping up in Chinatown. They lamented Prohibition and President Harding, and discussed Sam’s becoming a father.

Glennon arrived and the old Greek went back to the kitchen.

Sam offered him a cigarette from his pack of Fatimas.

“I wasn’t trying to muscle you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Glennon said. “The only thing Mr. Boyle knows about detective work is what he reads in the funny papers.”

Sam pulled out his wallet and Glennon shook his head. He tugged it back into his jacket.

“We got a call that afternoon about some girl who’d drunk herself stupid at the Arbuckle party.”

“Everyone knew about the party?”

“Who’d you think arranged to bring in the booze? They had cases of the stuff that Arbuckle had driven up in that rolling steamer of his. Have you seen it? A custom Pierce-Arrow, with a bar and a toilet. Can you imagine driving down the highway and waving to a fella who’s on the crapper? I mean, what does he do? Wave back?”

“Did you see the girl?”

“Sure.”

“And what did you think?”

“I thought she’d gotten stupid and drunk.”

“And everyone else?”

“They was stupid and drunk, too. Arbuckle, his two buddies. Some fella who sold women’s drawers, and then the Delmont woman.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Wow,” he said, “how much time you got?”

Glennon leaned in and turned to look in Sam’s coffee cup. Sam looked back to the Greek and signaled for another round of special coffee.

“Listen to this, I ended up screwin’ that broad that night. I know that’s not professional, but what would you do? She’s crying and putting her tits in my face, and we ended up sitting there in the very room where we moved the girl, 1227. That girl was out stone-cold, and Mrs. Delmont had heisted two bottles of the sweetest Kentucky bourbon from old Fatty. We got drunk in the a.m. and told stories, and she’s telling me how her old man is a creep and all that. And I’m saying how sorry I am, only I’m not that sorry, only looking at her tits. And finally she grabs me by my ears and plants one on me, and we ended up fucking against the wall. You can say what you want about Mrs. Maude Delmont, but I’ll tell you she ain’t no frail.”

“She say how she knew the girl?”

Glennon stopped as the Greek laid down the coffee cup and he thanked him. “I think they knew each other in L.A. through some guy named Al. I think I saw that Al guy at the party, but I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. He was one of those movie types, too. I got the feeling that Delmont had come with him and he’d split and she was drinking and screwing me out of revenge.”

“You look like a wounded bird.”

“I couldn’t walk straight the next day.”