7

A voice over Sergeant Woodhue's walkie-talkie said softly, "It's going down now."

Suddenly the old warehouse filled with narcotics officers. Garreth hung on Woodhue's heels, the sergeant's words at the briefing echoing in his head: This is the drill. We're busting a buy. Chiarelli, who's going by the name Demesta, will be there. You're a hot-dog cop along for the fun. When Chiarelli bolts, you go after him.

The men involved in the buy scattered like cockroaches before a light. Garreth searched among them hurriedly, looking for someone who matched the description Woodhue had given him—a lean runt in an over-size old army jacket—but he could not see Chiarelli. In the melee and half dark, he had trouble distinguishing any particular individual.

Then Woodhue pointed and barked, "Get Demesta!"

Garreth saw the army jacket then, faded to pale green, with dark patches where the insignia had been removed. It dwarfed the man inside it, a man who bowled over an officer and was vanishing into the junk littering the building. Garreth took after it.

Chiarelli went out of a broken window in a shower of flying glass from remaining shards in the frame. Trying to avoid cutting his hands as he followed, Garreth swore. See the stupid cop jump out the window, he thought sardonically. See him break his leg.

But somehow he landed outside without crippling himself and looked up in time to see his quarry scramble across a set of railroad tracks and disappear into a passage between two more warehouses. Garreth pounded after him. At the beginning, good fortune? The hell. It looked more like disorder all day.

A hand reached out of a narrow doorway to grab Garreth's coat and jerk him inside the building. "Let's make this fast, man," Chiarelli said. "You're interested in cults?"

Garreth nodded, panting slightly. "I have two men who've been bled to death through needles stuck in their necks. We think maybe a cult did it."

"Like the Zebra murders? Christ!" Chiarelli shuddered and crossed himself. "So you want the names of people or groups who might use blood in their rituals."

"Right. Can you help me?"

Chiarelli sighed. "I'm not really next to that scene, you know, not unless some group also uses drugs, but . . . I guess I've heard a few things. Give me paper and a pen."

Garreth handed him his pen and notebook.

Chiarelli printed with the speed of a teletype and talked al­most as fast as he wrote, passing on more information than he had time to write. "Some is just addresses, not names. There have been weird stories about this house on Geary. Screaming and smells like burning meat." He had similar comments on every person or address he wrote down. When finished, he handed the notebook back. "Will that help?"

Garreth glanced over the pages, amazingly legible for the speed at which they had been written. "I hope so. Thanks." He started to turn away.

"Wait a minute," Chiarelli said. "We have to make it look good for me or I'm blown."

"I'll just say you outran me."

He shook his head. "Not good enough. You don't look like you've been chasing me all this time."

"How do you want to handle it, then?" He saw Chiarelli's fist double and stepped back, shaking his head. "Hey, not that—"

But the fist was already in motion. It sank into Garreth's stomach. He went down onto hands and knees in a wheeling galaxy of pain and light. His gut rebelled at the treatment by rejecting what remained of his lunch and he huddled retching on the dusty floor.

A wiry arm slipped under his and helped him to his feet as the paroxysm subsided. Chiarelli's face floated beyond a blue haze. "Take it easy. You'll be all right in a couple of minutes," he said cheerfully.

Garreth would have gone for Chiarelli's throat, but he could only lean against the wall and concentrate on breathing. He could not even swear at Chiarelli, just gasp and groan.

"Sorry, man, but it has to look real."

Chiarelli did not have to worry about that, Garreth reflected bitterly.

"See you around, man." Chiarelli slipped out the door.

Garreth continued to lean against the wall for several more minutes, then made his way slowly back to the site of the bust.

Seeing him coming, Harry exclaimed, "Garreth!" and rushed to catch his arm. "What happened? Are you all right?"

Garreth leaned against a handy car, holding his stomach. "Bastard ambushed me. I thought I was never going to make it up off that damned floor."

"So you let him get away, hot dog?" Woodhue said.

Several prisoners snickered. Garreth glared at them. "Next time I won't bother chasing him. I'll hobble the son of a bitch with a piece of lead . . . permanently."

Harry helped him to a car. "Nice acting," he whispered.

Garreth climbed into the car, remembering Chiarelli's smirk. "Who the hell is acting?"

He sat silent all the way back downtown. Not until they had left the Narco officers and returned to Homicide did he give the notebook to Harry. "We'd better run these names through R and I, then find out who owns or lives in these houses."

Harry regarded him with concern. "Are you sure you're all right? Maybe you ought to go home and take it easy the rest of the day."

"I'm fine. We have work to do." He started to take off his coat and winced as the motion stretched bruised muscles.

Harry hustled him toward the door. "Go home. I'll tell Serruto what happened."

"I don't want to go home. I'll be fine," Garreth protested.

"No one who refuses time off can possibly be fine. I'm a sergeant, but you're just an inspector, so I'm pulling rank and ordering you out, hear? Or do I have to have someone take you in handcuffs?"

Garreth sighed. "I'll go quietly, papa-san."

He left Chiarelli's pages of his notebook with Harry and headed for his car. He slipped the key into the ignition but did not start the engine immediately. As much as he hurt, he hated the thought of going home. He ought to give up the apartment with all of its sweet and painful memories and find another. Perhaps one of those places around Telegraph Hill that Mrs. Armour had mentioned.

The thought of them told him what he really wanted to do. He wanted to see Lane Barber again, to talk to her by daylight and find answers for the increasing number of questions she raised about herself. Then he started the engine.