there, made prosperous by the total absence of chain groceries. There was suffocating unemployment; most of those with straight jobs left the Bayview to work, and the most vigorous signs of economic life were the crack dealers loitering at the corner of Third and Palou. There was a culture of hanging out on the porches and front steps, as Flora Lewis said the Price brothers had done, or on the streets drinking beer, especially on warm nights, when it felt good to be outside, even if the streets became a nightmare after dark. The other hub of social life lay in a plentitude of black churches—when temporal life is so hard, Monk knew, the hope of a hereafter spent somewhere other than the Bayview holds a certain appeal.
For sure it beat the public housing—Stalinist stucco complexes from the fifties and sixties, their street signs riddled with bullet holes, festering with crime and violence and living arrangements as mutable as the white powder mixed with baking soda. Not all of it was quite that grim: there were old Edwardians and Victorians amidst the plain one-story homes, and on sunny days, like this one, the streets sloping up and down the hills could present a sudden sweeping vista of the bay—dazzling, Monk felt certain, to the dockworkers who had come there from the rural South. But the residue of the shipping industry was a few shabby warehouses and this endless supply of young street hustlers on a treadmill to nowhere good and, perhaps even sadder to Monk, who dearly loved his own two daughters, young women with nowhere else to turn for love or solace. Too many of these stunted men had far too little of that to give—the subculture which had spawned the Price brothers ran on adrenaline, in a here and now that was brutal, direct, and violent, with no sense of consequence, no 'friendships' but with the people they used, no family but the illegitimate kids they had left with girls more cunning than smart.
Payton was twenty-two; Rennell barely eighteen. Monk already knew the rhythms of Payton's days and nights —constantly changing his meeting places; packing a gun or bringing along his brother for protection; searching for dealers among juveniles effectively immune from law enforcement, indifferent to the fact they might get killed; telling would-be snitches that he'd burn down their mamas' houses if anything in his life went bad; keeping cash under the bed or at some woman's or anywhere but a bank; stealing cars because he couldn't buy one, then beating the rap by saying he'd borrowed the car from some other dude without knowing it was stolen. The elements of a life built around loud music, sex, cars, and guns bought out of the back of a stranger's trunk, spent in a world where bus drivers cruising down Third Street called in robberies in progress, and the corner store sold glass pipes or one cigarette at a time so you could hollow it out to smoke a rock you'd just bought on the street. A life spent living—or dying—in the moment.
At this particular moment, it was Payton Price's bad luck to be home.
* * *
The house was a shabby Victorian on Shafter Avenue owned by Payton's grandmother. He stood in the doorway, lean, well-muscled, and more handsome than his picture, with seen-it-all eyes which held surprising flecks of green and, in their absolute determination to give nothing, perhaps the faintest hint of fear.
Blocking the door, he looked from Monk to Ainsworth to Monk again. 'You got a warrant?' he demanded, hostility etched with disdain.
Caught doing your home chemistry, Monk thought. 'We just dropped by to talk.'
'What about?'
'The Cambodian girl who washed up in the bay.'
A split-second glance at Ainsworth. 'Don't know nothing about that,' Payton said flatly.
'Then there's no problem with talking to us, is there?'
Payton turned his stare on Monk. 'Only problem's my time you'd piss away.'
Monk held his gaze. 'Then maybe we'll talk to your brother.'
This time Monk was certain he saw fear. After a moment, Payton shrugged. 'Let's get this over with, man.'
'First,' Monk answered, 'you can tell me where to find Rennell.'
* * *
They stuck Payton in a bare room with bare walls in the bowels of Robbery and Homicide, a videocam staring down from one corner and a tape recorder on the laminated table in front of him, the two cops letting him think for a while about the sullen hulk of the brother who waited in the interrogation room next door. Leaning forward on the table, Payton propped his chin on one cupped hand, elaborately bored. But his body was rigid; Monk sensed a perpetual vigilance, perhaps never more than now, though it was hard not to wonder when this man had last enjoyed a dreamless sleep.
Monk slid a photo of Thuy Sen across the table. 'Ever seen her?'
Payton made a show of studying her face, his squint a parody of concentration. 'Don't know,' he said, pausing to gaze back up at Monk. 'Pretty much all look alike, don't they?'
Monk summoned a faint smile. 'You see that many little Asian girls?'
The glint of irony vanished. 'Not saying I saw this one.'
Monk sat back, hands clasped behind his head. 'I'm only asking,' he said amiably, 'because we hear she was at your house the day she disappeared.'
The incredulous smile this summoned did not change Payton's eyes. 'That's bullshit.'
Monk appraised him. In a casual tone, Rollie Ainsworth interjected, 'That's just what someone said.'
'Who?'
Now it was Ainsworth's turn to smile. 'Can't say. You know how it is.'
'Well, they're fucked up, man.'
'Because she wasn't there?' Monk asked. 'Or wasn't there that day?'
Payton sat up, folding his arms, glaring straight at Monk. 'What would I want with some Asian kid not old enough to bleed?'
That the disclaimer carried sexual overtones only fed Monk's suspicion: at his request, Liz Shelton had suppressed the sexual aspects of Thuy Sen's death. 'What would anyone want with a nine-year-old girl? But
