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  "Oh, God," he sighed, feeling his chest tighten. "Today was their wedding anniversary. What a hell of a present."

  Kolb grimaced in sympathy.

  Garreth made himself go on. A sterling silver pendant two inches long, shaped in the outline of a fish with the Greek word for fish inside the outline. "Is that enough silver to bother stealing?" he asked.

  Kolb pumped tea out of her thermos. "If some kind of cult killed your man, they might not like Christian symbols."

  Garreth toyed with the telex. "It's almost too bizarre." He won­dered if it was possible that instead of a cult, they were dealing with someone who wanted Mossman dead, but made it as weird as possible to confuse everyone. The telex also said the wife knew of no serious enemies her husband had, but of course that would have to be checked out. For now, he typed up the jewelry descriptions for a flier to distribute to the pawnshops, then finished his reports.

  2

  "No more. Bu yao," Garreth said to the waitress who extended the coffeepot toward his half-empty cup.

  He could not be sure he had the Chinese pronunciation right, but it came close enough to convey his meaning. With a nod and a smile, the girl turned away.

  He drained the cup and stood, reaching for the check with one hand and into his pocket for the tip with the other. He left the girl a generous one; she had struggled hard to overcome the language barrier between them. At the cash register he paid the withered little old woman almost hidden from sight by the machine. "Delicious, as always, Mrs. Huong."

  She smiled in return, bobbing her head. "Come back again, Inspector."

  "Count on it."

  Outside, he walked down the steep half block to Grant Avenue and stood on the sidewalk there, surrounded by passing evening throngs of tourists and the bright kaleidoscope of shop windows and neon signs with their Chinese pictographs, contemplating alternatives to going home. Perhaps he should turn over a few rocks in Wink O' Hare's neighborhood. This was about the time of day the little vermin was most likely to stick his head out of his hole. On the other hand, just a few blocks up the hill, Grant Avenue intersected with Columbus Avenue and Broadway in the beginning of North Beach's bright-lights section, and somewhere among the bars and clubs sang a tall red-haired woman who might or might not be involved in murder.

  He stared up the hill, weighing the choices. Finding Wink should have priority-­he still had the gun he had presumably used to shoot the liquor store clerk-but evening in North Beach frankly appealed to Garreth far more than the despairing poverty of Wink's turf. He had his sources keeping eyes and ears open, and as long as he was on his own time anyway . . .

  He turned uphill.

  Chinatown gave way to blocks of glittering, garish signs proclaiming the presence of countless clubs. Barkers paced the sidewalks, calling to passersby in a raucous chorus . . . beckoning, wheedling, leering, each promising the ultimate in exotic entertainment inside his club. Garreth absorbed it all, color and noise, as he threaded his way through the crowd, but also kept alert for unnecessary bumps against him and fingers in his pockets. He spotted some familiar faces . . . about the time they recognized him, too, and swiftly faded into the crowd.

  He hailed a barker he had met on previous occasions. "How's business, Sammy?"

  "All over legal age, Inspector," Sammy replied quickly. "Come on in and see the show, folks! All live action with the most gorgeous girls in San Francisco!"

  "Any redheads, Sammy?"

  Sammy eyed him. "Sure. Anything you want."

  "Maybe a very tall redhead, say five ten, with green eyes?"

  The barker's eyes narrowed. "This redhead got a name? Hey, mister!" he called to a passing couple. "Your timing is perfect. The show is about to start. Bring the little lady in and warm up together. What do you want her for, Mikaelian?"

  "A date, Sammy. What else? Who do you know with that description? She sings in the area."

  Sammy laughed. "Are you kidding? We've got more showgirl redheads than the stores have Barbie dolls. Come on in and see the show, folks! Real adult entertainment, live on our stage! Our girls have curves in places most girls don't have places, and they'll show you every one!"

  "I need names, Sammy," Garreth said patiently.

  Sammy sighed, not patiently. "Names. Who knows names? Try the Cul-de-Sac across the street. There's a red-haired singer I seen there. And maybe in the Pussywillow, too. Now, will you move on, man? You're spoiling my rhythm."

