But he just shrugs and grins. “I know all the girls in Barrens. The pretty ones especially.”

“I’m sure you do,” I say, and he squints at me, as if he’s seeing me through a filter of smoke.

I remember all the stories about Condor in high school. He got in trouble for dealing weed—I remember that—and he dropped out a few months shy of graduation, when I was still a junior. I remember Annie Baum getting in Condor’s face the same year he got his girlfriend, Stephanie, pregnant. So Condor, she said, I hear you like putana? Because Stephanie’s dad came from Ecuador. And Condor had stood up without saying a word, grabbed his bag, and walked out.

Putana was probably the only Spanish word Annie Baum ever learned.

But there was something else—something involving the Game. I never heard exactly. Condor was a slippery kind of person, always sliding through cracks just before you could pin him into place. He wasn’t popular, but he wasn’t unpopular, either. He lived outside the system. Even the stories about him got refracted and rounded off, bounced back to us before they’d had a chance to solidify. Brent O’Connell and his friends supposedly went to Condor’s house and beat the shit out of him. Was it something he did to Kaycee? Or tried to do? It was after Becky Sarinelli died, I know that. And I remember, too, that Condor and Becky Sarinelli were friends.

That’s the thing I remember most of all: that Condor was always in trouble. Or he was always finding trouble.

He stands up. “Want something drinkable?”

He moves out from behind the counter and crosses the room in a few steps. He still has that weird graceful quality, even though he’s built like a farmer, all shoulders and forearms and blunt hands.

“This one’s decent.” When he reaches for a bottle on the top shelf, his T-shirt rides up, and I see a tattoo wrapped around his torso: a pair of wings. “You like Bordeaux?”

“I like wine,” I say. “I’ll take it.” I follow him up to the register. I have no cash on me, so I hand him my card. When I see him puzzling over the name, I blurt out, “We actually know each other. I’m Abby Williams. I was a year behind you and we were in the same Spanish class.”

Unexpectedly, Condor laughs. “I do remember you now,” he says. “So you are from around here.”

“Originally.”

“Well, I’m surprised you remember me. I was never in class those days. Skipped out to smoke up in the woods behind the football field, most of the time. Hence, my kingdom.” He opens his arms to indicate the store, the narrow racks filled with cheap liquor, a whole aisle dedicated to the smallest bottles for the alcoholics who can afford only a little at a time. He doesn’t sound bitter, though. “So what are you doing back in this charming little town?”

“I’m working on a case, I’m a lawyer now. Environmental law.”