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I suppose I could have gotten away with asking, wide-eyed, "And
what place would that be, sir?" I was tempted, just to hear them
say it, but as I already knew the answer I did not. It would have
served no purpose except to further rile me.

Finally I roamed toward the bar, where I assumed Wish was still
conversing with Jeremy McFadden, as I had not seen either of them
since they'd headed in that direction. I spotted them standing
right up at the bar, where I couldn't handily eavesdrop on their
conversation. That was a disappointment.

I moseyed on over in that direction anyhow, keeping to the
periphery of the room, which was square, not so large as the main
room but not small either, and sparsely populated. Most of the men
were seated in little clusters of two or three around small tables,
muttering low. I kept glancing up at the paintings hung on the
walls. I was beginning to see the reasoning behind the Parnassus
Club's decor: It was all mythologically based, what with Parnassus
being the Greek version of Mount Olympus, home of the gods; and
Greek gods giving artists an excuse for depicting an astounding
variety of mostly naked males and females engaged in various
activities.

Then there were the animals and the women, for instance a truly
astonishing painting depicting Leda and the Swan-which had me
thinking odd thoughts about feathers.

At last I had worked my way around the room to where I could sit
partially concealed by a potted palm and overhear parts of two
conversations: Between two men at the nearest table and, in the
lulls between their words, snatches of whatever topic Jeremy
McFadden and Wish Stephenson were so ardently engaged in.

From Jeremy I heard: "My wife (mumble mumble) serious waste of
time. Tried to get her (mumble mumble mumble)."

And Wish said, "Oh, certainly, I couldn't agree more. But about
that investment, where did you say-"

It went on in that fashion for a couple of minutes, until the
pair at the nearby table drowned out the other pair in the
octogenarian enthusiasm of their leave-taking. I used this bit of a
fuss to approach Wish directly, and came up alongside him at the
bar, using his own body to screen me from McFadden.

"Hey, cuz," I said in a stage whisper, tugging on his sleeve,
"time to go."

I could see from the way the back of his neck tensed up that I'd
startled him, but he hid it well. Wish turned his head toward me
slowly, without moving his body at all, and said, "Hey yourself,
brat. But you know, for once in your life, you're right." And in
nothing flat, he'd extricated himself from McFadden, stuck him with
the bill, and was shepherding me down that long green-carpeted
hallway and out the door.

From the Parnassus we went on to have our stultifying experience
with the Native Sons, which owing to that club's being quite
nearby, did not allow us much time for talking in between. Nor did
the stuffiness of the latter allow me as a reckless (or perhaps
feckless might have been a better word] youth the opportunity to do
much more than sit stiffly in the clubroom under the watchful eye
of a major-domo, who appeared to be about a hundred and ten years
of age. I couldn't even trail after Wish, which I figured was no
great loss, as the men looked about as fossilized as the
collections in glass cases spread around the room.

At last, late in the afternoon, we caught the cable car and then
the streetcar that would take us back to Divisadero Street. Again
all talk had to wait because both were too crowded for private
conversation. Finally, after we'd dismounted and begun to walk the
half block uphill to the double house, I said: "One gathers the
Native Sons were not at all helpful about anything."

"Too right!"

"But what about at the Parnassus? We were there such a long
time. You must have learned something valuable." It was impossible
to keep the eagerness from my voice.

Wish tugged at his earlobe, a mannerism as characteristic of him
as Michael's rubbing his hair the wrong way was of Michael himself,
and serving approximately the same purpose. "Sometimes," Wish said
carefully, "what you don't learn can be as important as what you
do."

"And sometimes you just haven't learned anything," I snapped,
not in the mood to be coddled. "So which is it this time?"

Wish looked down at me. Though I am tall, he was much taller,
and his warm hazel eyes appeared a bit turbulent in their depths.
"Jeremy McFadden is every bit as powerful as your partner Michael
Archer-excuse me, Kossoff-was trying to tell us a while back.
Nobody is going to cross that man. It would be too dangerous.

I stopped walking. The house was only a few yards away, and I
wanted to finish this conversation without the assistance of Edna
Stephenson. "If he's that powerful, he could have arranged the
murders," I said. "He'd know how. It would be no problem at all for
a man like that to set something up."

Wish nodded unhappily. "That's true. But what is equally true is
that we'll probably never know. If he did it, Fremont, his tracks
are so well hidden that they're damn near impossible to discover.
No one I talked to would say anything more definite about the night
when we assume Abigail Locke was murdered than that they believed
Jeremy McFadden had been at the Parnassus Club all evening as he
generally was, but without his wife, who had asked to be excused.
It had apparently been Ladies' Night that night."

"Go on."

Wish shook his head and shoved his hands deep into his pockets,
a sign of resignation, or so it seemed. "I've seen men like him get
away with murder before. Not to say he necessarily did it, you
understand, we don't really know that."

"I realize that," I said, wanting to be fair and to erase my
lingering sense of guilt for having in my head convicted a man who
only stood accused-and that by very few.

"Nobody will be able to shake McFadden. His friends and those
who depend on him for their business-and the numbers of people in
those two categories are many, by the way-will not let him down.
We'll never be able to prove anything against McFadden himself,
Fremont. That just isn't going to happen. We'd stand a much better
chance trying to find out who he hired to do it, if he did indeed
hire someone. And that's really not a job for the likes of us, it's
more for the police."

