“No,” Jesse said before Elizabeth could answer. “She stays.”

His aunt and sister left the parlor by one door as Sonny entered by another. Jesse gave his old friend an evaluating look and got one in return. Sonny had become a man, thicker and more muscular than Jesse would have anticipated. And while he had always been a careful dresser, Sonny’s taste in clothes appeared to have sharpened: He wore a knee-length frock coat, a poppy-red vest, and a silk four-in-hand tie. His braided queue dangled as far as his waist. If he was carrying knives or pistols, they were well concealed. Sonny put out his hand, and Jesse shook it.

Sonny spared a glance for Elizabeth. “Who’s the woman?”

“She works for the City of Futurity,” Jesse said, “just like me.”

“I heard as much.” Sonny’s English was deliberately, almost aggressively formal. “Is she from the future?”

“She is.”

“I would have thought she’d be wearing trousers or smoking a cigar.”

“Pass on the cigar,” Elizabeth said. “But yeah, I wish I’d packed a pair of jeans.”

“Can we speak in her presence?”

“Yes.”

“Freely?”

“Yes.”

“Without being interrupted?”

“Well, I hope so,” Jesse said.

“Good. I expect you called me here to talk about Roscoe Candy?”

“That,” Jesse said. “But not just that.”

“What else?”

By way of an answer Jesse reached into his calico travel bag and took out a Glock 19 and set it down on one of Aunt Abbie’s gleaming sideboards. “Have you ever seen a pistol like this one?”

Sonny Lau stared at it. “What an interesting question.”

*   *   *

Sonny didn’t know how Roscoe Candy had survived his gunshot wound. It must have been a near thing, he said, because after the burning of Madame Chao’s whorehouse Candy had disappeared for almost three years. And when he did eventually turn up, consolidating his old San Francisco properties and occasionally strutting down Market Street with a cohort of Sacramento thugs in striped jerseys, he was gaunter and grayer than he had been before. Tong men who had dealt with him said Candy still suffered chronic pain from his wound and was obliged to wear a truss he had ordered all the way from Chicago. None of this had improved his temperament, though it had changed him subtly. Candy had once seemed to delight in his own wickedness, but the new Roscoe Candy was differently vicious: He hurt people more methodically and with less emotion. He still cut his victims, Sonny said, but now he cut them as professionally and as indifferently as a butcher cuts a beeve.

None of which meant Candy had forgotten about Jesse Cullum. As soon as Candy was back in San Francisco he had offered a generous reward to anyone who spotted Jesse or could provide news of his whereabouts. “He expected you to come back sooner or later,” Sonny said, “as a dog returns to its vomit. Have you been seen?”

“I only just arrived.”

“Candy has eyes all over town. That’s something you’ll have to reckon with, if you stay. Especially if you stay here.”

“I won’t be staying here.”

Sonny cocked his head. “You didn’t come back just because of Roscoe Candy, did you?”

“No.”

“He’s only a complication.”

“I hope that’s all he is.”

“Soo Yee could have told you most of what I just told you. I thought you called me here because you wanted help going up against Candy. But that’s not it. So what do you want from me?”

Jesse didn’t answer, only glanced at the pistol on the sideboard as if it were an explanation. Sonny said, “Ah, that. May I hold it?”

“Go ahead.”

Sonny picked up the Glock, keeping his fingers away from the trigger guard. He weighed it in his hands, puzzled over the clip, admired the metalwork. “It’s a well-made thing. As pretty as it is dangerous. A City thing.”

“Seen one before?”

“Not with my own eyes.”

“Heard of one?”

Sonny nodded slowly. “I’m not supposed to say. But yes. Little Tom has one. The heads of the other Six Companies also claim to have one.”

Jesse exchanged a look with Elizabeth, whose expression was a gratifying combination of genuine surprise and oh-I-get-it-now. “They acquired these pistols recently?”

“I don’t know, but I first heard of them a month ago.”

“How did they come to possess them?”

“About that, no one speaks. Why? Do you want me to find out?”

“I’m looking for the man who brought these guns into the city.”

“Again, why? What’s your business with him?”

“He doesn’t belong here, Sonny. He needs to go back where he came from.”

“Are you a bounty hunter now?”

“Bounty hunter for the City, you could say.”

“The City of Futurity is drying up faster than spit in a desert. You must be in a hurry to find this man.”

“We are. And I don’t like to impose on our friendship by asking for more than you’re willing to give, but—”

Sonny Lau said, “You’re not my friend.”

Jesse was startled. “Say that again?”

“Honestly, what’s Jesse Cullum to me? I have lots of friends. Most of them know better than to ask difficult favors of me. But you’re not my friend. You may be older now, but you’re still just a shirttail whorehouse bouncer with shoulders like a buffalo’s and cast-iron balls. A worthless piece of Tenderloin shit with more pride than sense. You want me to risk my reputation and my career by poking my nose into the business of people who could have me killed just for looking at them the wrong way? I wouldn’t do that for a friend. No true friend would ask. Only an impertinent bastard like Jesse Cullum would ask.” He grinned. “And Jesse Cullum’s one of the few people I would do it for.”

*   *   *

Now that the conversation had passed on to mutually congratulatory masculine bullshit and reminiscences, Elizabeth gave herself permission to leave the room. She took the bag of tech gear with her, after putting the Glock back inside.

Abbie Hauser’s mansion was big but Elizabeth got the feeling that a lot of the rooms had been closed off and abandoned. There were, as far as she could tell, two live-in servants, Soo Yee and a middle-aged black man, Randal, who had put in a brief appearance after driving Soo Yee to town and back. A staff of two was probably picayune stuff by Nob Hill standards. Abbie and Phoebe were in the kitchen helping Soo Yee fix the evening meal, something that probably didn’t happen in the tonier households.

Elizabeth retreated to the entrance hall, where she took the clunky two-way radio from the bag and pushed the button to connect her to August Kemp. He must have been waiting for the call, because there was no hesitation, just a flat electronic beep followed almost instantly by his voice: “Elizabeth? Where are you?”

“Somewhere up Nob Hill, actually.”

“You have something to tell me?”

“Just that we’re making progress.”

“What’s that mean?”

“We have a lead.”

“You found Mercy?”

“Not yet, but we have a line on somebody who’s been distributing Glocks, presumably Theo Stromberg.”

“Do you know whether Mercy’s with him?”

“We’re working on that assumption, but we don’t know for sure.”

“How soon can you find out?”

“It depends on our informant. I doubt we’ll find out much more until tomorrow.” Which might be absurdly optimistic, but she wasn’t sure Kemp could bear the weight of the truth right now.

What followed was a pause so lengthy she began to suspect the radio was defective. “The thing is,” Kemp finally said, “there have been some developments. Major upheaval. Rail strikes everywhere, malcontents greasing the tracks and fucking with signal lights. The Chicago yard workers are coming out in sympathy. Worse, Hayes has mobilized federal troops to arrest me and occupy the City.”

“Can they do that?”

“Not before we evacuate. We can hold them off. But it’s making everything a lot more difficult. Pretty much every editorial writer in the Union blames us for instigating a labor revolt and a race war, thanks in large part to Theo fucking Stromberg. I had to send the last City train back to Chicago this afternoon.”