He headed out to the road and caught a cab back to North Beach. The broad outlines of the neighborhood were the same, but he'd known the area before only by night and there was something off about it in daylight. It was like seeing the working girl who'd gotten you so hot the night before without her makeup the next morning. Clubs with names like Roaring Twenties and the Garden of Eden and the Condor Topless Bar and the Hungry I clustered together like drunks sleeping off a collective hangover, their neon signs inert, bleached in the sunlight, the innumerable gray wads of gum ground into the sidewalks before them the only evidence of the restless crowds they attracted at night. A homeless man in a raincoat the color of lichens stopped in front of a trash can and began picking through it, oblivious to Ben's presence. Ben peeled a twenty out of his wallet and, when the man looked up, handed it to him. The man looked at it, then smiled at Ben, revealing dark and ulcerating gums. Ben watched him shuffle off and thought, What difference does it make, anyway?
He found an Internet café and pulled out the dead Russians’ wallets. The driver's licenses identified them as Grigory Solovyov and Yegor Gorsky He got no hits. Well, maybe one of the alphabet soup agencies had something on them.
He had a thought-a way of testing the girl. What was the name of that club across from Vesuvio… Pearl 's, something like that? He searched for Pearl 's San Francisco and got it on the first try: Jazz at Pearl 's. Someone named Kim Nalley would be singing songs of love there at eight o'clock that night. Okay, Kim, he thought. Sing one for me.
He went out to a pay phone and called Hort, using the scrambler as always. “Anything turn up about that Russian in Istanbul?” he asked.
“Nothing. Nobody's claimed him. I would have let you know otherwise.”
“Yeah, I know. The main reason I'm calling is, I just saw something on the news and thought, what the hell, maybe it's connected.”
“What is it?”
“Two Russians got shot to death this morning in Palo Alto. Well, the part about their being Russian isn't on the news. I found out about that another way.”
There was a pause. Hort said, “I can't help noticing you're calling from San Francisco.”
“Just passing through. Couple of personal things to take care of.”
“I'm not going to ask you if you had anything to do with these two dead Russians.”
“Good, then I won't have to tell you.”
“They came after you?”
“No. Not me.”
“Then why do you think it was connected?”
“I don't. It's… just a lot of Russians lately. You want their names? I'm hoping you can tell me a little more about who they are. I think they were Russian mafia, but there's nothing publicly available and it's probably going to be a while before the police can identify them.”
“Go ahead.”
Ben gave him the names. Hort said, “All right, as soon as I learn something, I'll call you. It might take a while. It's still hell getting the FBI and CIA to share information.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Nice job in Istanbul, by the way. Intercepts indicate the Iranians are apoplectic. They think it was the Israelis.”
“Well, that's good.”
“Yeah. I'll let you know what turns up on the Russians.”
Ben hung up and walked away. For a moment he felt purposeless, and found himself heading up Kearny, one of the city's famously steep streets. Something still felt off to him, but he couldn't quite place it. He paused at Filbert, just below Coit Tower, and looked out at the city to the west. This was another spot they'd liked as kids. Unlike Columbus and Broadway, the heart of North Beach, with its restaurants and clubs and traffic and neon, the neighborhoods above were quiet and almost entirely residential. He remembered standing here at night, the Transamerica Pyramid behind him and Coit Tower just above, listening to the sounds of distant traffic and watching the river of headlights flow across the Golden Gate Bridge, and he would feel like he could have all this, not just this city but a hundred others like it that for now he could barely imagine, cities and places that were only hinted at and yet also somehow promised by the twinkling neighborhoods below him and the endless dark of the Pacific beyond.
And then he realized what was bugging him about being in San Francisco. When he used to come here as a kid, the visits were always fun and exciting, full of enthusiasm and innocence and stupid optimism. He had grown up down the Peninsula, where Alex still lived, and being back there hadn't strummed any contrasting emotional chords, maybe because he was somehow hardened to it. San Francisco, it seemed, was different. He knew he'd changed since he'd left the Bay Area; that had been almost twenty years earlier, and who doesn't change in twenty years? And with the shit he'd seen and done, he knew he'd changed more than most. But being back here made him realize the person he used to be hadn't just changed, he was actually gone, and this was the first time he had paused to consider whether that long-ago person's disappearance might be grounds for sadness, maybe even for grief.
He cleared his throat and spat. It was stupid to come back here. Well, Alex hadn't left him much choice, had he?
He headed back down Kearny and then over to Molinari's, an Italian deli he used to like at the corner of Columbus and Vallejo. He bought sandwiches and headed back to the hotel, checking in at the front desk on the way. Still no calls. But that didn't prove anything. The girl was smart, he could see that, and she might even have figured he would check at the desk to see if she'd used the room phone. If she wanted to contact someone, she'd use the computer.
Alex let him in. He saw the bag and said, “That smells great. We were just talking about lunch-can't believe it's already almost three.”
Ben handed out the sandwiches. Sarah asked, “Molinari's?” When Ben nodded, she said, “Good place.”
He didn't like that she knew the city. It gave her an advantage. “Any progress?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Alex said.
They ate sitting on the floor. When they were done, Ben said, “Sarah, do you mind if I lie down in your room? I need to shut my eyes for a while, and the two of you will be talking in here.”
“It's fine,” she told him.
He grabbed his bag and walked through the common doorway, closing and locking the door behind him. He'd almost been hoping she would protest, or say she had to go in there first, or do some other thing that would bolster his suspicions. But nothing. Still, he took the opportunity to quickly and quietly search the room. Again, nothing.
He thought he would nap for maybe twenty minutes, but when he woke he realized from the weak light coming through the window that he'd slept much longer than that. He checked his watch. Damn, it was almost six o'clock. He'd slept nearly three hours. Still on Istanbul time, he supposed. But he was glad he'd been out so long. He'd obviously needed it.
He opened the common door and looked in. Alex and Sarah were still in front of their computers. He walked in rubbing his face. “Anything?”