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it. He tapped his forefinger on the
envelope. “It’s from Thailand. Says so right on the stamps
there.”
    Eddie picked up the envelope and squinted at
the stamps, but they were small and the printing looked like
hieroglyphics to him. How did Winnebago know that?
    Winnebago held the picture up, twisting it
around to catch the light. “It sure as all shit beats me, but I
really don’t like the look of that red circle around my head.”
    “Who else was with us those times we were in
Bangkok? Can you remember anybody?”
    Winnebago reached under the counter for his
cigarettes. He lit one, taking his time about it.
    “That kid we called Donkey might have been
there.” Winnebago pointed at one of the men in the background. “Is
that him?”
    They both stared hard at the face, willing it
to speak to them, to spell out to them whatever message they were
supposed to be getting. But it didn’t.
    “What was his real name?”
    “Damned if I can remember.” Winnebago
pondered a moment. “Isn’t there some place you can call about old
military records?”
    “Yeah, well, I can just see myself calling up
a personnel office at the Pentagon and saying, ‘Excuse me, but
would you have anything on a guy named Donkey,’ and then listening
to some NCO say, ‘Hey, pal, we’re all called Donkey around
here.’ No way.”
    Winnebago thought some more. “Maybe you can
find the captain somehow. That might be easier.”
    “Jesus, Winnebago, I wouldn’t have the first
idea where to start looking.”
    “I’ll bet he’s become a real successful guy.
He was just the type. Shouldn’t be all that hard to find him.”
    “Maybe you’re right. Probably did do
something to get himself noticed after he got out.”
    “Yeah,” Winnebago nodded, “that sounds to me
like the way to go. I’ll bet you Captain Austin made a real big
splash somewhere.”
    ***
    EDDIE slogged away dutifully
at this and that for the rest of the week, but he couldn’t get the
photographs out of his mind and his concentration was all over the
place. By four o’clock on Friday afternoon he gave up and started
the weekend.
    The House of Shields was a saloon on New
Montgomery Street just south of Market. It was comfortable as old
loafers and still smelled a little of cigars and cigarettes stubbed
out in what Eddie was sure were better times. In spite of its name,
the place had nothing to do with medieval warfare, at least not
unless you counted the screeching done by some of the old bags who
hung around there most of the day with a snoot full. A guy named
Shields, so the story went, had opened it near the turn of the
century. He hung a big sign over the front door that said ENTER
THESE PORTALS AND TIME AND CARES ARE FORGOT.
    Eddie liked that, even if they had taken the
sign down a decade or so ago when most cares just got too big to be
forgot anymore, and he liked the fact that a middle-aged woman in a
taffeta prom dress and way too much make-up was usually there
playing things like “Our Love Is Here To Stay” on a scarred, old
Steinway. When it was slow, and sometimes it was very slow, Eddie
would spread his papers around on the bar to make it look good, sip
a beer or a diet soda, and whistle quietly along with the piano,
easing his way out of another week.
    San Francisco did that kind of thing to you,
Eddie knew. Maybe some other places, too, but San Francisco sure as
hell did.
    When Eddie finished law school he was looking
to burn down the world, but then he discovered all that good
California wine at a few bucks a bottle; cracked crab straight off
the boats at Fisherman’s Wharf back before all the real boats
disappeared and the place turned into a tourist trap; the taste of
warm sourdough bread as it came out of the ovens over at Sammy’s
Bakery on Powell; the musty, used-book store up on Fremont that
smelled like his grandmother’s attic; and the sun dusting the city
with magic as it eased gracefully into the Pacific out beyond the
orange towers of