The Vig

Abe Glitsky’s desk was near the back window with a view of the freeway and, beyond it, downtown. Today, however, at 7:50, there was no view but gray.

Glitsky did not have a bag of clubs leaning against his desk. He was also one of only two men in the squad who worked without a partner. He and Batiste had come up to Homicide the same year, and neither of them had given a shit about their minority status-Glitsky was half Jewish and half black, Batiste a ‘Spanish-surname’-so there was a bond of sorts between them.

Batiste pulled up a chair. “Forget your clubs, Abe?”

Glitsky looked up from something he was writing. “I was just going to come see you.”

“Complete a foursome?”

Abe moved his face into what he might have thought was a smile. He had a hawk nose and a scar through his lips, top to bottom. His smile had induced confessions from some bad people. He might be a nice person somewhere in there, but he didn’t look like one. “I’m glad you think it’s fu

“I don’t think it’s fu

Abe put his pen down. “Flo and I, we’re thinking we might make a move.”

“What are you talking about?” This was worse than golf clubs.

“L.A.’s recruiting. I’d have to go back to Burglary maybe for a while, but that’d be all right.”

Batiste leaned forward. “What are you talking about? You’ve got, what, nineteen years?”

“Close, but they’ll transfer most of ’em.” He motioned down at his desk. “I was just working on the wording here on this application. See where it says ‘Reason for Leaving Present Employment?’ Should I say ‘incredible horseshit’ or keep it clean with ‘bureaucratic nonsense’?”

Batiste pulled up to the desk. “Abe, wait a minute.” He wasn’t about to say Abe couldn’t quit-of course he could quit-but he had to say something. He put his hand on the paper. “Can you just wait a goddamn minute.”

Abe’s stare was flat. “Sure,” he said. “I can wait all day.”

“You know it’ll turn around.”

Abe shook his head. “No, I don’t, Frank. Not anymore. It’s the whole city. It doesn’t need us, and I don’t need it.”

“But it does need us-”

“No argument there. Give me a call when it finds out.” Abe took the paper back and glanced at it again. “ ‘Incredible horseshit,’ ” he said. “It’s a stronger statement, don’t you think?”

Hardy parked at the end of the alley and turned up the heater. His Samurai was not airtight and the wind hissed at the canvas roof. On both sides, buildings rose to four stories, and in front of him fog obscured the canal and the shipyards beyond.

It was not yet 8:30. The gun-still loaded-was in his glove compartment. It was a registered weapon. It was probably one of the few legally concealable firearms in San Francisco. Hardy’s ex-father-in-law was Judge Andy Fowler, and when Hardy left the force, he’d applied for a CCW (Carry a Concealed Weapon) license, which was never, in the normal course of San Francisco events, approved.

But Judge Fowler was not without influence, and he did not fancy his daughter becoming a widow. Not that being allowed to pack a weapon would necessarily make any difference. But he had talked Hardy into it, and this was the first time Hardy had had occasion to carry the thing around.

Okay, he would legally carry it then, even concealed if he wanted to.

He turned off the ignition. He slowly spun the cylinder on the.38, making sure again that it was loaded. Stepping out into the swirling fog, he lifted the collar of the wind-breaker with his left hand. In his right hand, the gun felt like it weighed fifty pounds.

He hesitated. “Stupid,” he said out loud.

But he moved forward.

The alley ended in a walkway that bounded the China Basin canal. To Hardy’s left an industrial warehouse hugged the walkway, seeming-from Hardy’s perspective-to lean over the canal further and further before it disappeared into the fog. The canal, at full tide, lapped at the piling somewhere under Hardy. There was no visible current. The water was greenish brown, mercury-tinged by the oil on its surface.

Behind Hardy the Third Street Bridge rumbled as traffic passed. Somewhere ahead of him was another bridge. Ingraham had told him that his was the fourth mooring down from Third, between the bridges.

Hardy walked into the wind, his head tucked, the gun pointing at the ground.

The first mooring-little more than some tires on a pontoon against the canal’s edge and a box for co

The second mooring, perhaps sixty feet along, held a tug, which looked deserted. Next was a blue-water cruiser, a beauty which Hardy guessed was a thirty-two-footer, named Atlantis.

He wasn’t sure he’d want to name a boat after something that had gone down into the ocean.

Ingraham had called his home a barge. It was a fair description-a large, flat, covered box that squatted against the pontoon’s tires, its roof at about the height of Hardy’s knees.

Getting there finally, seeing that the electrical wires were hooked up, suddenly the whole thing seemed crazy again. He was just being paranoid. He looked at his watch. 8:40.

Rusty should be up by now anyway.

Hardy leaned down. “Rusty?”

A foghorn bellowed from somewhere.

“Hey, Rusty!”

Hardy put the gun in his pocket and vaulted onto the barge’s deck. Three weathered director’s chairs were arranged in the area in front of the doorway. Green plants and a tomato bush that needed picking livened up the foredeck.

A two-pound salmon sinker nailed to the center of the door was a knocker. Hardy picked it up and let it drop, and the door swung open. There was no movement from inside, no sound but the lapping canal and the traffic, now invisible back through the fog. The wood was splintered at the jamb.

Hardy put his hand in his pocket, feeling the gun there, taking it back out. He ducked his head going through the door, descending three wooden steps to the floor-level inside.

A line of narrow windows high on the walls probably provided light normally, but curtains had been pulled across them on both sides. The room was cold, colder than it was outside.

In the dim light from the open doorway, nothing seemed out of place. There was a telephone on a low table in front of a stylish low couch. Hardy picked up the receiver, heard a dial tone, put it back down.

Then he saw the pole lamp lying on the floor on the other side of the room. He reached up and pulled back the curtain for a little more light. The lamp’s globe was broken into five or six pieces scattered around the floor.

At the junction of the rear and side walls a swinging half-door led to the galley. Another door in the center of the rear wall was ajar. Hardy kicked at it gently. It opened halfway, then caught on something. A wide line of black something ran from under the door to the wall.

Hardy stepped over it, pushing his way through. His stomach rose as though he were seasick, and he leaned against the wall.

What was blocking the door was a woman’s arm. Naked, she was stretched out as though reaching for something, as though she’d been crawling-trying to get out? There was something around her neck-something strange, metallic-holding her head up at an u

It was painted in blood.

There was a sound like something dropping on the front deck and he dropped to one knee, steadying the gun with both hands and aiming for the hall doorway.

“This is the police,” he heard. “Throw out your weapon and come out with your hands up.”