“For when? Nobody’s got a clue when Como actually died.”
“So that answer would be no, no alibi,” Hunt said. “And otherwise we know she’s not guilty because…?”
Mickey let out a breath. “She’s not guilty, Wyatt. Originally, she wanted to hire us to find out who killed Como. She wouldn’t have done that if she did it.”
“There’s so many arguments against that one that I don’t know where to start.” Still, Hunt held up his hand again and sucked on his cheek for a minute. “She good- looking enough to be affecting your judgment?”
“I hope not.” Mickey turned to him, met his eye, nodded. “Possibly, but I don’t think so. For the record, though, I would marry her tomorrow if she’d have me.”
“Good to know. And she was involved with Como? Intimately?”
“Don’t know. Maybe.”
“But she didn’t kill him?”
Again, Mickey hesitated. “Let’s say that I think we can choose to believe she didn’t and not have it come back and bite us. It’s a calculated risk and also pretty much the only game in town. And meanwhile, she can put us in touch with people who will pay you to be back in that game. Maybe that’s short-term, but guess what?”
“Tell me.”
“No. You told me about ten minutes ago. If you’re in the game, you’re gonna win it. Or die or kill somebody trying.”
Hunt chuckled. “That’s flattering, Mick, it really is. But that was basketball.”
Mickey Dade shook his head, truly amused that his boss didn’t seem to realize this fundamental truth about himself. “Don’t kid yourself, Wyatt. That’s any game you get yourself into.”
6
At six o’clock that night, Mickey checked the coals in his Weber kettle cooker and then came back into his purple kitchen. He walked over and opened the refrigerator, atypically loaded with food. After leaving Hunt’s, he’d gone down to the Ferry Building, and though it was by then late in the day, the various stores there still had a selection of foodstuffs that put to shame most of the other, regular grocery stores in the city. Now he pulled out the paper-wrapped leg of lamb he was going to butterfly and barbecue after smearing it with garlic, rosemary, salt, pepper, soy sauce, and lemon juice. He brought it over to his cutting board, where he’d piled up the ingredients you really didn’t want to refrigerate if you didn’t have to: heirloom tomatoes-green, purple, yellow-bunches of Thai basil, thyme and rosemary, two heads of garlic, a lemon.
He opened a bottle of Chianti and poured himself half a juice glass full.
Grabbing his favorite six- inch carbon-steel Sabatier knife off the magnetic holder on the wall, he honed it to a razor’s edge with his sharpening steel. Then, whistling, he pulled the leg of lamb toward him and started cutting.
Five minutes later, Mickey laid the lamb out flat on the grill and covered it. Then, back in the kitchen, he took a saucepan down from its rung on the wall. He put it on the stove over high heat, throwing in half a stick of butter and some olive oil. In another minute, he’d added chopped shallots, garlic, thyme and rosemary, some allspice, and three cups of the chicken stock that he made from scratch whenever he started to get low. Some things you simply couldn’t cut corners on.
He stirred a minute more, added a cup and a half of Arborio rice and some orzo, then turned the heat all the way down to the lowest simmer and covered the pan. This was his own personal version of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat, a simple pilaf, but he liked his strategy of first making the kitchen so fragrant that it drew his roommates to the feast whether they were inclined to eat or not.
And sure enough, here was Jim following his nose through the doorway from the living room. “That smells edible.”
“Should be,” Mick said, pouring wine into another juice glass and holding it out for him. “You ready yet for some hair of the dog?”
“That was one ugly fucking dog,” Jim said, taking the glass, “but salut.” He and Mickey clicked their thick glasses and both sipped.
And then Tamara appeared in the doorway. “I’m not really hungry, but I might have a little of whatever that is.”
“We call that a side dish, Tam. It goes with the other stuff that’ll be ready in a half hour.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’ll have much, but I’ll sit with you guys.”
Mickey handed her a half glass of wine. “Whatever,” he said.
Tamara and Jim sat on the green benches on either side of the table, dipping the still-warm sourdough bread into a small bowl of extra virgin olive oil. The finished, medium- rare lamb rested under foil on the cutting board as Mickey finished cutting the tomatoes for “Donna’s famous salad” (named after an old girlfriend and early cooking influence), which was going into his big wooden bowl and was composed only of tomatoes, basil, salt, and balsamic vinegar, no oil.
When the doorbell rang, Mickey turned away from the cutting board. “Tam,” Mickey said, “you want to get that?”
She turned the knob and pulled the door open and just stood there. “Wyatt?”
“Hey, Tam.”
“I don’t…” She inhaled, then let out the breath. “I…”
“Mick didn’t tell you I was coming over?”
“No.” Another long exhale. “He knew if I’d known, I might have left.”
“Why would you have done that?”
“Because… because I don’t know. I didn’t want to face you.”
“You want,” Hunt said, “I can go now.”
“No. Don’t be stupid. You’re here.”
“I can just as easily be gone, Tam. I don’t want to cause you any pain.” He hesitated. “Mickey should have told you he asked me.”
“No,” she said. “He was right not to. He’s trying to force me to change the way I’ve been lately.”
“How’s that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Look at me.”
“You look fine.”
“No, I don’t. I look like death.”
“Death should look so good.”
She snapped at him. “Don’t bullshit me, Wyatt. If you’re going to patronize me, then maybe you really ought to get out of here.”
Hunt’s gaze went hard. “And then what? I mean between you and me. That’s just it?”
“Even if it is, what does it matter?”
“I hope you don’t mean that.” He took a breath. “It matters because, like it or not, you’re family, and I don’t have so much of it that I can afford to lose any of it. I love you, Tam. I’m always going to love you. Don’t you know that?”
Looking down, she shook her head. “Sometimes I feel I don’t know anything anymore. I thought you hated me.”
“I could never hate you. Why would I hate you?”
“Because I left.” She met his eyes. “I’m so so sorry. I just couldn’t handle”-a tear broke and trickled down her cheek-“any of it.”
“That was all right. I understood. It was fine.” Hunt brushed the tear away with a finger. “You handled what you could and did what you had to do, Tam. You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”
“No? Then why do I feel like if I’d stayed on… maybe things with the business wouldn’t have gotten so bad?”
“That was nothing to do with you. You in the office wouldn’t have made any difference, wouldn’t have
