The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club #17)(25)

“Anything else?”

There was silence for the next five or six seconds.

“No? Good,” said the judge. “See you in court.”

Yuki, Art, and James Giftos left the judge’s office together and when they reached the stairs, Giftos leaned down to speak into Yuki’s ear.

“I’ve only just begun, young lady. I’m going to crush you. Do you hear me?”

Yuki stepped away from him and said, “Do your best and your worst, James. Our case is solid. Do you hear me?”

“Wonderful,” he said. “Game on.”





CHAPTER 35


AT ABOUT NINE o’clock on a drizzly Sunday night, Michael walked south along the four-lane-wide section of Columbus Avenue that cuts through the North Beach neighborhood.

The asphalt was slick with rain. The mist haloed headlights and reflected the brilliant neon signage on both sides of the busy roadway.

Michael was restless, and his temper was simmering. He had eaten his microwaved lasagna dinner over the kitchen sink. After that he’d gone to his closet full of work clothes and reached for the newest coat.

The coat was hip length, charcoal gray, with a zip-in lining, and had been purchased at one of the many vintage clothing and secondhand thrift shops around town. He opened a drawer, took out the well-used leather gloves, scissors, his knit cap, and his gun.

He cut the tags off the coat, put the gun into his right-hand pocket, pulled on the cap and gloves, shut the drawer. He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked completely unremarkable.

Leaving the house on Russian Hill, Michael grabbed the still-wet umbrella from the doorstep, crossed the street, and dropped his alimony check into the mailbox on the corner.

He could have wired the money, but the check was better. She would have to open it. She would have to read the word bitch he’d put in the memo line. She’d have to cash that check, and the bank teller would see that someone hated her.

From his end, writing her name and filling in the blanks by hand forced him to recall the way his marriage had dropped dead, ending against his will. And he thought about what had led to the loss of his wife, and his prospects for a happy life ever after. His life interrupted.

As always, all roads led to HER. She was to blame for his failed relationships. But he would deal with her sins. He put up his umbrella, patted his gun through the pocket of his coat, and walked toward Columbus Avenue.

It was a busy night, the sidewalks and street spilling over with pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Michael stayed on Greenwich and headed toward downtown. At Mason he waited for the Powell–Mason cable car to pass, rattling its way downhill to the waterfront. Then he took a right onto Columbus toward the heart of North Beach.

He pressed on, passing the Condor and then Tosca Cafe on his left and the City Lights bookstore on his right, all the shops and clubs and bars brightly lit. Inside, customers were socializing, enjoying their tiny little plans.

Stupid people. Aliens. He told himself that he wasn’t bothered by their pointless cheerfulness. He thought about the ways he was different from other people as he fixed his eyes on the Transamerica Pyramid up ahead. It was like a beacon urging him to focus.

Humming his own take on a popular tune, Michael veered right onto Kearny at Cafe Zoetrope—and that’s when he saw HER. She was only thirty feet up ahead of him, no doubt heading toward the Tenderloin, where the vermin liked to congregate.

The woman was bundled up, carrying a heavy shopping bag in each hand, wearing a pink, translucent poncho, her head lowered against the fine, unrelenting rain.

God, he hated her.

And finally the odds of doing something about that were on his side.





CHAPTER 36


IT ALMOST SEEMED to Michael that he could kill that woman by just drilling through her back with his eyes.

Bam. Bam.

He was keeping her in sight, walking at a comfortable pace. He was starting to wonder where her trek would end, where she’d hunker down for the night, when she picked up her pace and awkwardly trotted across Clay just before the light turned red.

Damn it. Goddamnit.

He was stranded on the sidewalk as traffic swept along between himself and her. The sidewalk across the street was opaque with a moving wall of pedestrians shuffling along beneath their umbrellas.

And then he lost sight of her.

He was sure that he could catch up with her—if he could still see her.

Michael wiped rainwater away from his eyes with his sleeve. He was so close. He might not be this close again anytime soon.

Kearny was one way, but he looked right and left, his usual overabundance of caution, then dashed off the curb into the street, shooting the gap between two vehicles. He narrowly missed getting clipped by a red sports car, whose driver leaned on the horn, letting him know exactly how close he’d come to buying the farm and everything around it.

But the risk had paid off. He was on the opposite curb unharmed.

But where was she?

He jogged ahead, cutting between couples, turning right onto Geary, weaving around a boisterous gang of drunkards leaving Hawthorne, a club teeming with customers.

And then there was a clearing in the field of umbrellas. Michael peered through the opening and saw her leaning against the 77 Geary building, adjusting the hood of her plastic poncho, setting her bags down at her feet.

A memory came to him. College graduation day. She hadn’t shown up. When he went to dinner with a few friends, there she was—rooting through the trash outside. He was humiliated.