CHAPTER 5He didn’t call ahead, but drove on down. When he parked and got out, he saw Coit Tower whitely lit above him, on the steep art-colony heights of Telegraph Hill. Not many blocks away was Fisherman’s Wharf, a lot of tourist pits and a few authentic restaurants. But here he stood in a pocket of slum, before a rotting rattrap tenement. A single street lamp a block away cast a purulent light at its own foot. Elsewhere the night flowed. He heard the nearby rattle of a switch engine, pushing freight cars over iron; a battered cat slunk past him; otherwise he was alone.
He walked across to the house with forced briskness, struck a match and hunted through several grimy scrawls on mailboxes before Michaelis’ name came to him. Number 8.
The main entrance was unlocked. The hall, dusty in t
