CINDY, FRESH IN a pink wraparound dress under her coat, hair gleaming, looking as though she’d stepped from a department-store window, skirted the filthy drug addicts loitering outside the three-story redbrick building on Fifth off Townsend and thanked a toothless young man who held open the door for her.

The ground floor of “From the Heart” was one large, green room, with a cafeteria-style hot table along one wall, folding tables and chairs set up in rows, and ragged people milling – some talking to themselves, others eating eggs from paper plates.

Cindy noticed a thin black woman eyeing her from a spot near the entrance. She looked about forty years old and was wearing a bold print blouse over black stretch pants. Purple-framed eyeglasses hung from a cord around her neck, and a badge pinned to her blouse read, MS. LUVIE JUMP, DAY ROOM SUPERVISOR.

Ms. Jump continued to scan Cindy skeptically, then said, “Help you?”

Cindy told the woman her name and that she was writing a story about Bagman Jesus for the San Francisco Chronicle.

“I’m following up on his murder,” Cindy said, taking the morning’s paper out of her computer bag. She flipped it open to page three, exposed the headline above the fold.

The black woman squinted at the paper, said, “You had your coffee yet?”

“Nope,” said Cindy.

“Then sit yourself down.”

Luvie Jump returned a minute later with two mugs of coffee, a basket of rolls, and foil-wrapped pats of butter.

“Will you read me that story?” she asked, sitting across from Cindy, laying out plastic flatware and napkins. “I don’t have my reading glasses.”

Cindy smiled, said, “Love to. I don’t get to do readings too often.” She flattened the paper, said, “The headline is ‘Street Messiah Murdered. Police Have No Leads.’ ”