We would have drinks together, Peter and I. We would laugh about the fun times we had back in Florida. Remember Kendrick Powell?

And then we would go on from there, talking about all the things he had done to women over the years, including driving a golf club into the skull of Heidi Telford.

"I a.s.sume," I said to the woman watching me, "it takes some time to get ready for a race like that."

"Oh, Lord, yes. Six months, at least."

In other words, a long time before Barbara spoke to him, told him I was coming. Yet Barbara said he would be here, waiting for me.

"Are you all right, young man?"

I gave her half a wave. Sure, no problem. Set up an appointment from three thousand miles away, show up, and n.o.body's there. Happens all the time.

"Because you might want to check with his friend Billy."

I stopped.

"Why?"

"Well, Billy's boat-sitting for him." She gestured to the Pretty Hat, as if it was obvious.

"Where can I find Billy?"

The woman cast an eye up into the cloudy sky, as if that would tell her. "Well," she said without bringing down her gaze, "I'd say it's not too early for him to be at Smitty's."

I asked who Smitty was and she gave out with a hoot, as if she had misread me. "Smitty's is a bar over on Caledonia, darling," she said, pointing back the way I had come. "Walk two blocks inland, turn right, go two blocks down the street and you can't miss it." Then she added, as if she had her doubts about me, "At least I don't expect you will."

QUITE A PLACE, SMITTY'S. A big open room with a bar on one side and Formica tables scattered around the floor. It was obvious you could push the tables anyplace you wanted, either because you had a large group that wanted to sit together or simply because they were in your way. At three o'clock in the afternoon they were in somebody's way. The juke box was blasting Steppenwolf and two rough-looking men were dancing. Only their dancing looked more like fighting. Their legs were wide apart, their arms were swinging, and they were taking up lots of s.p.a.ce as they kicked and flailed, first rocking toward each other and then much more forcefully pulling away.

I hoped neither of the dancers was Billy.

There were probably a dozen other people in the bar, most of them guys, a couple of females who looked like guys. Virtually everyone wore blue jeans. A few were in long-sleeved T-shirts, a few were in sweatshirts, a few in windbreakers. Summer attire, I gathered, for the fog-bound Bay Area.

I ordered a bottle of Anchor Steam and asked the bartender if Billy was around. He surveyed the room, which was bathed in natural light coming through large front windows and an open door, and said, "Billy who?"

I said, "Billy who's a friend of Tyler Belbonnet's," and hoped that sufficed.

"Ty's racing," he said, focusing someplace above my head.

"I know. That's why I'm looking for Billy."

"And you don't know what Billy looks like?"

"No. That's why I'm asking you."

The bartender nodded toward the dancers. "That's him," he said, with just enough cant to his head that I a.s.sumed Billy was the dancer on the right, the smaller one, a wiry guy who looked like the sort of person who would crawl through drainpipes or shinny up flagpoles for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his friends. I waited until the song was over and then stepped in between Billy and his buddy before they could start flailing about to Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

"You Billy?"

"What's it to you?"

It occurred to me that people were not as friendly in California as I had imagined.

"I was looking for Tyler."

"Ain't here."

"I know. He's sailing the Trans.p.a.c. But I was supposed to meet him."

"Yeah, well, he ain't here." Billy wanted to get back to dancing. His buddy was playing air guitar without him. His buddy was making terrible faces, as though that was what was necessary to get the notes out of his imaginary instrument.

I wanted to put my hand on Billy's arm and steer him away, but I had the feeling that Billy, his joints warmed and his spirits fired up, would not accept physical maneuvering. "I'm a friend of his from back home," I said.

That earned me a squint. "You from the Cape?" he asked.

I told him I was. "You?"

"Nah," he said. Yet he obviously had some familiarity with it.

"Where you from?"

"Martha's Vineyard."

Martha's Vineyard, sitting about seven miles off the Cape, but not the Cape itself, according to Billy. I said, "You know him back east?"

He looked at his friend having all the fun. "Yeah."

"Then you must know his wife, Barbara." I had to stretch matters a little. "I got a message from her I have to give to him."

"From Barbara?" Billy's eyebrows went up.

"Can we go outside and talk for a minute?"

He said to his friend, "Be right back." But his friend didn't care. He was stuttering his way through "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet."

Billy grabbed a bottle off the bar that may or may not have been his, chugged it, and led the way to the sidewalk, where a man was sitting with his back against the outer wall of the building, selling paintings that were spread around him. From what I could tell, he had taken several ma.s.s-produced pictures of sea and landscapes and then slapped great gobs of dark blues and greens and reds on the canva.s.ses so that the otherwise peaceful or idyllic scenes looked as though they were being ripped apart by explosives shot from outer s.p.a.ce. That was my only explanation.

"Hey, Taquille," said Billy, and threw the artist a couple of quarters. Then he turned to me. " 'Sup?"

"I was supposed to meet Tyler to talk with him."

"He's-"

"I know, sailing. Look, my name's George Becket. Did he leave any kind of message for me?"

This gave good old Billy a chance to show how clever he was. "I thought you was s'pose to give a message to him."

"I was, and he's not around, and I'm trying to figure out why."

