“No. I’m looking for someone.”

“You’re a dick?”

“No, just trying to help a friend.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “Bull-fucking-shit. But come fucking in anyway. Sun’s not good for me. Doc says I’m susceptible to melanomas.”

She stepped into the building. In the hallway, a pair of steer horns hung from the ceiling. On the wall to each side was a mounted wagon wheel. The place was dark. But she could see that the entire first floor was one open room. Tables and chairs were set up. Cowboy posters were on the wall. Ornate saddles were mounted on stands. A jukebox was glowing. There was a bar at the end of the room. Three men were sitting at it. A young man wearing a white apron was mopping a dance floor.

“I’ve had three fucking melanoma operations,” the bearded man said. “Doc says that I need to live like a god-damn vampire.”

He guided her to the bar and told her to sit. He took a place behind the bar.

“Big Daddy Lopez,” he said, introducing himself.

The men at the bar looked at Lancette with little interest. They each had a buzz cut. “So he told him,” one was saying, “that he couldn’t take it anymore. That either he put his name on the lease or that was it—”

“But I ain’t no spic,” Lopez said to Lancette. “My name’s Lopez. But as far back as we can trace, ain’t no spic blood, just a spic name, okay?”

“Okay,” Lancette said.

“Who you looking for? Not me, right?”

“No, not you. Looking for a fellow who, I think, used to work here a few years ago. He—”

“Why you looking for him?” He took a draw from a long-neckedbottle of beer.

“Someone asked me to help find him—”

“Thought you said you’re no dick.”

“No dick? Hey, stop talking about Gregory!” one of the men shouted at Lopez. The others laughed. The young man mopping the floor glowered at them.

“Mind your own fuckin’ girlie business,” Lopez said to them. His attention returned to Lancette.

“Who asked you to help?”

“It was”—she thought for a moment—“his family.”

“And what’s his name?”

“They’re trying not to use his name. He—”

“Sounds like a scam, sweetie. How do they expect to find him?”

“Well, they believe he’s using a different name now—and they don’t know what that name is. But he’s hard to miss. He has a scar on his ear and a glass eye.”

She said nothing about the tattoo. The tattoo found on the assassin had been described in the media. If she mentioned it, Lopez would know why she was interested in the man.

She paid close attention to Lopez’s face. It did not change as she described the man.

“And why are they looking for the hombre-with-no-name?”