  Grinning, Garreth moved across the street into the Cul-de-Sac. Yes, a barmaid said when he ordered a rum and Coke, they had a redhaired singer. She came on after the dancer.

  He sat down at the bar, which ran around the edge of the stage. A blonde dragged an enormous cushion out onto the stage and proceeded to writhe nearly naked on it in simulated ecstasy. In the midst of her throes, she rolled over, saw Garreth watching her with amusement, and said in a bored monotone, "Hi, honey. And what's your day been like?"

  "About like yours, unfortunately, hours wasted grinding away at thin air," he replied.

  A fleeting grin crossed the blonde's face.

  The singer appeared presently. Garreth left. The redhead's hair color was bottle-­bred brass and she looked old enough to have sung on the Barbary Coast itself.

  He talked to barkers on down the street, collecting a notebook full of possibilities, but in checking them out, he found women with the wrong color of red, wrong height, and wrong age. In two hours he checked over a dozen clubs with no success and stood on the sidewalk outside of the last with an ache working its way up from his feet. He looked around, seeking inspiration.

  "Hi, baby. All alone?" a husky voice asked behind him.

  Garreth turned. A woman in her thirties with elaborately curled dark hair arched a plucked, painted eyebrow at him. "Hi, Velvet," he said. Her real name, he knew from busting her when he worked Vice, was Catherine Bukato, but on the street and with the johns, she always went by Velvet. "How's your daughter?"

  Velvet smiled. "Almost twelve and more beautiful every day. My mother sends me pictures of her regularly. I may even go home to see her this winter. You up here working or playing tonight?"

  "I'm looking for a woman."

  Velvet hitched the shoulder strap of her handbag higher. "You're playing my song, baby."

  "The woman I want is red-haired, young, and very tall. Taller than I am. She sings somewhere around here. Would you happen to know anyone like that?"

  Velvet's eyes narrowed shrewdly. "I tell you what. My feet are killing me. Why don't you play like a john who has to work up his courage? Buy me a drink where I can sit down for a while and I'll think on it."

  Garreth smiled. "Pick somewhere."

  She chose the nearest bar and they found seats in a rear booth. She ordered, then kicked off her shoes and stretched her legs out, propping her feet up on the seat on the far side of the booth. She closed her eyes. "That's what I needed. You know, for a cop, you're almost human, Mikaelian."

  "Every Thursday night." In the right quarters, inexpensive kindness could reap valuable benefits. Velvet's sharp eyes and ears missed little on the street.

  A fact she knew he knew. Opening her eyes, she said, "So let me pay for the drink. Who's this woman you're looking for?"

  Garreth gave her a detailed description.

  Velvet's drink came. She sipped it slowly. "Tall? A singer? Yeah, I've seen someone like that. I can't remember where, though. What did she rip off?"

  "I'm in Homicide now, not Burglary. I just want to talk to her."

  Velvet's drawn brows rose again, skeptical. "Oh, sure."

  "If you have a chance, will you ask around? Its important that I find her."

  Velvet eyed him a moment, but then nodded. "How can I refuse someone who always asks about my kid? You have a kid, Mikaelian?"

  "An eight-year-old boy named Brian."

  For the remainder of the time it took her to finish her drink, they talked children and exchanged the pictures they carried. As Garreth handed back Vel
vet's snapshot of her daughter, the prostitute started to laugh.

  "What's funny?" Garreth asked.

  Her teeth gleamed in the dimness of the bar. "What a pair we are, a cop and a hooker, sitting in a bar talking about our kids." She drained her glass, sighed, and fished around under the table for her shoes. "Well, time to go back to work. Thanks for the coffee break."

  They headed for the door.

  "I hope this won't make trouble for you with Richie, getting nothing for the time," Garreth said.

  She looked up at him. "Look, if it isn't too much trouble, maybe you could give me a little something, a kind of advance on information I'm going to give you? It'll help with Richie."

  He dug into his pocket for his billfold and came up with two tens. "One for Richie Soliere and one for you to buy something for your daughter, all right?"

