Glitsky jammed his hands further into his pockets. “What the hell are you talking about? Rusty who?”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

Hardy let out a breath. “Ingraham. Rusty Ingraham. He lives, lived here. Louis Baker shot him.”

Glitsky was looking somewhere over Hardy’s shoulder, not focusing, putting it together. “Louis Baker.”

“And I’m next.”

“I’ll have a cheeseburger with everything, to go.”

The young man punched his register. “Would you like onions and pickles?”

Glitsky nodded. “Everything please.”

“Will that be here or to go?”

“To go, please.”

“That’ll be one cheeseburger to go.” He pushed some more buttons, waited until the machine stopped whirring, then looked up with relief. “That’s two sixty-seven.”

Hardy, having just endured the same litany over a much more difficult order of two fish sandwiches, fries and a Diet Coke, rolled his eyes. “Do you want that here or to go, Abe?” he asked when the boy went to retrieve the order.

Glitsky kept his face straight.

They sat at a tiny yellow table on a stretch of sidewalk midway between the Third Street Bridge and the Southern Pacific Station. Every few minutes a train’s whistle would sound, shrill and distant.

It was early afternoon. The fog had burned off completely and it was getting warm. They had stayed at Rusty Ingraham’s barge through the morning, waiting while the techs photographed and collected and dusted, while the deputy M.E. had examined and moved Maxine Weir’s body, while they had begun preparations to drag the canal.

Hardy opened his bag. “After all that, I get onion rings. Did I say fries or what?”

Glitsky chomped into his burger. “Twice, I think, maybe three times.”

“Rocket scientist,” Hardy said.

“No dumber than walking around with a loaded weapon out in the open. You should’ve called me first.”