“I saw the video. He did it.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had the privilege, and you might be right. But I’m paid to check these things, and you’d be doing me a favor. Perhaps I can do one for you?”

  His eyes narrowed. If I had been in a bank, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the idea of bribing a teller for information. Banks got covered by federal laws and that was a whole other level of bureaucracy, let alone hurt. But this was a payday lender. It was basically loan-sharking as a franchise.

  “I’ve got a break in five.”

  “How do you take a break when you’re the only one here?”

  He pulled out from below his desk a big red button attached to a cord. “If someone comes, they just hit the button. But no one comes. Wait outside the barbershop out back.”

  “Okay.”

  I went back down the corridor and out into the lot. I passed the alcove, but I didn’t wait outside the barbershop. Instead, I walked to the end of the building. I had five minutes to kill and every bit of exercise added up to one more beer I could enjoy at Longboard’s before my wife made me go running on City Beach. I shrugged involuntarily at the thought. Who was I kidding? She’d have me go running with her anyway, but at least she wouldn’t make comments about the beer. Such were life’s little tradeoffs.

  The dollar store was still inviting me in, but I declined yet again. I strolled to the end of the strip and peeked into the area between the building and the cinder block wall along the side. There was a five-foot gap of wasted space, nothing but thirsty grass and trash. At the street end was an eight-foot-high wire fence covered in torn green plastic.

  I walked back and leaned against the wall between the payday lender’s back door and the alcove. The birds sang as if nothing had happened here. The sun shone on the asphalt, and the weeds coming up through the cracks in the pavement reached for the sky.

  The door to the payday lender opened, and the guy was startled by me standing there. He shook his head and walked past me, down the sidewalk, and stopped between the alcove and the barber’s back door. He gestured for me to join him.

  “Sun too bright for you there?” I asked, nodding at where I had been standing.

  “Think about it. We work with cash, so we’re under surveillance all the time. I’m going to go to the trouble of stepping outside and then stand right under the video camera out here, am I?”

  “I’m told the camera shows this spot.”

  “No. It shows the other side of that alcove, but not here, bro. We’re good.”

  “Good for what?”

  “You mentioned doing me a favor?” He held out his hand. It wasn’t subtle. I knew I could get the video for free but I just didn’t know when, and like those geniuses who slept in line to get the latest cell phone, I wanted it now. I took out my wallet and handed him a twenty.

  He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows. I put another twenty in his hand. He didn’t move.

  “If I put something more in your hand, I don’t just want to see the video. I want a copy of it.”

  “Bro, you think I’m gonna let you watch the video here? You not listening. They’ve got cameras on everything inside. Of course I’m going to send it to you.”

  “Won’t the cameras see you doing that?”

  “It’s a download. I’ll text you the link. You savvy with the internet?”

  “Savvy enough.” I took out another twenty, then put my wallet back in my pocket to say this was my final offer.

  The guy shoved the money into his pocket and took out his phone. “What’s your number?”

  I told him and he punched it in with rapid-fire thumbs, then my phone bleeped and I saw his text.

  “Download it right away. I can’t guarantee my boss won’t kill the link when he gets in tomorrow. Security, right?”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  The guy walked back through the door he had come out of, and I walked back to my car. I got in and opened the text message. It was a web link, nothing more. I clicked an icon to forward the link and typed a message to Lizzy to download a copy first thing Monday. It took me a lot longer to type with my one pointer finger than the payday lender guy did with both his thumbs.

  Almost instantly I got a text back from Lizzy with a thumbs-up emoji. Then I clicked the link for myself. I didn’t want to download the video onto my phone, but I thought it might just play, and after a bit of buffering, it did.

  It was hard to see everything on my little phone screen, but I got the gist of it all. The guy was right: I could see the sidewalk outside the building from one side of the payday lender to the near side of where the alcove was. But I couldn’t see the pavement beyond the alcove or where I had been standing with the guy two minutes earlier.

  The image was dark and gray—nighttime with one of those infrared cameras. I saw the section of the parking lot in front of the payday lender and a lighter gray across the right of the shot—light was likely spilling from the club above the barber. I used the little dot at the bottom of the image to fast-forward. It gave me a spinning circle as it played catch up, then showed the same scene. I fast-forwarded more. The gray turned to black as if the lights had gone out. Then I saw Maxine Mitchell walking from the bottom right of the shot as she came out of the alcove and headed to a car out of view.

  Then there was nothing. I fast-forwarded again until I saw a person walking along the sidewalk at the bottom of the screen. It was a man, but all I could see was the top of his head. When he reached the sidewalk before the alcove, he looked around like a bad spy, and I saw his face: Ricky the Fudge. Ricky looked around once more, then disappeared into the alcove.

  I advanced the footage again until I saw bright headlights. A car drove into the lot and parked in front of the payday lender, and the video went white. Then the lights went out, and the image took a few seconds to recover, like your eyesight moving from sunshine into a dark bar.

