1

Harry was dubious. "He had a few words with a red-haired singer Monday night. What makes you think he went back to do more on Tuesday?"

"A hunch."

Certainly he could think of no other reason. No real evidence connected Mossman to this woman any more than evidence connected Adair to that other redhead. Only the similarity in height and coloring suggested that the two women might be the same. Still . . . two mysterious deaths and two memorable redheads. He had a feeling about it.

"My Grandma Doyle gets what she calls Feelings . . . that's with a capital F. She's Auld Sod stock, full of blarney and superstition, but—well, that Green Bay­—LA game that wiped out my brother's knee, we were all watching the TV and at half-time she went to her room. She said she didn't want to watch Shane get zapped. And sure enough, in the middle of the third quarter . . . scratch one knee and one Rams end."

"Coincidence?" Harry suggested.

"Except that's just one instance. My grandmother's Feelings are famous in our family. On the other hand, maybe my hunch is nonsense, but crazies come in all shapes and sizes so we'd better check the redhead out."

Harry nodded. "That reason I'll go along with. But let's eat first; I'm starved."

So was Garreth. Lunchtime had long passed. "How about Huong's?"

Huong's, though a hole-in-the-wall greasy chopsticks eatery up a side street off Grant Avenue, served some of the best fried rice and egg rolls in San Francisco. For love of them, Garreth had learned to ignore the greasy smoke that seeped out of the kitchen and covered the walls and Chinese signs on them with a uniform coat of dingy gray, and to beg silverware from waitresses who understood little English and barely more of Harry's and his fractured Chinese.

Harry considered. "It'd be too much trouble to drive over there when we have to come back here again. How about settling for less this time?"

With stomach longing for fried rice, Garreth settled for a club sandwich in the hotel coffee shop.

"One thing," Harry said while they ate. "Whether the redhead is in it or not, we need to know where Mossman went."

"I'll get on the cab companies."

He called them from the assistant manager's office. To be on the safe side, he expanded the time limit and asked for single fares picked up at the hotel between 7:00 and 8:30 P.M. Garreth expected to develop writer's cramp, but while it appeared that fleets of cabs had picked up passengers Tuesday evening, most trips carried groups. Less than a dozen cabs made single-fare trips in that time period.

He wrote down the cab number, destination and cabdriver's name for each trip. Then it became a matter of having drivers on duty stop by the hotel to look at a picture of Mossman that the Kitco booth supplied him or calling on them at home. "Was this man a passenger in your cab Tuesday night?" He particularly pressed the five whose destinations had been in North Beach. However, none could identify Mossman.

"That doesn't mean I couldn't have taken him," one female cabbie said. "I just don't remember him, you know?"

Garreth met Harry back at the hotel. "Zero. Zip."

Harry looked at his watch. "Well, let's call it quits here, then."

Garreth seconded the motion and they headed back to Bryant Street.

While they typed up reports at the office, Harry said, "What do you say to taking Lien out for a change? I'll call her, and you make reservations for three somewhere."

Garreth shook his head. "Tonight you have her to yourself. I'm going to eat at Huong's and fall into bed early."

"You sure?" Harry whipped his report out of the typewriter and signed it after a fast proofreading.

"Go home to your wife."

Harry waved on his way out.

Garreth kept typing. Some time later Evelyn Kolb came through. She said, "There's a telex for you from Denver. I think Art put it under something on your desk."

"Under?" He dug through the pile of papers on the desk, frowning. Under, for God's sake. It could have gone unseen for days.

The telex, when he found it, had the descriptions of the jewelry. He read quickly. A man's gold Seiko digital watch with expansion band and enough functions to do everything but answer the telephone; a plain gold man's wedding band, size 8, inscribed: B.A. to G.M. 8-31-73.

"Oh, God," he sighed, feeling his chest tighten. "Today was their wedding anniversary. What a hell of a present."

Kolb grimaced in sympathy.

Garreth made himself go on. A sterling silver pendant two inches long, shaped in the outline of a fish with the Greek word for fish inside the outline. "Is that enough silver to bother stealing?" he asked.

Kolb pumped tea out of her thermos. "If some kind of cult killed your man, they might not like Christian symbols."

Garreth toyed with the telex. "It's almost too bizarre." He won­dered if it was possible that instead of a cult, they were dealing with someone who wanted Mossman dead, but made it as weird as possible to confuse everyone. The telex also said the wife knew of no serious enemies her husband had, but of course that would have to be checked out. For now, he typed up the jewelry descriptions for a flier to distribute to the pawnshops, then finished his reports.