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for Warfield, there were those who simply abdicated responsibility, a kind of ‘the-world-is-screwed-up, let’s-dance’ mentality. He didn’t like them. He didn’t like those who opted for some sort of humbling spirituality either.
    He didn’t like ‘sissies’. He didn’t mind ‘queers’, though. He said so. That’s not what he meant when he used the word ‘sissy’. He meant anyone who wouldn’t fight – verbally or physically – for his or her beliefs. He disliked dissemblers. Stand up for what you believe. Call things as you see them.
    â€˜Let the chips fall where they may,’ Lang said.
    â€˜Kill or be killed,’ Thanh said, standing over Lang as he scanned the information about the victim. ‘Ironic, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Killed in the line of duty, maybe.’
    Lang left at four, earlier than any ambitious businessman would. His approach to work was creative but not necessarily entrepreneurial. He locked the office. Carly was gone. Brinkman hadn’t come in. And Thanh had run off to who knows where. Outside, Lang got into his banged up old Mercedes and drove to the Western Addition. Home, a former Chinese laundry, still looked like one from the outside. A Chinese name and characters, though scratched a bit, were painted on the windows. Inside, there was no trace of the former business. It was a big room. A skylight – two stories up – let in a bit of soft afternoon sun. Buddha, a brown, golden-eyed Burmese cat, waited at the door to welcome his human room-mate to his domain.
    â€˜You’re on your own this evening,’ Lang said to Buddha. He changed Buddha’s water, filled in some dry food. ‘You can meditate, contemplate your navel. Do cats have navels? Do bees have knees?’
    Buddha walked away.
    â€˜I see. No sense of humor today.’
    Buddha was his sister’s cat and a reluctant adoptee. Shortly before she died she made Lang promise to watch over him. It was a situation neither he nor the cat wanted. But after a period of distrust, they bonded, and Lang was happy to have another living being nearby, especially one that, in the end, was far less demanding than one of his own species.
    Lang watched part of an early Oakland Athletics game, then fixed dinner. It wasn’t a demanding exercise. He opened a package of pot stickers he bought from King of Dumplings out on Noriega. They made them fresh. Three Chinese women sat around a table in the back rolling and pinching the product – and freezing them immediately. No MSG. No preservatives. He boiled a dozen of them for 10 minutes, then tossed them into a skillet with some peanut oil. He opened a beer and retrieved a bottle of Pearl River soy sauce from the cupboard.
    Buddha sniffed the pot stickers on Lang’s plate, but left, curiosity quickly quenched.
    â€˜You see, that’s how you keep your slender figure.’
    Lang felt a little disloyal preferring the Athletics to the Giants since he was living in San Francisco. But the Oakland team – and after all Oakland was just across the Bay – always seemed to have a little more spirit, had a little more fun playing the game, and they took some risks.
    He had a few more hours to kill before meeting Richard Sumaoang at Alighieri’s. It was to be a purposeful evening. He’d meet the poet and painter, have a little chat about Warfield and, when that was done, he’d quiz the bartender.
    It had been a long time since Lang was in North Beach at night. His days hanging around bars were largely behind him. But when he first arrived in San Francisco, a couple of decades ago, he made the rounds of hotspots in the city. Many of them were in North Beach. In those days he frequented places that could be counted on to provide the kind of opportunities a young man appreciates – cheap beer, warm women and eight-ball. He was no longer that young or that interested – in