“So what are you thinking, someone went on a revenge kick and hit the other baby killer? With all those years in between? What’s it been, ten?”

“Eight,” said Milo.

“Long time,” said Krug.

“It’s a problem, Phil, but there’re no other leads.”

“I’ve been figuring Nestor as your basic dope thing. Patrol officers I.D.’d him as a bottom-feeder with a bad disposition, he was working Lafayette and MacArthur and the streets.”

“Bottom-feeder user?”

Krug pantomimed a bellpull. “Bingo. His arms and legs were full of tracks and there was dope in his blood. You know what it’s like when they get to that point. They’re just selling to stay healthy.”

Milo nodded. “How much heroin was in him?”

Krug said, “Don’t remember the numbers, but it was enough to get him high. The way I figure, being numbed out made him easier to kill. They found a knife on him but it never got out of his pocket.”

“The killer feeds him, then does him?” said Milo.

“Or Nestor fed himself and ran into bad luck. If I was out to get a guy like Nestor, that’s how I’d do it. And a guy like Nestor would have enemies.”

“Bad disposition.”

“The worst,” said Krug, “but we never picked up any specific street talk on who he pissed off.”

“Where was he living?” said Milo.

“Dump on Shatto, pay by the week. You could go there but you’d find nothing. Nestor’s total belongings fit into one box and there was nothing interesting. Maybe the coroner still has it but you know the storage problems at the crypt. My guess is it got tossed.”

“Nestor’s sister said he showed her Turner’s I.D.”

“It wasn’t in his stuff.”

“What was?”

“Clothes, needles, spoons, crappy clothing.”

“Anyone at his crib have anything to say?”

“You’re kidding, right?” said Krug. “We’re talking transients and a clerk who does the blind-dumb-deaf bit.”

Krug took a bite of his burger. “Excellent, huh? One thing the French are good for is cheese . . . anyway, whatever bragging Nestor might’ve done in the past, his crowing days were over.”

He reached in his pocket and brought out a postmortem shot of a hollow-cheeked visage. Matted hair, sallow complexion, death-glazed eyes bottomed by gray pouches. Patchy facial hair came across as a gray skin rash.

Like his sister, Nestor Almedeira had a round face. Bad living had wiped out any other resemblance to her.

I motioned for the picture and took a closer look. Nestor had been the baby of the family, but he looked ten years older than Anita. His head had been tilted by the morgue photographer to give a view of the entrance wound. Left temple, black-and-ruby hole sharpened by stellate skin shredding and framed by a pointillist ring of powder.

Milo said, “Was he sitting when he was shot?”