Morris could only make the same lame gesture.
Adalian sighed. 'I don't know. What can I tell you?' he said to Bishop.
Bishop nodded in sympathy. 'Good thugs are hard to find nowadays.'
'You can say that again.' Bishop didn't, and Adalian held a hand out toward a chair in front of his desk, an old steel-framed chair with torn green cushioning. 'Have a seat,' he said. 'You smell like shit, by the way.'
'Thanks. I've been in lockup for two days. Your boys didn't give me a chance to shower.' Bishop lowered himself into the chair.
Adalian lifted his sharp chin to the gunmen. Bishop glanced over his shoulder to see them leaving, closing the door. As he did, he caught a whiff of himself. He did smell like shit, it was true.
When he faced front, Adalian was settling his big out-of-shape body into the swivel chair on the other side of the scarred wooden desk. He peeled his glasses off and tossed them down onto the blotter. 'So,' he said. 'You saved my son's life. That was my son-the whiny little dickhead-you saved his life in county.'
'Right. So I heard.'
'So I owe you.' Adalian gave him a hawklike glance from under one bushy white eyebrow. 'What do you want?'
'That's a pretty big question.'
'Give a big answer, then.' He gestured at the shabby little office as if it held a glittering display of worldly pleasures. 'Anything you're likely to think of I can probably supply.'
'Thanks, but I don't really need anything.'
'That's not what I asked you.' Adalian leaned forward, forearms on the edge of the desk, hands together, fingers intertwined: the pose of a captain of industry eye-locking an underling for a heart-to-heart. 'You wanna hear what I know about you? You wanna hear what the word is about you on the street?'
Bishop shrugged.
'You were military,' Adalian said. 'Some kind of bigtime black-ops killer shit, no one knows what. But you got all the weapons skills and hand-to-hand skills. Plus you can fly pretty much anything. Plus you can drive pretty much anything. All things being equal, you oughta be a valuable player, government, private, whatever you want. The only problem is you're all psycho inside-I guess 'cause of the war shit and everything. So you got yourself into some small-time trouble, broke into a house, kidnapped a family, whatever. And Weiss, back when he was a cop, let you off with a beating, right? 'Cause you've got all those medals, and everyone knows Weiss is Mr. Born on the Fourth of July and all that shit. So now you're his lapdog, running around helping old ladies across the street or whatever it is you do for him. A private eye. They still call it that? Whatta you, take pictures of jerks fucking other jerks' wives, shit like that?' Adalian parted his hands, an almost priestly gesture. 'Hey. To each his own. Don't get me wrong. And I know Weiss. We all know Weiss. I like him. I admire him. Hell, he put me away for seven months once, and it was my own judge on the bench at the time. Guy's incorruptible-plus some good friends of mine make a lot of money off his hooker habit. No, listen, really, if I had another life, I'd wanna come back as a guy like Weiss. I really would.'
Bishop nodded politely, but he didn't believe it for a second. He thought if Adalian had another life, he'd want to come back as Adalian only with even more money.
'But let's be realistic here,' Adalian went on. He sat back now in his chair, hooking a thumb in his belt, making little motions in the air with his free hand. 'I'm not that guy. And-and this is the point I'm getting to-neither are you. I mean, come on, what is that? What kind of small-ball life is that for a big-league player like yourself? Are you starting to see what I'm saying?'
'No,' said Bishop.
'I'm saying you should be working for me.'
Well, this was a day full of surprises. Bishop wasn't expecting that at all. 'Oh,' he said.
'This,' Adalian said, with another grand gesture at the crummy little room, 'this is what you might call your natural habitat. Being my guy is the job you were born for. So I'm gonna give it to you. That's how I'm gonna pay you back for rescuing my piss puddle of a son.'
Bishop sat still, in his usual slouch, with his usual ironic half smile on his face. He gazed at Adalian's hawklike features through his pale eyes and gave nothing away. But he was interested. He was thinking: Yeah. Maybe. Why not? He was out of work. He couldn't survive forever without a paycheck. He couldn't even survive a very small part of forever. And Adalian was probably right. This was probably the sort of thing he was made for in the end. It was like his fate catching up to him or something like that.
