MICHAEL WAS LOITERING with purpose on the Embarcadero near the Ferry Building when he spotted her almost by chance.
Was it her?
He’d been wrong before.
His eyes locked on her features and he felt a contraction, a tightness that started in his groin and shot up the center of his body to his throat. It was as if he were zipped up.
The older woman was accompanied by an animated, stoop-shouldered younger man, who gestured expansively as he talked. He had the look of a junkie transported by the rush of a meth high.
The woman laughed. She was enjoying his company. She was dressed appropriately for a walk through the fog on a chilly night. Her coat was old but looked sturdy. She had a canvas carryall slung over her shoulder, and on her head she wore a knit cloche hat in several shades of green.
The pair of weirdos was on the move, taking a leisurely stroll. Michael fixated on her familiar rolling gait as she and her piece-of-shit companion continued past him.
He waited until they’d covered twenty-five paces, about two car lengths, then followed the couple as they cleared the smattering of pedestrians around the Ferry Building, crossed the street, and turned onto Mission, one of the main arteries through the South of Market neighborhood.
The traffic was sparse after 9 p.m. A wind blew through the canyon of office buildings, what Michael thought of as Wall Street by the Bay. He jammed his hands into his new well-used thrift-shop coat and gripped the gun butt with his gloved hand. It felt good. Like a handshake with a friend.
Up ahead the woman and her companion stopped under a streetlight and embraced, before the round-shouldered man crossed the street and the woman continued walking along Mission, crossing Spear. Michael kept his eyes on her while humming a made-up tune to the cadence of her unhurried walk.
And then, almost as if he had willed it, she stopped and reached into her bag, poked around inside it, and pulled out a wrapped sandwich. She was busy, intent on removing the clinging wrapper, her body limned in the glow of the streetlights. And not another soul was on that sidewalk. They were alone.
Michael closed the gap between them and called out her name. She looked up, watched him pull the gun from his pocket and point it at her.
She looked into his face and almost smiled. No fear.
That pissed him off.
“I thought it was you,” she said, holding her sandwich.
“Well,” Michael said. “For once you’re right. Any last words?”
“God help you,” she said.