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was what his own father used to say to him, maybe, when young Jake had found his way back to the house from some errand. Or for no reason at all. Because it didn’t make any difference, as soon as you walked into the door, whoever you were, you were the man of the hour, because you were the person who was there. Here. Now. You were the one who existed. Who stood in this room. Whose heart was beating.
    “The Antonelli case,” Cicero said. “I was just thinking aboutthat. The father called twice this morning. He wants to know what you’ve got.”
    “I shouldn’t have told them about the body.”
    “Maybe not. But they’d be twisting either way. Meanwhile, Antonelli’s been hounding the cops, too. You know what kind of guy he is. Has to have everything. Have it now.”
    “I know.”
    “So what have you found out?”
    Dante caught him up. He’d been working all morning to track down the man on the phone machine, Jim Rose. So far, he didn’t have much. Rose didn’t have an address in the city, at least not one they could find.
    “According to the phone company, he called from his cell phone—one of those cash specials bought down at Radio Shack, a store down in the Castro. But no address on the application.”
    “But he called from within the city?”
    “That’s what the records indicate. And one of Angie’s last credit card purchases, it was at Dazio’s. A silk skirt. Beige.”
    “Any significance?”
    “The corpse was wearing one like it. It’s on the manifest. And so are the family pearls.”
    Jake Cicero lowered his head. Himself, he wasn’t wild about Nick Antonelli. The guy had had him investigate some of his business clients once upon a time, looking for dirt, and he’d put a fidelity tail on his own wife, though by any rights it should have been the other way around. Also, Cicero knew the stories about how Antonelli’s father had rough-handed things to get his way along the waterfront, and how Nick himself had maintained his father’s connections.
    To Chicago. To old man La Rocca.
    Truth was, La Rocca had died, and the son had moved to Vegas, and the talk probably was just talk, jealousy, people running down anyone who did well. Antonelli did nothing to discourage it. The way he blustered, it was tempting at times to wish the man ill. Even so, Cicero didn’t want to be the one to tell him about his daughter. It would be hard to take any pleasure in that.
    “Was the body good for prints?”
    “Yes.”
    “So—what’s keeping those sons of bitches? All they gotta do is throw the prints into the system. See if they match.”
    “You know how it is. Missing Persons. They’re not in a rush.”
    “Maybe the body … the prints…,” Cicero hesitated. “Maybe it’s not her.” He shrugged. It was always possible, after all, that there would be no match.
    Dante said nothing.
    “How about her boyfriend, what’s his name, Solano? You talked to him yet?”
    “I have an appointment this afternoon. He’s been in L.A. the last few days. New York before that—drumming up venture capital.”
    Cicero nodded.
    “Maybe you should go back to her apartment, see if you can find something else. Once the cops move on this—if they move on it—your access might be limited.”
    “All right.”
    “I got a retainer from Antonelli. It’s a good retainer. So … well…”
    “So you want me to burn some hours.”
    “That’s not what I meant.”
    Mancuso was an edgy one, Cicero knew. Capable, but a bit of awild card. He’d been an up-and-comer with the SFPD, a young cop with a chip on his shoulder. Too stubborn for his own good, and so he’d taken a fall. He’d left the force and gone to work down in New Orleans. Private industry, Dante claimed, but Cicero had tracked it down and he knew better. It was a government front, some kind of agency work. Rumor was, Dante had walked over the line in the way that happens in such work. He’d developed habits, dependencies. A taste for the street-corner wares