  She folded away the bills with a smile. "Thanks a lot." Then she tossed her head and dropped back into her husky "professional" voice. "Good night, baby."

  He watched her walk off into the crowd, then counted what remained in his billfold. The impulsive generosity had nearly cleaned him out. It would make the rest of the swing through North Beach a dry trip. He hoped Velvet gave him a good return on his investment.

  3

  Rob Cohen raised a brow at Garreth. "That's the third time you've yawned in the last five minutes. You single guys sure lead a fast life."

  Harry regarded Garreth sharply, however. "You worked all night after all?"

  Garreth shrugged. "I couldn't sleep." He gave Harry a recap of the North Beach canvas. "It was a waste of good shoe leather, though; I didn't find her."

  "Maybe you're lucky. Your hexagram this morning was number forty-four, Coming to Meet. 'The maiden is powerful. One should not marry such a maiden.'"

  A sudden chill raised the hair down Garreth's spine. He wondered at it. I Ching's prophecies usually neither disturbed nor encouraged him. He thought of Grandma Doyle's Feelings. However, he made himself slap Harry's shoulder. "Don't worry, Taka-san. I have no intention of marrying any maiden in the near future."

  Too late he realized that the flip response had been wrong. Harry's almond eyes went grave. "You know the text isn't to be taken literally. What's the matter?"

  The chill bit deep into Garreth's gut. "Nothing." A lie? He could not be sure. His chest felt so tight he had trouble breathing. "Guess I'm just superstitious enough not to like having that caution turn up when I'm hunting a woman." He hurriedly changed the subject. "Here's the flier on Mossman's watch, ring, and pendant that's going out to the pawnshops."

  Harry read it over. "Good."

  The tightness and chill eased in Garreth. "What do you want to do this morning?"

  "I think one of us ought to get started checking out cults and the other take China Basin. Shall we flip for it? Loser takes the cults."

  Garreth chose tails. The quarter came up heads. Harry grinned as he left for China Basin.

  Garreth sat down with the Adair file and read through the reports to see which groups Faye and Centrello had investigated. On the half dozen he found reports on, only one had a formal name, Holy Church of Asmodeus. The others were listed by leaders' names. The groups varied in size, organization, and object of worship. Some seemed to be satanists or devil worshipers. Others appeared to be variations of witchcraft and voodoo. One group claimed to be neo-druids. All, however, had been rumored to use blood in their ceremonies. A few admitted it, but insisted it was either animal blood or small amounts from members, voluntarily given. Analysis of blood samples on altars and instruments confirmed that most was animal blood. One of the few human samples proved to be A positive like Adair's, but investigation of the group failed to establish opportunity for any of the members and, further, more detailed analysis of the blood sample found enough differences in minor factors to rule out the possibility of the blood being Adair's.

  Nevertheless, Garreth turned all the names in to R and I for a check of current activities, then called Sergeant Dennis Kovar in Fraud.

  "Denny, what complaints have you had in the past year about oddball church and cult groups?"

  Kovar laughed. "How much time do you have to listen? I don't need to lift weights after picking up the current file a few times a day. Parents and neighbors are all out for the blood of these groups."

  "What about the groups? Do you have any word that any of them are using blood?"

  Silence came over the line for a moment before Kovar answered. "What are you looking for?" He listened silently to Garreth's reply, then said, "I don't have many complaints about those groups. They aren't asking for monetary donations. They keep a low profile so they won't be noticed. But you might talk to Angelo Chiarelli. He's undercover full-time and officially attached to Narco, but he's fed information to me on some of these fraudulent church groups and contacted a few kids in the cults for Missing Persons. Maybe he can help you."

  A call to Narcotics produced a promise to pass on Garreth's request. "You understand we can't just go calling on him every day, and he's too busy doing his own job to run errands for other sections."

  Garreth sighed. "He doesn't have to work on my case. I just want any possible information on blood-using cults that he may know about."

  "We'll get back to you."

  He even called the Humane Society about complaints of people killing and mutilating animals and went out to buy underground papers. When Harry came back to the office around two, they exchanged notes over coffee and doughnuts.