I knew what he said was true; I just hadn't wanted to admit it.
Still didn't, even if the most incontrovertible piece of evidence
to that effect should happen to appear right in front of my face. I
didn't say anything, didn't respond at all to Wish's earnest words,
but turned on my heel and set off to walk briskly the few remaining
steps up to the house. I could not speak for disappointment. We had
seemed to be doing so well, and yet we'd learned nothing.

"Fremont!" Wish sprinted after me. A few long strides brought
him to my side. "Don't be so discouraged. This is early stages
yet." His voice dropped a note or two in the register. "And you
must really allow me to give you a compliment.'' His hand on my arm
stayed my progress.

I looked silently at him. It was late in the day. We had been
long at our work, and the softness of the air with twilight coming
on seemed to soften his features and to blur the edges of his
body.

"You were . . . you are . . . wonderful," he said.

Then he paused, while I thought, Oh dear. Such a lovely young
man, and while I had often sensed he might be rather more, shall we
say, interested in me than was a good idea, I had never really seen
it in him. Or felt it, as in the faint trembling of his fingers now
lightly touching my arm. I did not know what to do, so I did
nothing. Said nothing.

Wish rallied, gathered himself together, and went on in more of
a comradely tone of voice: "Your disguise, I meant. It's very good,
really." His eyes swept over me quickly and returned to rest on
mine. "Of course I prefer you as a woman, but you make a very
convincing, and handsome, man. Even that voice you used was
passable. You must have had to practice a long time."

I grinned, giving him an A for effort. "I certainly did," I
said. "And now, before it gets any later, let's go tell your mother
what we did this afternoon. She's always an appreciative audience,
and will make me feel better, since we didn't get what we set out
after."

"Oh, I dunno," Wish said cryptically as we climbed the steps to
J&K's side of the double house, "I got some pretty good stuff
there, even if it wasn't what I thought I was looking for."

I assumed he was talking about the Bell case. It wasn't until
much later I found out I was wrong about that.

I couldn't sleep. I missed Michael so much it was like-like
what? Like nothing I had ever known. I only knew I could not stay
one more minute in the bed alone.

I got up and went to the window, the one from which I can in
daylight see the Golden Gate, that narrow entrance to San Francisco
Bay; it was my distant relation, John C. Fremont, who named that
strait the Golden Gate-or so the story goes. Always a controversial
figure was Cousin Fremont, and his wife Jessie even more so, and so
there were some people who would, out of envy, take away all his
honors, including the naming of the Golden Gate. But I had adored
Cousin Fremont-or at least the idea of him-for almost my whole
life. For the most part in secret, because even my mother had not
approved.

Of course at night I could see nothing but a few stars and some
wispy high clouds. No fog, because the day had been both clear and
cool. It is on warmer days when the sun heats the land in
California's great valleys that the heat in turn pulls the fog in
off the water. I shivered, went and got my green wool robe and put
it on, then returned to the window as if I had nowhere else to go.
Nor did I.

My eyelids felt stretched tight and the eyeballs as if there
were grit in them. Yet I could not close my eyes; if I did, they
would pop back open all of their own accord.

So I stood by the window and thought about my father's visit to
San Francisco, because that was what was really on my mind. Two
more days, and on the third Father would arrive and check himself
in at the Hotel St. Francis on Union Square. I was immensely glad
he was coming alone. Yet why . . . why would he come without
Augusta?

For my twenty-fifth birthday, he'd said. Something he wanted to
give me, now and not later.

"Another watch?" I wondered aloud. He'd given me an elegant
little lapel watch when I turned twenty-one, but it had been
smashed in the Great Quake. But no-Father would hardly come all the
way across the country to give me a watch that he could just as
easily send through the mail.

No, it must be something important.
Very
important.

I liked thinking about this, liked the curiosity welling up from
inside me and pushing out the other, more uncomfortable emotions. I
nurtured it, making lists in my head of all the things I could
think of that Father might want to give me in person: Something of
my mother's that I didn't know about, something that had been
precious between them. Something of Mother's that he'd kept secret
from Augusta, which was why she could not come. Hmm. That certainly
seemed possible, as well as plausible. But what could it be?

Some exotic, valuable piece of jewelry.

Love letters.
(What an interesting thought!)

The deed to a piece of property that had been theirs alone, a
place for secret trysts. Where would such a place be? In the
mountains of New Hampshire? No, Mother had disliked mountains
intensely, "all that up and down" she'd said she didn't care for.
So, along the sea somewhere, perhaps an island. Yes . . .

With my thoughts running thus, I wandered back to bed and lay
down to continue my hypothesizing. An island . . . where?

And so musing, I fell at last asleep.

My two days would have to be packed with activity if I were to
make the most of them. Having awakened from my relatively brief
sleep as entirely refreshed as if I'd been much longer abed, I
dressed with somewhat more care than usual in a real dress rather
than the skirt and blouse I usually wore. This dress, although
bought, like most of my clothes, secondhand after the earthquake,
was one of my best and I knew I looked handsome in it. It was
cranberry wool, tissue-light yet warm, with a bit of ivory ruching
at the high round collar and edging the cuffs. The color brought
out the red in my reddish-brown hair, which for once I took the
time to arrange in a pouf on top of my head.

All this care with my appearance was in part practice for when
Father would be here, and in part it was for the benefit of Dr.
William Van Zant, the hypnotist and debunker of Spiritualist fraud.
I had decided to pay him a visit at his earliest convenience-this
morning, if possible. Some instinct told me that he might hold a
piece of the puzzle; but then, I might just be grasping at
straws.