Troubleshooter

Chapter 65

Tim and Bear checked three bars, a strip club, and a pay phone outside a motorcycle-parts store. Boston and Precious rode along, tongues lolling; after his schedule over the past week, Bear insisted on playing guilty weekend dad. Out in the field, he and Tim fell back into the interrogation rhythm they'd perfected over the past years. They spoke to a bald bartender wearing a dog collar, a woman walking her calico on a leash, two gas-station convenience-store clerks, and an exotic dancer who insisted on replacing her nipple tassels-to Bear's evident discomfort-while describing her on-the-side clientele. The only hit they got in the first four hours came from a homeless woman living behind an adult bookstore, whose eyes lit up at Den Laurey's photo; she ID'd him as the guy from Gladiator.

The blue panels of the sixth pay phone gleamed in the glare of Tim's headlights. Scarred by restroom wit and cigarette burns, the unit was bolted into a sawdusty wall off the front porch of a freestanding country bar. Despite saloon doors and Loretta Lynn's jukebox lament about pappy a-hoein' corn, the bar suffered from a confused identity. A punk sporting an algae-green Mohawk tossed darts with a lip-pierced person of ambiguous gender, while four unaffiliated bikers nursed drafts at the bar. ESPN recapped Pittsburgh's trouncing in the Continental Tire Bowl, as if anyone cared. A girls' night out had somehow wound up in a corner booth, grating laughter radiating from a trio whose feathered hair seemed more vintage than retro. Wine coolers and buffalo wings dotted their table, and the saccharine scent of drugstore perfume was evident from the doorway. Only the bartender, an old guy wearing a Stetson Cattleman and a belt buckle the size of a Christmas platter, looked at home in the decor. Then again, they were north of the fish hatchery, out where the Fillmore citrus groves faded into God knows what, so a watering hole earned its nickname here. They'd passed a gas station a quarter mile back, but before that it had been a long run of dusty road, with scattered lights twinkling out from the dark hillsides like Ewok eyes.

One of the corner-booth gals offered Bear a giggly wave as he and Tim headed for the bar. Loretta gave way to "London Calling"-three guesses who'd dropped that quarter-and a kid in grease-stained Dickies shuffled out of the men's room, trailing the smell of weed and a streamer of toilet paper. The bartender worked his way down to them, polishing nothing much off the bar with a rag that looked as if it had stuffed a hole in a flue for about a decade.

"What'll it be?"

Bear tilted his hand, showing off the photo of Den cupped inside. To try to lessen the false positives, they'd chosen a different picture from the one that had been running on the news. "Seen this guy?"

"Nah."

The kid from the bathroom leaned over, concerned. "You guys cops?"

"Yeah, but no worries, Cheech. We're after bigger game."

"Like who?"

Bear flashed him the picture, and the kid's eyes widened about a millimeter, the closest approximation of surprise he could currently muster. "Yeah, I seen that guy."

Bear looked skeptical. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. He came into the station." He twisted on his barstool, pointing back up the road. "Needed a spark plug."

"What was he driving?" Tim asked.

The kid blinked a few times. He pulled something off his tongue and flicked it, then blinked some more. "Uh, nothing. He needed a spark plug."

"So he walked?"

"Cars don't work so hot without spark plugs." He laughed a slow laugh, then took a pull from his Coors. His eyes went longingly to the bags of chips clipped up behind the bar.

Tim snapped his fingers in front of the kid's eyes, and the dilated pupils pulled back into semifocus. "He walked? No one dropped him?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"Yesterday. Maybe the day before."

"How many houses are within walking distance of there?"

"Not many." The bartender returned, trailing his rag along the counter. "There's a pocket community up a half mile north where the pass drops, but aside from that you gotta good run of ranch 'n' farmland either direction."

"How many houses in the community?"

"I'd say thirty."

"You forgot the new mods they put up on Grant," the kid said.

"Yeah, so thirty-five."

"Did this guy walk in from the north?" Tim asked.

The kid squinted up his face thoughtfully and nodded. "Went back that way, too."