'Guy appears to be one of our residentially challenged citizens,' Ridley said drily. 'John Doe as we speak.'

'No i.d. of course.' Glitsky was almost awake. The digital clock on the bedstand read 1:45.

'Not his own. But he did have the wallet.'

'The victim had a wallet?' To this point, Glitsky had been imagining that this homicide was probably another incident in the continuing tragedy of San Francisco 's homeless wars, where an increasingly violent population of bums had taken to beating and even killing each other over prime downtown begging turf. Certainly, the Union Square location fitted that profile.

But if the current victim had a wallet worth stealing, it lowered the odds that the person was a destitute vagrant.

'Taken from her purse, yeah.'

'It was a woman?'

'Yeah.' A pause. 'We know her. Elaine Wager.'

'What about her?'

'She's the stiff.'

Glitsky felt his head go light. Unaware of the action, he moved his free hand over his heart and clutched at his breast.

The voice in the telephone might have continued for a moment, but he didn't hear it. 'Abe? You there?'

'Yeah. What?'

'I was just saying maybe you want to be down here. It's going to be crawling with media jackals by dawn or the first leak, whichever comes first.'

'I'm there,' Glitsky said. 'Give me fifteen.' But after the connection was broken, he didn't move. His one hand dug absently into the flesh over his heart. The other gripped the telephone receiver. He simply lay there, staring sightlessly into the darkness around him.

When the phone started beeping loudly in his hand, reminding him that it was still off the hook, it brought him to. Abruptly now, he hung up, threw the covers to one side, and swung himself up to a sitting position.