Chapter 3

When I pushed the door open, the little bell above it gave a quick ring.

The bar was darker than the street outside. The air smelled like beer, tobacco, and weed all mixed together.

A few men sat by the counter, none of them very old.

Two were watching a replay of a ball game on TV. One was turning a lighter over in his hand. Another had his boots propped up on the chair across from him, like the place was his own living room.

They looked at me once, then they all laughed.

Not because I had said anything. Just because I had walked in. A sixty-five-year-old man in an old jacket, moving slow on his way into a bar—that was enough to amuse them.

Behind the counter stood a bald man with a thick stomach and old tattoos on his arms, wiping down a glass with a rag.

He glanced up at me and curled his mouth. “We don’t serve coffee here.”

Someone beside him added, “You want us to get him a glass of warm milk?”

That got another round of laughter.

I didn’t answer them. I just walked toward the bar. Not too fast. Deliberately slow. When I reached the stool, I rested a hand on the back of it, as if my knees really were giving me trouble.

“Then give me something light,” I said.

The bald man gave me a look and poured me half a glass of beer. When he pushed it across the counter, it slid a little too far and spilled foam on the surface. He clearly had no respect for me and no intention of pretending otherwise.

I picked up the glass and took a sip.

“I’m looking for someone,” I said.

“Then go ask the police,” the bald man replied without looking up.

“A girl. Twenty-two. Brown hair. Works nights at the diner in town. Lucy.” I kept my tone calm, like an older man worried about someone younger. “She went out last night and never came home.”

The bald man’s hand stopped for a second on the glass he was wiping.

Only for a second.

Then he kept going and tossed out, “Never seen her. Next.”

The young man with his boots on the chair laughed. “You came here looking for a girl? Doesn’t really suit you, old man.”

“Maybe this is his type,” another one said.

“Maybe he’s here to claim his daughter,” a third said, laughing even louder.

I ignored them and kept looking at the bald man. “She was asked to come out last night. She was carrying a manila envelope. She didn’t show up for work today, and her phone’s dead. I just want to know if she’s safe.”

“You deaf?” The bald man slammed the glass down on the counter and raised his voice. “I said I haven’t seen her. Don’t you understand English?”

That got the men over by the pool table looking over too.

I nodded lightly, as if being shouted at had made me uncomfortable. I looked down at my beer before speaking again.

“That’s strange, then. She left behind a note with the letters R.B. on it. In this town, there’s only one place I can think of.”

The smiles on a few faces stiffened the moment I said that.

I saw it.

Pretended I didn’t.

I kept my head down and let myself look like an old man who had followed the only lead he had and wasn’t sure what to do with it.

The young guy got off his chair, drink still in hand, and drifted over beside me. He looked me up and down with open contempt. “What are you to her? Her boss? Her landlord?”

“Don’t guess,” said a fat man nearby. “Looks more like an ex-boyfriend to me.”

That set them all laughing again.

I looked up at them once, not angry, and said, “I’m her father.”

That made them laugh even harder.

“You?” the young man said, slapping the bar. “If you’re her father, I’m the governor.”

“Father or sugar daddy?” the fat one asked with a grin.

I didn’t bother explaining. I just looked at them. “You don’t have to believe me. I came here to take her home.”

The laughter began to thin out.

The bald man said, “You should head home while you still can. This isn’t a place for you. Don’t wait till you fall down and nobody bothers to pick you up.”

“If she’d made it home safe,” I said, “I’d be watching television right now. But she didn’t.”

I paused, slowed my words, and spoke as if I were putting pieces together in my own head.

“She went back to her apartment first last night. The neighbor heard her opening drawers, looking for something. Then about fifteen minutes later she left again. She took a manila envelope with her. She told the neighbor she was going to pick up her boyfriend. But her boyfriend disappeared three days ago. So I don’t think she was going to pick someone up. I think she was going to meet someone.”

The bar quieted a little.

The game was still on TV, but nobody was watching it anymore.

I continued, “There was a notebook on her desk. The back pages had numbers, dates, and place abbreviations scribbled all over them. Messy. Not real. More like something put together in a hurry. She didn’t know what any of it meant, but she took it with her anyway. Because she thought if she handed it over, she’d get him back.”

That time, even the men who had been heckling me stopped laughing.

The young man frowned for a moment, then let that smug look creep back over his face. “You seem to know quite a bit. What else do you know?”

“She doesn’t run off for no reason,” I said. “She’s soft-hearted. Too trusting. A little foolish when it comes to the people she cares about. If someone told her that all she had to do was bring that thing and she’d see her boyfriend again, she’d go.”

I never said the words fake ledger out loud.

I didn’t need to.

