“You missed it,” said Dinah.
“Just checking out the area,” said Peter, his head on a swivel as he took in the building layout, the alleys and exits. “Old habit.” One that he wasn’t going to break. Especially not when a man with a gun was watching Dinah’s house.
He drove in an outward spiral, checking the surrounding area. The neighborhood was seriously beaten down. More businesses were closed than open. Graffiti was everywhere, from basic tags on the crumbling houses and bullet-pocked road signs to elaborate multicolor displays on boarded-up corner stores. But Lewis’s building, whose neat brick and clean paint should have been prime canvas, was oddly pristine.
He looked in the rearview. The Ford had disappeared.
Peter swung around the block and parked at the curb.
Before Dinah could open the door, Peter put a hand on her arm.
“Wait,” he said. “Tell me about this Lewis.”
“We were friends once,” she said. “Lewis and James and I. But things ended badly.” She didn’t elaborate.
“Okay,” said Peter. “But why do you think the money is his?”
“Lewis has his fingers in a lot of things,” said Dinah. “They’re all about money.” She angled her head toward Shorty’s. “And James worked at his bar.”
She pulled her arm away, set the paper bag on the floor, and slipped out of the truck. She walked not toward the bar entrance but toward the side door, the boarded-up section with the security camera.
Peter took the Army .45 from under the seat, tucked it into the back of his pants where his coat would hide it, and jogged after her. The heavy steel door was already closing behind her when he got there.
He felt the flare of the white static as he reached for the knob.
The space inside was bigger than Peter had expected, a big rectangular room. The outer walls were brick, probably a foot thick, and still showed pale patches where stubborn plaster remained. It looked like someone had taken out most of the interior walls. The oak floor was patched in places, the old finish turned orange with age. Once it had been an office. Now it was something else that wasn’t quite clear.
The jittery pressure of the static reminded him to look for the exits. The windows were covered with plywood, so that was no help. There was a door in the back that likely led to another way out, along with a bathroom and maybe stairs to the basement.
In the center of the room stood a walnut trestle table, at least ten feet long and probably custom-made, but only three rickety mismatched chairs. At the head of the table, atop an oil-stained towel, a shotgun lay in its component pieces, broken down for cleaning. It looked like a 10-gauge autoloader, with a fat bore and a shortened barrel. It would clear a room like a hand grenade.
Behind the table was a secondhand bar, worn smooth by thousands of hands. Peter could see the severed end where it had been torn from the wall of some defunct tavern or hotel. A bank of four small security monitors was set on top, and a stainless-steel fridge stood in the corner. At the far end of the room, a U-shaped formation of black leather couches faced an enormous television tuned to ESPN with the sound off.
Two men sat on the couches, feet up, newspapers spread open in their hands, staring at Dinah like they’d never seen a woman before. Dinah fixed them with a regal look that carried all the natural authority of an ER nurse and the mother of willful boys. Now Peter understood why she had changed her clothes.
“Where is Lewis?” she said.
They stared at her for a moment before they saw Peter, who was standing right beside her.
That got them off the couch.
They were big men in worn T-shirts and faded jeans. Their hair was cropped short, their faces lined from sun and wind. Peter watched them come around the couch, flanking him automatically.
They moved like they knew what they were doing and had been doing it together for a while.
The static flared up higher, tension now in his shoulders and arms. This was useful static, making him ready.
The men glanced at Dinah from time to time—they probably couldn’t help themselves; Peter had the same problem—but mostly they watched Peter. He was a big man, too, in worn work clothes and sand-colored combat boots, with the same air of semi-domestication.
Peter figured they had all been to the same finishing school. The one where the dress code called for camouflage, desert brown.