He sat down on the side of the bed, put his hand on her cheek. She opened her eyes.

“Coming to bed, honey?” she asked. “In a little while.”

“Okay,” she said.

Will pulled down the shades, first standing for a moment in front of the window, knowing that a couple of cops down on the street were seeing his silhouette. Then he turned off the light.

He paused in the doorway and listened to Becky’s breathing. Then he went downstairs to the garage, where he took his leather jacket off a hook and put it on. He took his gun out of a toolbox and tucked it inside his waistband. Then he exited through the rear door and went down the short flight of steps to the backyard.

There was enough moonlight to see by but not enough to be seen. He crossed the grass and cut around the swing set, disappeared through the gap between the two houses that backed up against his yard and faced onto Golden Gate Avenue.

He turned onto the deserted road with the grandiose name, kept his head down, walked a block past shabby Victorian homes, and found Becky’s Camaro where he’d parked it. He opened the car and got in, put his gun under the front seat, then started up the engine.

A moment later, he was heading east on Golden Gate. He wanted to get this job done before Craig Ferguson started his e-mail segment on The Late Late Show, which would be in about an hour.

If everything went as planned, he was pretty sure he could make it.

Chapter 86

Chapter 86

WILL RANDALL DROVE through the light-industrial area in the northern part of the Potrero Hill District as if he had an open barrel of beer in the backseat. He kept an eye on the speedometer, came to full stops at traffic lights, was careful not to attract any attention; he wanted to get this over with and go back home.

He stopped for a yellow light at the intersection of Alameda and Potrero. Then he continued on for another block, turned right onto Utah, a quiet road adjacent to the Jewelry Center and during the day used mostly for local traffic.

At night the area was nearly deserted. The lots were empty, and metered parking was open as far as he could see. Will pulled into a spot half a block from Zeus, a club and restaurant that filled a three-story brick warehouse and had the best sound system in San Francisco.

From where he sat, he could see the 101 Freeway to the north, the newly planted trees up the street, a gang of laughing-out-loud kids stumbling off the wide sidewalk, crossing the street behind him, and heading for the black iron delivery doors that were the unmarked entrance to Zeus.