'What kind of job are we talking about?' he asked.
Adalian made that little motion-a little circular motion in the air-with his hand. 'What do you mean what kind of job? A job for me. Doing what you do. Being who you are. Expressing your inner Bishop, whatever. Good money too. Real money. Genuine happy-time cash. Plus whatever else you feel like. Girls? I run girls'll suck your dick so hard, your socks'll come through it. You like to travel? I got business in Thailand, Russia, China now, the Middle East. Plus there'll be plenty of the kind of psycho violent stuff you get your rocks off on, and you won't have Weiss hanging over you, wagging his finger or whatever. Plus the next time that what's-his-name, the nigger, Ketchum- next time he rousts you, you can beat the living shit out of him on me, and he won't be able to do a goddamned thing about it. How's that sound?'
Bishop was still sitting in that way he sat, still smiling that way he smiled. And the truth was, it sounded pretty good. The way he was feeling-fuck Weiss, fuck Ketchum, fuck everything-it sounded like just what the doctor ordered.
'Come on, Bishop,' Adalian said. 'You don't belong with a guy like Weiss. Guys like Weiss, they mess with a man's head. They think they make the rules of the world. I mean, I'm talking philosophically here, if you can understand me. A guy like Weiss: you cut a man's heart out for the fucking government, he gets all misty-eyed, calls you a hero. You do it for me, suddenly you're the bad guy.' He gave an elaborate shrug and made a sound with his lips like pffft. 'Where the hell is that written? It's just him. It's just the way he looks at it. So you look at it another way; I look at it another way. So what? He got on you about that bitch, I'll bet, didn't he? That bitch in the papers who got charged with murder. I'll bet he got way down on you for that.'
For all his self-control, Bishop couldn't keep the answer from showing itself in his eyes. Not that Weiss had said anything to him about the girl, but he didn't have to. Bishop figured he knew where Weiss stood.
Adalian pointed a finger at him and laughed. 'Eh? Eh? What did I tell you? He gets in your head; he fucks with your brain. Weiss, see, he's not open-minded. He needs to be more open-minded. This is San Francisco, right? This is a very open-minded town. That's why I've done so well here.'
Bishop frowned, considering. He had often thought similar sorts of things himself.
Adalian sat back in his chair, folded his hands over his belly as if he'd just finished a satisfying meal. 'So what do you say? Good work. Good money. Good-bye bullshit. What's not to like?'
Bishop wasn't sure why he hesitated. It wasn't anything that Ketchum had said about his dying in prison or anything. He was already pretty well sure he was going to die in prison one way or another. This way might be fun, at least. It sounded like his sort of thing. He took to heart what Adalian said about Weiss and his stifling rules and his dis- approving attitude. That had always bothered him. Still, he hesitated. This-this job Adalian was offering him-this was exactly what Weiss had been trying to keep him from. This was exactly where Weiss had seen him going when he'd dragged him out under the Golden Gate Bridge that night and beat him senseless and advised him not to live out his life as a piece of shit. Bishop got pissed off at Weiss sometimes, but Weiss was all right, more or less. Somewhere deep down, he sort of hated to disappoint Weiss after Weiss had gone and made a project of him and everything.
So he didn't answer right away. He sat there thinking.
That made Adalian impatient. Adalian was a busy man. He only had so much time for this back-and-forth shit. You were either in or out. He leaned forward on the desk again. He dropped his voice to an intimate just-between- you-and-me tone. 'Hey,' he said. 'Let me be frank with you on another score. Speaking strictly careerwise? Weiss is not exactly a long-term proposition anyway.'
Bishop shifted in his chair. He worked the corner of his lip under his teeth. 'What do you mean?'
'I'm just saying. If you're looking to invest in the future, his is limited.'
'What do you mean?' Bishop said again.
'How clear do I have to be?' said Adalian.
'Clear,' said Bishop. 'What do you mean? You mean there's a whack on him or something? There's a
