7:17 a.m.

Ashida crouched outside the window. He caught Dudley’s order. Blanchard grabbed an egg roll and took off.

He went outside. He ducked under the cordon. Ashida quick-walked down the driveway and watched.

Blanchard pushed into the crowd. The fools read bad news and stepped back. Ashida watched. He magnetized harsh looks.

Blanchard slammed into the insult man. The man tripped and fell. Blanchard grabbed an arm and dragged him behind a prowl car.

The man flailed. The crowd dispersed. Ashida stood on his tiptoes and watched. Blanchard drop-kicked the man. Ashida heard bones crack.

Compound fractures. Dislocated sternum. Probable shock.

The man went green. Blanchard stepped on his head and muzzled possible shrieks. Ashida looked away. Ray Pinker saw him and tapped his wristwatch.

Ashida walked over. Another shitbird yelled, “Goddamn Jap!”

Pinker got in his car. Ashida got in. He checked the side mirror. He saw Blanchard wipe blood off his hands.

They pulled out. Patrol cops cleared a path. Ashida felt giddy.

Pinker said, “I should be in church. I told my wife I’d start going.”

Ashida said, “Dudley killed the rapist.”

Pinker nodded. “Who may not be the heist man. And, the gunshots, bullets and silencer threads at the two locations do not conclusively indict the heist man for the possible homicides.”

Ashida nodded. “Yes, but it’s a significant lead.”

Pinker caught Figueroa southbound. Ashida said, “I think it’s homicide.”

“I lean that way.”

“They’re going to short-shrift it. Brown will kick it up to Chief Horrall, who’ll—”

“—kick it up to that rummy McPherson and Mayor Bowron. I don’t see this thing as any more than a one-day headache.”

They hit downtown. They cut east and made Central Station. They lugged their evidence kits up to the lab. Pinker grabbed a work sheet.

He wrote “7:49 a.m., 12/7/41” on it. They guzzled hot-plate coffee and worked.

They studied silencer threads. They dye-dipped the threads from the stickup and the house and examined them under full-dialed lenses. The dye magnified metallurgic components. They concluded this:

The threads were similar—but not identical. Two different silencers were deployed at the two locations. One individual crafted both silencers. Said individual: talented but unschooled.

The tests consumed two and a half hours. Pinker wrote “10:16 a.m., 12/7/41” on the work sheet. The tests prompted questions.

Did said individual make both silencers and shoot the bullets at either or both locations? Did said individual sell one or both silencers? Did he sell them to the heist man and/​or a member or known associate of the Watanabe family?

The work torqued Ashida. He was frayed. He crossed a line yesterday. He withheld drugstore evidence. He had no foreknowledge of the Watanabe job.

The job increased the risk of exposure. The job increased his chance to develop his own evidence. He was frayed-wire alert. He got called out at 1:00 a.m. He was nowhere near tired.

Next—the bullet chunks and bullet powder.

Dudley crumbled the chunks at the house. They could crumble the drugstore chunks and spray-dye the powder from both locations. They could look for consistencies or anomalies.

Pinker tore out a new work sheet. Ashida wrote “10:22 a.m., 12/7/41” on top. Pinker crumbled the drugstore chunks in a desk vise.

They spray-dyed both samples and blot-dried them. They placed powder smears under slides and affixed a microscope. They studied the fully magnified characteristics.

Two bullets. Similar metallurgic and powder-grain formations. A Luger was fired at both locations. Small inconsistencies indicated different ammo loads. The cracked bullet chunks at the house indicated faulty ammo.

Ashida wrote “10:39 a.m., 12/7/41” on the work sheet. Pinker futzed with the microscope.

Ashida said, “I’m going back in the house. Something’s off. You don’t wash clothes on the day you perform seppuku.”

“Don’t break any rules. Wait until Nort Layman gives us a disposition.”

“The dead rapist bothers me. He’s Dudley’s cat’s paw if it’s ruled homicide, and they need a convenient suspect with evidential links to the crime. They can write him off as a vanished suspect and file on him posthumous.”

Pinker smiled. “You’re a quick study. You’re learning the ways of this man’s police department very fast.”

Ashida smiled. “Both shots came from Lugers. Dudley found reichsmarks in the house.”

“Lugers are from hunger. You know who buys them? Nazi creeps who frequent the goddamn Deutsches Haus.”

Ashida prickled. He’d keyed on the Deutsches Haus.

Pinker unlocked the gun cabinet and grabbed a Luger. The gun was blue steel. The grips were white pearl. They were inlaid with black swastikas and rubies.

Ashida studied the barrel aperture. He already knew the lands and grooves statistics. He’d memorized his college ballistics texts.

Pinker toggled a bullet into the chamber and walked to the shooting tunnel. He stuck his arm in the chute and fired. Acoustical baffling muffled the sound of the shot.

“It’s a froufrou piece. It’s for collectors and retired intelligence guys who never saw action.”

Ashida walked to the tunnel and dug in the catcher bin. He snagged two bullet chunks.

Pinker rolled his eyes. “Goddamn Lugers. They’re not worth a shit.”