  Next, I saw Johnny Cabrini walk from the car toward the alcove, talking to Ricky the Fudge, but the image was too small to lip-read. Johnny didn’t appear stable on his feet, but he didn’t stop moving. He stumbled right through the shot and disappeared into the alcove. For about thirty seconds, there was no activity, then Johnny reappeared. He backed out of the alcove, pointing and gesticulating to where I assumed Ricky now lay. I couldn’t make out Johnny’s face that well, but his body language said rage. Johnny took another step backward and stumbled and nearly fell, catching himself as he spun around. Then he went to his car, got in, and drove away.

  I stopped the video and glanced in my rearview mirror at the building behind me. It was in reverse, but I could imagine everything. The hole in Tina’s wall came to mind. It told me what Johnny was capable of. He might have been a good man, and he still might have his moments, but he was also now capable of bad things. When the ship captain lost control of the helm, perhaps the best move was to dock the boat. I hoped I could facilitate safe harbor for Johnny.

  But it was nothing more than hope.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I spent the rest of the day at home thinking about collecting evidence. I didn’t need to prove Johnny’s innocence; I had to focus on finding evidence that mitigated the charges against him.

  Lizzy texted to say she had downloaded the video and saved a copy to her hard drive. I was content with having seen it on my phone—a bigger image wasn’t going to show another shooter on the grassy knoll—so my next move was to establish Johnny’s fragile state of mind that night. And to do that, I needed to figure out where he had been before the video was taken. Mick had given me a possibility, but I still needed to speak to the right people.

  In the meantime, Danielle and I took separate cars out to the island to join Ron and Cassandra for dinner at The Breakers. We sat at the Seafood Bar and watched the ocean go from blue to gray to black as the sun fell slowly behind us, eating shrimp tacos and drinking bubbles. It was good company in surroundings above my station, but I couldn’t quite hit the mood. I kept wondering what Tina Cabrini and her girls were eating and drinking. I wasn’t responsible for them or the position they found themselves in, but it gnawed at me all the same.

  After coffee, Ron and Cassandra walked back to their oceanfront apartment, and Danielle drove home. I told her I shouldn’t be long. I wasn’t planning on making a night of it, but what I had to do had to be done late at night.

  I drove down to Lake Worth Corridor and found a certain hole-in-the-wall. Mick had given me details for a local joint—a typical dive bar, with a low ceiling, stools bolted to the concrete floor, and some dark-wood booths in the back where the pool table was hosting a raucous game. The kind of place where a spilled drink would be washed away with a garden hose at the end of the night. The absence of carpet meant there was no stale alcohol smell. It was bleach and bathroom cologne all the way.

  There were two guys silently watching West Coast football on a television above the bar, and at the opposite end, a bearded man sat with a melancholy expression, staring at a glass of amber liquor. I took a stool halfway between.

  The bartender offered a nod. “What’s your poison?”

  “Beer, thanks.”

  “Coming up.” He said it in a friendly way even though he didn’t look friendly at first glance. He had a shaved head and tattoos peeking out from under his black T-shirt down both arms and his neck. He poured a beer without bothering with any guff, like asking what kind I wanted. One option took all the guesswork out of life.

  He placed the beer on the bar in front of me and moved on. The melancholy guy had finished his drink. As he walked, the bartender picked up a bottle from the liquor collection at the back of the bar and poured the guy another shot, then turned away without a word.

  “You work here most nights?” I asked when he came back.

  “Every night but Monday.”

  “Day off?”

  “Closed Monday.”

  I looked around the room. “Where do they go on Mondays?”

  “God knows.”

  “Were you here last Thursday?”

  “It wasn’t Monday.”

  “Do you know most of your customers?”

  “The regulars.”

  “You know a guy called Johnny? Johnny Cabrini?”

  “I know you.” He picked up a glass and started polishing it. I wondered what bartenders would do with their hands if they didn’t have that to do.

  “How do you know me?”

  “I used to go to the baseball with my dad.”

  “That so?”

  “Yeah. He lived in a retirement community up at Port St. Lucie. You were a pitcher for the Mets.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Yeah. I’ve got a memory for faces.”

  “You a baseball fan?”

  “Not so much. My dad was though.”

  “He’s not with us now?”

  “Nah. Lost him a few years back.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s life, isn’t it?”

  I nodded and sipped my beer.

  “What do you want with Johnny Cabrini?”

  “So you do know him?”

  “Didn’t say that.”

  “I’m working for him. I’m a private investigator now.”

  “That right? Doing what for him?”

  “He’s been arrested.”

  “It happens.” He moved to the beer tap and poured one, then he set it on the bar. A heavyset guy stepped up beside me, picked up the beer, and walked off.

  “He’s been charged with killing a guy,” I said.

  “Johnny?”

  “Over at the Pugilists’ Club. You know it?”

  “I ride past it on the way to work.”

  “So I’m trying to confirm his movements the night of the fight.”

  “But you’re not a cop.”

  “No. I’m working for Johnny’s defense team.”

  “You don’t think he did it?”

  “It’s pretty cut and dried that he did it, but we’re trying to establish his mental state.”

