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 connecting electricity-was empty. A Chinese couple approached, walking quickly, hand in hand. They nodded as they came abreast of Hardy. If they noticed the gun they didn’t show it.

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.