Billy looked at Taquille scrambling around on the sidewalk, trying to pick up the quarters he had failed to catch. Taquille appeared to be cursing his benefactor. I said, "I was wondering if maybe this was kind of unexpected, him sailing this race."

"Oh, man, if anybody could do it, it's Ty. He knows that boat better'n anyone."

"But he wasn't part of the original crew, is that it?"

"Well, man, the Trans.p.a.c's got this whole social thing to it. All those dudes from the Saint Francis Yacht Club, the San Francisco Yacht Club, the Corinthian, they all want a ride. I mean, don't get me wrong, you get some good sailors comin' outta those places, man, but they're not like Ty and me. You know what I'm sayin'?" He slapped my arm with the back of his hand.

He apparently thought I was like Ty and him. Being from the Cape and all.

"They got eight people Goin' over," he added. "Ty's bringin' the boat back with four. What's that tell ya? We're like the grunt guys, you know? The blue-collar guys."

"So what I'm asking is if Tyler got put on the race crew at the last minute."

Billy shrugged. "Coulda been, man."

"Well, when did he ask you to boat-sit for him?"

"Just, like, a week ago."

"So he wasn't planning on sailing before then?"

Billy was distracted. "Jumpin' Jack Flash" was playing inside. His buddy was getting all the good chords. "Look, fact is, you can have all the big-shot friends you want on board, but you want to win, you need somebody like Ty."

This was getting frustrating. I wondered if Billy was brain damaged. I wondered if his condition was contagious. "But," I said, trying to be patient, "doesn't the crew have to train together?"

"d.a.m.n straight. Captain gets his crew, then you train. Do short races. Take the boat up and down the coast, out and back, make sure it's gonna do the job. Make sure everybody on the crew's gonna be able to do his job. But guys like me and Ty, we're usually the ones givin' the trainin'." Billy flexed his arm, got it going like he was pulling the cord on a power saw. "I was doin' that, man, till I blew out my shoulder."

He kept working the shoulder until I realized that he was simulating winching. Then he grabbed his upper arm and grimaced to let me know he was not back to full strength. "That's why I'm not gonna be able to sail her back with Ty. Captain said I could do permanent damage and, well, he's a f.u.c.kin' doctor, man. So I did what he said. I'm trying to rehab it."

"Who we talking about?" I asked. "Who's the doctor?"

"Dr. Martin, man. Dr. Peter Martin."

"You mean Peter Gregory Martin?"

"I mean the f.u.c.kin' Saint of San Francisco. But yeah, he's a Gregory."

"Why would you call him a saint?"

"Why? He's the AIDS doctor, man. Works all those clinics doing s.h.i.t n.o.body else will do. Doin' it all for practically free, too."

"But he's got enough to fund a sailboat and a crew on their way to Hawaii."

"Hey, man, even saints need vacations. Look at Jesus. Went up the Sea of Galilee in his time off, remember? Used to go fishing." Billy stopped messing with his shoulder and looked through the door longingly. It was time to go back and dance.

"Tell me, Billy," I said, "the people who are on Peter Martin's boat right now, other than Tyler, are they all locals? All people from the fancy yacht clubs here in the Bay Area?"

"One or two are, like, his old buddies from other places. He's a-"

"A Gregory, I know. I'm just wondering if one of those old buddies might happen to be a guy named Jason."

"I don't know. I could find out for you, I guess." He started his winching arm again. Had to keep up that rehab. He glanced sideways at me in the midst of his movements.

The guy was living on someone else's boat, drinking beer in the afternoon in a place like Smitty's. I offered him twenty bucks.

"Twenty, huh?" Billy stroked his chin, using his good arm. "Can you make it fifty?"

We settled on thirty.

WE COULD HAVE MET AT SMITTY'S AGAIN, BUT BILLY WANTED to go to the No Name Bar on Bridgeway. I got the impression it was because he figured it was his chance to get fancy drinks and, indeed, he ordered an old-fashioned.

It was not ideal. The place was narrow and had a trio playing loud enough to overcome most efforts at conversation.

We were seated by the door, which was good because Billy was wafting both sweat and alcohol. He was holding a piece of white note-paper in his hand and he wanted to do a simultaneous exchange. I grabbed the paper from him and spread it out on the table. The handwriting was childish and I was trying to read by the light of a candle, but I could make out: Martin, Lipton, Todd, Turpie, Evans, Sherwood, Lally, Travis, Belbonnet.

"That it?"

"You look disappointed, man." And he looked worried. I suspected he was afraid I was not going to give him the thirty bucks.

It had been a long shot and now it did not seem worth the investment. Nevertheless, I handed over three tens.

Billy stacked the money and patted the edges till each of the bills was precisely in line with the others. He looked at the list, licked his lips, set himself, and asked, "That guy Jason, though, he's not on there?"

"No." I started to get up. Ten minutes was more than long enough to spend at a small table with Billy.

He spoke quickly. "What made you think he would be?"

"Nothing. He was just a guy who had sailed with Peter a number of years ago."

"Yeah? Where?" Billy's eyes were nearly crossed in concentration as he tried to hold me in place.

"The Figawi."

"Oh, man, I owned that race. Won it like five times." He pounded the paper with the side of his fist.

People at other tables looked at us. I made an effort not to look back.

"What's his last name?"

"Stockover."