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in a tunnel, leaving little space on either side. Its lights shot up into the sky as it bumped over the incline at the end of the alley, then settled firmly and steadily, growing brighter as the vehicle accelerated toward Stillman and Walker. The car stopped a few feet from them, then eased forward slowly until the window was beside them. The cop in the passenger seat was a young black man. He said, “Good evening, sirs.”
    The construction struck Walker as odd, mildly sarcastic. He said, “Good evening.”
    “We got a call that there was a disturbance in this alley,” said the cop. “Know anything about that?”
    Stillman said, “We did happen to run into two men a few minutes ago. They seemed to be interested in robbing us, but we managed to frighten them off, I guess.”
    The policeman opened his door and got out, sliding his billy club into a rung on his belt. Walker noticed that his hand lingered there, between the club and the gun. He stood close to them. “Someone said there was a fight. Shouting and so on.”
    “That’s kind of an exaggeration,” said Stillman. “It was just two guys about six feet tall, about thirty years old. They were getting ready to jump us, but when we got close, I think we were bigger than they expected, so they ran.”
    “May I ask what you’re doing in the alley?”
    He was staring at Walker, but Stillman spoke. “We’re visitors in town, and we parked over there on the street”—he turned to point in roughly the right direction—“and we figured this was a good shortcut.”
    The cop kept his eyes on Walker. “And two men just came along at the same time?”
    Walker knew he had to be the one to answer. “They seemed to be waiting here for whoever showed up.”
    The policeman nodded. “Would you mind showing me some identification?”
    Stillman pulled out his wallet and handed the cop his driver’s license, so Walker did the same. The cop handed the two licenses to his partner in the car, and the partner punched some numbers into the computer terminal mounted beside him. The cop returned his attention to Walker and Stillman. “What brings you to Pasadena?”
    Stillman was supremely calm and friendly. “We work for McClaren’s, the insurance company. There’s a girl—a lady my friend here knew from his training school days, and he asked me if we could stop by and see her. No luck. We missed her at the office, and now she’s not at home, either.”
    “I see.” His partner muttered something and the cop leaned into the window to confer with him. He came back with the licenses. “Here you go.” He looked up and down the alley, then said, “We’ll make a report of this, but I’m not sure what good it’s going to do you. They’re long gone by now.”
    Stillman nodded. “I understand. They didn’t get any money from us, so I guess there’s not much harm done.”
    The policeman sat in the car seat again, but before he pulled his leg in, he said, “Even in San Francisco, walking down dark alleys probably isn’t the best idea.”
    “I’ve had better,” Stillman said.
    “Take care,” said the cop. He shut the door and the car drifted down the alley. Now and then the bright beam of the spotlight shot out to the side and played about a row of garbage cans, a narrow space between buildings. Then the police car turned and disappeared.
    Stillman stepped into the nearest passage toward the street. “Well, now that was a rotten piece of timing,” he said. “I had hoped to get a couple of names out of their wallets, not give mine to a cop.” He stopped and let Walker catch up. “What we need is dinner.”
    “It is?”
    “Otherwise we’ll have to drink on an empty stomach.”

5
    The Coast of Borneo was a relic of a period that Walker had missed, and he calculated that even Stillman had to be too young to have seen anything but strange little outposts cut off and isolated by flanking movements of change. The big bare-beamed dining room had outrigger canoes