  “Diminished capacity. You think it will get him off?”

  “I don’t think it’s a question of getting him off, more about making sure he gets the help he needs.”

  “In jail? You ever done time?”

  “No.”

  “It’s not where you go to get help.”

  “That’s why we’re trying to get him in a facility better equipped for his, you know, issues.”

  “The nut house?”

  “I don’t think they call it that.”

  “You ever been?”

  “In a psychiatric facility? No. You?”

  “Nup, but I wouldn’t want to, stories I’ve heard.”

  “Well, it’s gotta be better than general population. So anyway. Were you here Thursday?”

  “Yeah, I was here.”

  “Was Johnny here?”

  The bartender looked at the ceiling. “Yeah, he was here.”

  “What time would you say?”

  “Late. Got here maybe toward the end of the Thursday-night game, so eleven-ish. Left just after midnight.

  “How was he?”

  “Not in a great place, but lots of guys here like that.”

  “Aggressive?”

  “Nah. Johnny wasn’t usually like that, not here at least. He retreated into himself is more what I’d call it. Like I say, folks come here to do that.” He nodded toward the end of the bar where the guy was still staring into his drink.

  I sipped my beer. I knew the feeling. I had been down like that once or twice before, but it had ended differently. It felt like every time I fell, I was lucky enough to be caught. It had been the Dunbar family when I was a boy, and then Lenny, and then Danielle. And when I tripped, there was Longboard Kelly’s. It wasn’t the kind of place a guy was left to cry in his pretzels for long. Muriel would always let me drink my sorrows away if I felt the need, but the price was always working through my problems sooner or later. It was therapy at half the price.

  “You know, now that I think of it, Johnny did get a bit worked up that night.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. I remember now. He was sitting on his drink the way he does, and he got a phone call.”

  “A phone call?”

  “Yeah. It got him all kinds of upset. Yeah, that’s right. He wasn’t in a great mood before, but this was something else. He started cussing and slamming his glass on the bar, you know, like something had really ticked him off. I was thinking about giving him his marching orders.”

  “Was he violent?”

  “He was on the edge. One of the other customers came up to grab his drink, and they brushed shoulders—like barely touched fabric—and Johnny went off like the guy had knocked over his drink. I was going to tell him to go sleep it off before it got ugly.”

  “You were going to?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t ’cause he just upped and left. That was the last time he was in.”

  “Did you hear any of the call?”

  “Nah. But I will tell you something, he knew whoever it was.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I work in a bar. I see people having conversations. They talk differently to people they know.”

  “And he was doing that?”

  “For sure. Real deferential.”

  I tried to think who someone like Johnny would be deferential to. A drug dealer? Was he in pain and pleading for some opioids? But why would such a conversation make Johnny angry?

  As I thought about it, a woman came in alone and approached the bar. The bartender offered her a nod.

  “Kelly,” he said. “How are you?”

  “Better, thanks, Dean.”

  “What are you after?”

  “Just a beer, thanks.”

  “Good.” He poured the beer and handed it to her. “Doing okay?”

  “Yeah. I called her.”

  “You did? Good for you.”

  “We talked it through. We’re going to have dinner later this week.”

  “Good.”

  “It’s not fixed, but, like you said, at least I’ll know.”

  “Better in than out, Kel. Momentum, that’s all you need. One step at a time.”

  “Thanks, Dean.”

  “You bet.”

  The woman went and sat near the pool table, and I turned back to the bartender. He was pouring the guy at the end one more.

  “You know your customers,” I said as he came back.

  “It’s my job.”

  “Plenty of bartenders think pouring drinks is the job.”

  “Nah. If that’s all it was, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “You’re good with people. You could be a therapist.”

  “I am.”

  I looked around the bar. I didn’t doubt it. “No, I mean for real.”

  “Yeah, so do I. I majored in psychology. Florida State.”

  “Seriously? So why are you working in a dive bar?”

  “I like it. I like working at night. And I prefer the people. They’re, I dunno, real.”

  I looked at his bald head and his tattoos and felt like offering him an apology for something I never said, something about books and covers.

  “Another beer?”

  “One for the road. Can I ask you something?”

  “As opposed to what you’ve been doing?”

  “Yeah. How do they afford it?”

  “Who? Afford what?”

  “People like Johnny. How does he afford to drink here? He was struggling to keep a job and barely had a bean to his name. His wife is about to lose the house because they don’t have rent money. So where was the money coming from? You’re a smart guy. You watch and listen. Was Johnny doing drugs or selling them?”

  “Doing them, I can’t say. Probably. Painkillers, at least. But selling? Nup.”

  “So how did he afford it?”

  Dean pulled down a bottle from the collection of liquor behind him. It was plastic and had a spout built into the top. He placed it on the bar in front of me. It was called Old Elbow and was pale amber in color. I picked it up and turned it over. The back label said it was 20 percent whiskey and 80 percent assorted distilled ethanol.

  “What’s assorted distilled ethanol?”

  “You ever owned a lawn mower?”