drove from the airport to Jamilla’s apartment at several miles above the posted speed limit. On the way, I used my cell phone. There was still no answer at her place. I was already in a cold sweat. I had never followed a hunch quite like this one.
I thought about what I could do right now. One possibility was to call in help from the SFPD, but I didn’t like it. Police officers are logical creatures, and coldly suspicious of gut feelings. My track record with psychopaths might buy me some credibility in Washington, but not out here in California.
I could call the FBI - but I chose not to. There were a couple of reasons why. More gut feelings that I wanted to keep to myself for a while longer.
I decided to park a block over from Texas Street, where Jamilla lived. But I took a ride up the steep Potrero Hill first. I turned onto the street about half a dozen blocks south of her place, then I toured the connecting streets. There was a mixed style of row houses: the more charming wooden ones from the early 1900s, and the boxier three- and four-story ones with lots of aluminum detail. I could see the bay, the loading docks of Pier 84, and Oakland in the distance. I passed the New Potrero Market, J.J.  Mac’s, the North Star restaurant - Jamilla’s home turf. But where was Jamilla?
The traffic was fairly heavy. I hoped my rented sedan wouldn’t be spotted easily. And that I’d see Jamilla lugging groceries, or jogging home from a nearby park where she’d worked out.
But I didn’t see her. Damn it, where was she? Not that she didn’t have a right to a day off.
I couldn’t imagine anything happening to her, but that was the way I had felt about Patsy Hampton, and then about Betsey Cavalierre.
Two dead partners in two years.
I didn’t believe in coincidences.
Patsy Hampton had been murdered by a British diplomat named Shafer. I was almost certain of that. Betsey’s murder remained unsolved, and that was the one that worried me. I kept thinking about the Mastermind. Somehow I had become a part of his story, his fantasy world. How? Why? I had received a late phone call from him one night that summer, just after I’d learnt of Betsey’s murder............