Everyone in the room understood exactly what I meant.

A scar-faced man in the back, sitting over cards, finally spoke for the first time. “You know where the real one is?”

“No,” I said, looking at him. “So she was here, then?”

He didn’t answer. Just gave me a crooked grin, like maybe he was admitting it and maybe he was just playing with me.

That was when the half-closed door at the back opened and a man in his forties stepped out.

Gray shirt. Sleeves rolled to the elbows. Thick neck. Dirty eyes.

He didn’t look like anyone important-important. More like the kind of man who ran these low-level thugs, took payments, and watched the place for whoever sat above him.

The moment he came out, the laughter around the bar shifted. Not into fear. More like everyone was waiting for the boss to take over the joke.

He walked up to the counter, looked at me, and barked, “Who the hell let this old bastard in?”

The bald man pointed toward the door at once. “Came in on his own. Started asking about Lucy the second he walked in.”

The man in the gray shirt looked me over from head to toe, full of contempt. “Who are you?”

I raised my head and gave him the same answer. “I’m Lucy’s father.”

He snorted like I’d just told him a joke. “Bullshit. Since when does she have an old corpse like you for a father?”

That got the others laughing again.

I looked at him and kept my tone even. “We haven’t always had the best relationship. But she’s still my daughter. I came to take her home.”

“Take her home?” He laughed more openly now and slapped the bar. “With what?”

“If you tell me where she is, I leave now,” I said.

His face darkened. “Do you not understand plain English? Your daughter’s not here, and it’s not your place to ask. Get the hell out. If you don’t, I’ll have somebody throw you out.”

“The thing she brought was probably fake,” I said, ignoring the threat and continuing. “She didn’t even know what it was supposed to look like. She just wanted to trade it for him. Whatever you’re looking for, she doesn’t have it. Keeping her won’t help you.”

The smile faded from his face by degrees.

Not because he had some great poker face. Because the moment he heard fake, he understood I’d found the right trail.

He took half a step forward and stared at me. “Old man, you know too much.”

“Not enough,” I said. “That’s why I’m sitting here asking.”

The instant I said it, the young man from before came over, put a hand on my shoulder, and shoved me hard backward.

“You’re asking too many questions, you old sack of shit.”

For a sixty-five-year-old man, it was a hard shove.

My body jerked. The legs of the barstool scraped across the floor with a sharp screech. I caught myself on the edge of the bar, and beer spilled everywhere, soaking one leg of my pants.

The whole bar broke into laughter.

“See that? Nearly came apart.”

“I barely touched him.”

I steadied myself, but I didn’t turn around right away. I slowly sat back up, took a napkin, and wiped the beer off my pants. My movements weren’t fast. If anything, I looked a little pathetic.

Then I lifted my head and looked at the man in the gray shirt.

“I’m old,” I said. “I don’t handle being shoved like that very well.”

They laughed harder.

The young guy got even bolder. He moved around in front of me, bent down, and looked me right in the face. “You really want to find Lucy? She wasn’t nearly this polite when she came in last night. Mouth on her, too. Played dumb every time we asked her anything.”

I looked at him. “Where is she?”

“You really don’t know when to quit, do you?” He straightened and looked around at the others, fishing for laughs. “Maybe we should tell him something. Otherwise the old man won’t sleep tonight.”

From the back, the scar-faced man said lazily, “Tell him what? Tell him that girl showed up with a few pages of numbers scribbled all over them, trying to trade them for somebody, and we saw through it in one look?”

The fat man grinned. “Or tell him she didn’t look too pretty when she cried?”

Laughter rose again, uglier than before.

I stayed seated. Didn’t get angry. Didn’t glare. Didn’t snap back. I let them see what they wanted to see—an old man surrounded, mocked, and too weak to do anything about it.

That was exactly the picture they wanted.

The man in the gray shirt leaned against the bar, lit a cigarette, and watched me through the smoke like he was looking at a stray dog that had almost been kicked to death already.

“Old man,” he said, “I’ll say this one last time. Get out. Don’t make me have you carried out.”

I raised my head, like I was finally forcing myself to ask the one question I had been most afraid of.

“Is she still alive?”

The young man who had shoved me looked like he had been waiting for that one. His smile turned meaner at once.

He stepped closer on purpose, lowered his head toward mine, and spoke almost softly.

“You’re only asking that now?”

Then he dragged the words out. “Depends what you mean by alive.”

That made the others laugh again.

“Maybe she’s still breathing.”

I looked at his face, then slowly rose to my feet, using the barstool for support.

“I’ve given you a lot of chances already.”

I took one step forward, looked at the man in the gray shirt, and asked, word by word,

“Last time. Where is she?”