“How about Susan Forex?” I said.

“Let’s see what we can do.”

Ollie punched a number on his speed dial and put the phone to his ear.

I heard a voice on the other end but couldn’t make out the words.

“In front of the triple-X,” Ollie said after several seconds.

Pause.

“How long?”

Pause.

“Anything on Ruben?”

Pause.

“Call me the minute you do.”

Snapping the lid, he said, “Lucky break. The lady’s not having a profitable evening.”

We all got out. As Ollie wheep-wheeped the locks, I slipped on a jacket I’d pulled from my roll-aboard.

The air smelled of fried food, gasoline, and wet concrete. Muffled music pulsed from a building to our right, boomed as a patron emerged, grew muted again when the door swung shut.

Ollie led us fifty yards north to a stucco box whose sign identified it as the Cowboy Lounge. The neon cowgirl wore nothing but a ten-gallon hat.

“I do the talking.” Ollie aimed that at Ryan. “She knows me. I’m less threatening.”

Ryan said nothing.

“You good with that, Detective?”

“I’m good with that, Sergeant.”

Ollie entered. I followed. Ryan brought up the rear. We all stopped a few feet inside the entrance.

The first thing to hit me was the smell, a noxious blend of stale beer, cigarette smoke, reefer, disinfectant, and human sweat. The stink invaded my nose as my eyes adjusted to the gloom.

To the left, the crack of pool balls drifted from a room set off by swinging half-doors. The bar was straight ahead, a carved wooden affair with an ornate mirror behind and stools in front.

At midbar, a plaid-shirted man drew beer from a long-handled tap. He had moles on his face and jittery eyes that landed on us a nanosecond, then moved on.

A dozen mismatched tables filled the space to the right. Framed posters covered the walls around them—Gene Autry, John Wayne, the Cisco Kid.

Willie Nelson wailed from a jukebox beyond the tables. A player piano sat beside it, cover cracked, wooden case a battlefield of cigarette burns.

I guessed the original idea had been Wild West saloon. Instead, the place looked like a rundown roadhouse in Yuma. With lousy lighting.

Half the tables and all of the bar stools were full. The clientele was mostly male, mostly blue-collar. The few women present were definitely rough trade—brassy hair, tattoos, couture designed to advertise flesh.

Moving among the tables was a waitress in red bustier and tourniquet-tight size-sixteen jeans. Her hair was fried, her makeup cheap and overdone.

Ollie tipped his head toward a tall, angular woman at the left end of the bar. “Looks like our gal’s the pick of the litter tonight.”

I appraised Susan Forex. Her hair was long and blond, her peasant blouse artfully draped to reveal one shoulder. A denim micromini, cinch belt, and ankle-strapped stilettos completed the look.

Forex was talking to a dumpling in western boots and a thousand-gallon Stetson. Stetson had a beer. She was drinking what appeared to be whiskey on the rocks.