The gas can was there, on the backseat. After a last look, she reached in and tipped it upside down between the front and back seats. The gas poured onto the floorboards; she got the gas- soaked rag out of the Ziploc bag, stretched it out, ten feet; waited for the gurgling to stop in the back of the car, looked around one last time, stressed, jittery, got a matchbook from her pocket, stood back from the end of the fuse, dropped a match on it, and turned to run.

Match went out: no fire. Went back, lit another match-the thick odor of gasoline flowed around the car-and dropped the match again and started to run. Stopped, almost started back, when she saw the fire start, and then begin working down the fuse.

She ran. She was a hundred feet away when the car went up with a huge WHOOOMMP and she thought ohmigod and the fire climbed higher than the roof of the warehouse, a pyramid of smoke and flame probably visible for a mile around, and she dug in and ran, and ran, and crossed the street and ran up the hill and in the distance, heard the sirens…

LATER, in the night. At Frank Willett’s house, a snug little ranch, with the incriminating knife in her pocket, she jogged along the street, away from her car, watching, watching, was about to turn in at the front door when she saw a woman walking toward her, on the other side of the street, carrying a grocery sack, and she went on by the house, turning her face away from the woman, jogging and thinking, Nothing ever goes as planned.

She jogged back, five minutes later, and this time, made the move.

And it went as planned… Why was that? she wondered.

19

LUCAS SPENT THE morning arranging surveillance on Frank Willett, a loose one- man tag until they could decide whether or not to pick him up. He’d called Austin early and had gotten Willett’s work schedule. He was teaching tai chi at one spa and had Pilates classes at two others.

“I’ve been thinking about Frank,” Austin said. “He seems too gentle to kill anyone. But I can’t let this go. I’ve got to check and make sure he’s not selling dope in my places.”

“Just take it easy for a couple of days, huh?” Lucas asked. “A couple days won’t make any difference. We’ll make some kind of decision by then.”

She said she’d think about it.

AND HE HAD bureaucratic stuff to do, with the Republican convention security committee. After the committee meeting, he stopped at United Hospital to check on a friend who’d had an early- morning angiogram, and had gotten a couple of stents in his heart. After that, dropped down to the United cafeteria for a slice of pepperoni pizza and a bottle of diet Coke, and tried not to think about stents.

Coming up the ramp from the hospital’s subterranean first floor, his cell phone rang: Carol. “You’ve been out of service,” she said. “Can’t get anything in the hospital,” he said. “What’s up?"

"A cop is calling from San Francisco on Willett,” she said. “He said he’d be there for another hour-that’s a half hour now. I got a number.”

LUTHER WANE sounded like a cheerful man, though he had a gravelly smoker’s cough. Between hacks, he said, “I talked to the prosecutor and they don’t want him. I mean, they’d take him, if it was free, but they don’t want to pay to send somebody out there to get him.”

“That sorta sucks,” Lucas said. “Yeah, well, they’ll probably have to dismiss anyway. Even if they don’t, he won’t get any time. We got too many people in jail and the budget’s all shot in the ass, and a skinny case on a small- time dealer that’s six years old… they figure it’d cost us ten grand to come get him and they don’t want to pay.”

“But if he jumped bail…” Lucas said. It seemed ridiculous. “That’s another problem,” Wane said. “He was bailed out with a court date to come. But the prosecutor in the case got killed and the paper got lost, and we can’t prove that he was ever notified of his court date. And his lawyer at that time, a court- appointed guy, moved to New Mexico and is running an ashram or some shit, and… you see what I mean? Too much horseshit and not enough money.”

“Yeah. Doesn’t help me, though,” Lucas said. “You know what I’d do?"

"What?"

"I’d bust him anyway, if I was ready,” Wane said. “On the California warrant. It’s still good. Then you notify us, and it takes a while for the paper to get through the mill, and then some time to get back to you… You could have him inside for probably ten days or two weeks if you picked your weekends right. Bust him on a Friday, notify on a Monday, takes four or five days out here, we decline to prosecute the following Tuesday or Wednesday… and we can probably drag our feet a little.”

“I might do that,” Lucas said. “We only wanted a shot at squeezing him, anyway.”

“So if I get some paper from you, I’ll know what you’re doing."

"Good enough,” Lucas said. “The prosecutor-he wasn’t stabbed or anything, was he?” Wane laughed. “No. We got one of those two- story McDonald’s here, you know? He takes his Big Mac and his fries upstairs to eat and read his newspaper, and when he finishes, he heads for the stairs, still reading the New York Times, trips and falls down the stairs and breaks his neck. He’s dead on the scene.”

“Jesus,” Lucas said. “Anybody get sued?” Wane laughed a little longer, the laughs interspersed with hacks

“He had an estranged wife. She testified that he’d come over twice a week and spend forty-five minutes trying to work through the estrangement. Doggy- style, for the most part, the rumor is. Anyway, she was still his wife, technically, and she sued for loss of companionship and got three- point- four million from McDonald’s. Then she married the guy’s boss. Heh- heh.”

“If there’s an afterlife, he’s probably got a serious case of the red ass,” Lucas said.

“If there’s an afterlife, he’s got more problems than that,” Wane said. “Nasty little bullet- headed know- it- all fuck.”

LUCAS WAS BACK at the office and took a call from Sandy, the researcher: “I’ve got a Loren who might be interesting.” When Lucas didn’t immediately respond, she said, “You know-you had me looking up Lorens?”

“Oh, yeah. That didn’t come to much,” Lucas said. “You still want this guy?” she asked. “What’s he look like?"

"He fits the general description. Dark hair, anyway. The key thing is, he went to the university at the same time as Frances, and it’s likely, but not for sure, until I can check some more, that they were in some of the same classes.”

“Jeez,” Lucas said. “That might be something. Shoot it over here.” The photo popped up a couple minutes later in his e- mail. He looked at it, called Jackson, the photographer, and asked if he could get a print. “Forward it to me,” Jackson said. “By the time you get down here, I’ll have it.”

Lucas forwarded Sandy’s e- mail, got a diet Coke from the machine, and walked downstairs to Jackson’s cubbyhole. Jackson said, “I’m doing a little work on it.” He had the photo on a computer screen and was touching it up. “A little Photoshop.”

A minute or so later, he tapped a couple of keys, got up a response box, clicked his mouse, and the printer churned out a glossy print. “Another piece-of-shit photograph-I wonder why nobody makes an effort to get decent ID shots? They should at least look human.”

“Maybe you should start a campaign,” Lucas said. He looked at the photo. Could it be the man in the alley? Could be.

He called Austin, who was at home. “I’m ten minutes away-I want to run down and show you a photograph,” he said. “Of who?"

"I’d rather have you respond to it sort of… spontaneously.”