  Harry's interviews in China Basin produced nothing for them. The underground classifieds had some cult ads, but no direct route of contacting the groups.

  "We'll have to get some scrawny kid straight out of the Academy, who can get past their security," Garreth said. "The ASPCA has some complaints of animal mutilation we might follow up on, too."

  "What about Chiarelli?"

  "Still no word back from Narco yet. Here's everything R and I has currently on the cults Faye and Centrello investigated."

  And what, Garreth wondered, leaning back in his chair with a sigh, did it mean until they knew where Mossman had been? Until they knew, they had no way of establishing opportunity for the cults. Checking movements was treadmill work.

  Still, it needed to be done, and over the next four days they visited the cult groups Faye and Centrello listed, then those with ads that their rookie contacted for them. They visited people who had reported animal mutilations to the Humane Society. Garreth did not like most of the cultists he met-some he detested on sight-but he found them very educational: women who simultaneously attracted and chilled him, people who he would have taken for dull businessmen on the street, and some, too, who looked like escapees from Hollywood horror movies. No group, though, had a very tall red-haired female member.

  None of Mossman's jewelry appeared in the pawnshops.

  At the same time, they hunted up the four girls who had joined Mossman's group on that Monday night-and cleared all four of any Tuesday night involvement with Mossman-and kept prodding their contacts for Wink O'Hare's hiding place. Garreth spent his evenings in North Beach on a systematic search for the singer. On Tuesday, September 6, one week after Gerald Mossman died, Garreth found her.

  4

  Calling the singer tall seemed an understatement. In boots with four-inch heels, to go with the satin jeans, shirt, and Stetson of her urban cowgirl outfit, the redhead towered over the patrons of the Barbary Now as she walked between the tables singing a sentimental Kenny Rogers song. The red hair, black in shadow, burning with dark fire where the light struck it, hung down her back to her waist and framed a striking, square-jawed face. Watching the long legs carry her between the tables, Garreth remembered the description the bellboy had given of the woman in the Mark Hopkins lobby. She had to be the same woman. Surely there could not be two like this in San Francisco. He would slip something extra to Velvet, above the usual, to thank her for finding this woman.

  The hooker had called the office that afternoo
n. He and Harry had been out, but she left a message: If you're still looking for that redhead, try the Barbary Now after 8:00 tonight.

  So here he and Harry were, and here was a redhead.

  "Nice," Harry said.

  Garreth agreed. Very nice. He beckoned to a barmaid. "Rum and Coke for me, a vodka collins for my friend, and what's the name of the singer?"

  "Lane Barber."

  Garreth watched her. He did not blame Mossman for having stared at her. Most of the present male eyes in the room remained riveted on her throughout the song. Garreth managed to take his own off just long enough to see that.

  The barmaid brought their drinks. Garreth tore a page out of his notebook and wrote on it. "When the set finishes, will you give this to Miss Barber? I'd like to buy her a drink."

  "I'll give it to her, but I'd better warn you, she has a long line waiting for the same honor."

  "In that case"-Harry took out one of his cards-"give her this instead."

  The girl held the card down where the light of the candle on the table fell on it. "Cops! If you're on duty, what are you doing drinking?"

  "We're blending with the scenery. Give her the card, please."

  Three songs later, the set ended. Lane Barber disappeared through the curtains behind the Piano. She reappeared five minutes later in a strapless, slit-skirted dress that wrapped around her and stayed on by the grace of God and two buttons. She made her way through the tables, smiling but shaking her head at various men, until she reached Garreth and Harry.

  She held out the card. "Is this official or an attention-getting device?"

  "Official, I'm afraid," Harry said.

  "In that case, I'll sit down." Garreth felt her legs rub against his under the small table as she pulled up a chair. She smiled at Harry. "Konnichi wa, Sergeant Takananda. I've always enjoyed my visits to Japan. It's a beautiful country."

  "So I hear. I've never been there."

  "That's a pity." She turned toward Garreth. "And you are-?"