On its way back to San Francisco from the Truckee Airport, the Kamov Ka-32 helicopter thwacked its boisterous way down the Little Grand Canyon, the little-sung but majestically beautiful passage cut into the Sierra Nevada by the American River. Its two passengers, Nick Sephia and Julio Rez, were sitting strapped in behind Mikhail, their pilot. Perhaps they should have been relaxed from two nights of gambling and four women between them, but this morning Sephia's Uncle Roy had called, waking them at ten o'clock, not even five hours after Nick had paid off Trixie and finally fallen into a comalike sleep. Roy told Nick he needed them both back in the city-he was sending the Kamov back up for them. It seems they had made some mistakes and still had work to do.
Even with the windows closed, they could barely hear inside the chopper. But that didn't stop the sleep- deprived Sephia from bitching about things. 'It's not like we didn't do enough these last couple of weeks. Roy's crazy to want us back in town. We ought to be lying low.'
Rez shrugged.
'He told us to make it look good, didn't he? Didn't we both figure the ring would lock it up? So now he's all, 'What if somebody noticed?' Who the fuck's gonna notice? And what are we going to do about it now anyway? It's done.'
Rez put a fish eye on his partner. 'You shouldn't have shot Sam.'
'I had to shoot him. He had us made. Me, anyway. And fuckin' Roy, stopping to admire the jewelry. He's the only reason… it's his fault as much as mine.'
'Yeah, but he's getting us out of it. So we just let him work it.'
'Hey, Julio. Here's a tip-he's not working it. We're working it. Maybe you didn't notice who was there with Creed, who didn't even show up for the faggots.'
'Whatever. It's working. It's his plan. We just stay cool; it'll be over.'
'I am cool.'
Rez looked over at him, snorted. 'Oh yeah, you're cool.'
'Hey, who missed Holiday? And Hardy? Both of 'em. Six shots. Didn't touch either one.'
Rez threw it back at him. 'Who drove like shit?'
They lapsed into a sullen and angry silence. Sephia closed his eyes and crossed his arms, trying to get some more sleep. After two or three minutes of looking down into the wilderness, Rez leaned forward and put on his pair of headphones. 'Hey, Mikhail!'
The pilot tilted his head. 'Yah!'
'How much time we got?'
The pilot shrugged. 'All we need. Shipment till tomorrow.'
'You mean not till tomorrow, you dumb Polack. Why don't you swing us around?'
Mikhail didn't completely understand the complicated and unexpected request, so he turned in his seat. Rez pantomimed that he should turn the craft around and fly lower.
'Got to piss?' Mikhail asked.
Rez laughed and shook his head no. He repeated the order.
Sephia felt the lurch, the change in altitude and direction, and sat up, eyes open. 'What's happening?' he yelled across to Rez, who didn't appear to hear. Sephia hit him on the arm and asked again.
'You'll see. A little fun.' He pointed at his earphones. 'Put them on. You're going to need 'em.' Then, into his microphone, 'Mikhail! Good! Down! Down! Okay, now. Slow.'
The pilot put the helicopter into a steep dive, leveling off over the river, at perhaps sixty feet. The sides of the canyon rose up on both sides, towering over them. Then, suddenly, on the right, one of the canyon walls disappeared to reveal a grassy plain upon which grazed a herd of deer. Rez unstrapped his seat belt and suddenly pulled open the door. Rez tapped Mikhail on the shoulder and pointed down. 'There!' he said. 'There!'
He pulled a. 45 automatic from his shoulder holster and turned to smile over at Sephia. The herd of perhaps twenty head didn't seem to know what to make of the noise from above them. As a body, it made a false start, then stopped again, and huddled together. Mikhail, getting the idea, hovered over them, circling.
The. 45 fired three times in quick succession, deafening even over the noise of the prop. Rez whooped with a mad laughter as the chopper dipped and turned and he squeezed off two more rounds.
The remainder of the herd was moving now, out under the helicopter. Rez slammed his own door, crossed to Sephia's and yanked it open, slapping the gun with a yelp into his partner's hand, pointing down. The deer were right under him, forty feet below, milling in confusion.
Sephia nodded, took the gun and aimed with both hands, then fired three times in three seconds. He pulled the trigger again, then noticed the slide all the way back, the chamber exposed. No more ammo.
But Rez pulled a fresh clip from his jacket pocket and handed it over. Sephia ejected the old one, dropped it onto the floor, and jammed the new one up in place. The slide slapped forward, the first round in the chamber. He took aim again. The standing deer had at last begun to run and Mikhail was chasing them toward a grove of trees.
Sephia took his shot. Squeezed again, but this second time, there was another empty click. Misfire. The first cartridge had jammed, bent now, halfway outside the chamber. Sephia swore again, but the sullen look had left his face. The two partners were ecstatic with the noise and the mayhem.
The rest of the deer reached the grove and Mikhail pulled up steeply, then whirled back around. Rez leaned out the open door and looked down, smiling.
In the pasture, six deer lay still in the brown grass.
Cuneo rang Mrs. Silverman's doorbell.
Out here in the western half of the city, the wind had come up. Intermittent high clouds scudded overhead, permitting only a milky sunshine through them. Suddenly, Cuneo realized, from a sunny morning of great promise at his home in Alameda, it had become a depressing late-autumn afternoon.
Mrs. Silverman looked worn out, as though she hadn't slept well. Still in mourning, she wore a black skirt and matching sweater, a demure string of pearls. After he'd gotten seated at the dining room table and declined her offer of something to drink, he placed his tape recorder between them, delivered the standard test and preamble with his name and badge number, the date, and the identification of the witness. Then he asked Mrs. Silverman to tell him why she had contacted the police. She got to the crux of it immediately, with no prompting by Cuneo.
When she'd finished, for a long moment he couldn't think of a question. He sat back in the dining room chair and crossed one leg over the other. Finally, 'But the ring was at Holiday's place, ma'am. I found it myself.'
'I'm not denying it was there. I'm saying it wasn't taken the same night my husband was shot. It couldn't have been.'
'And what does that mean to you?'
She settled back in her chair, a blackened figure in a dim room. 'I don't know exactly. I was thinking it meant that Mr. Holiday couldn't have taken it, after all.'
'Why not?'
'Well…'
'Maybe he saw the rings while he was there the first time and went back another day.'
'But I locked the place up after I left, the night I started to do the inventory. I don't know how he could have gotten in.'
'Maybe he had a key. Wasn't he a regular at these poker games?'
'Yes, but Sam didn't give those men keys to our shop. Sam wasn't stupid, Inspector.'
'No, ma'am. No one's implying anything like that. But maybe he found an extra key somewhere in the shop when he was there the first time. Or even in the red pouch itself?'
Cuneo's suggestions seemed to upset her. 'I didn't think of that. But I'm not sure Sam had many extras. Certainly he wouldn't have left any of them lying around.'
'It would only have taken one.' Cuneo came forward, put his arms on the table. 'Mrs. Silverman, we appreciate your coming forward with this. This is a very difficult time, I'm sure, and you want to do all you can to help. If nothing else, you've given us something else to look for at Holiday's place. If there's a key to your shop we've missed there, we'll go back and find it, I promise.'
The little speech didn't seem to help much, but Cuneo got the feeling that nothing would. Mrs. Silverman sighed deeply. 'I just wanted to make sure that the wrong man didn't suffer for what Sam's killer had done.'
'I wouldn't worry about that. We've got the right man. The money proves that without any question, wouldn't
