Watching his quarry enter the establishment, Willy waited fifteen minutes before exiting his car, giving his disguise a few final tugs, and following suit, mumbling and shuffling as he went.

The place was drab, bordering on the pestilent. The lighting was poor, the air worse, and the population of hollow-eyed, sallow-faced patrons deserving of its surroundings.

Willy spotted his target sitting at the bar, chatting up a female barkeep with a hard expression and a navel ring perched atop a beer belly under a sweat-stained crop top.

Willy chose a stool at the end of the bar, his shoulder against the wall. As a final touch, he displayed his trademark, propping his pale and withered arm and hand on the counter before him. It was and always had been his proof to all doubters that he wasn’t an undercover cop.

Waiting for the bartender, he studied Cody Wright, who by now had started taking in his potential clientele. This is what Willy had been hoping for—an illegal transaction in full view.

While Cody scanned his opportunities, one of which was already rising from a corner booth to walk unsteadily toward a purchase, the woman tending bar slid over to Willy and more demanded than asked, “What d’ya want?”

“Budweiser in a bottle.”

She openly stared at his exposed hand. “Our draft not good enough?”

“I like what I like.”

“Ours is better.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

She finally looked up into his eyes. “Whatever.”

She moved away. Willy watched the exchange of money for a couple of baggies between Cody and his pigeon. The place had the usual barely audible canned music, and a muted TV set in need of replacement was wedged against where the ceiling met the wall above the cash register.

The bartender returned with a brown bottle, opened it before Willy, and said, “Four bucks.”

Willy produced a five without comment. As she turned to get the change, he checked for anyone watching, before swapping her bottle, upright, for an identical one from his inner coat pocket.

He took a small swig of what was now water and settled down for the evening.

It was normally a game of chance, playacting a transaction with a drug dealer. You couldn’t overdo your stay, you didn’t want to appear too eager, you certainly didn’t want your mark to run out of product and leave. It was subjective, gut-driven, and dependent on various factors. When Willy did make his move, he barely knew what prompted him, which of course was part of the art form.

But move he did, having made sure Cody had noticed him by then, and sidled up beside the younger man to quietly ask, his bad arm still in view, “What’ll twenty get me?”

“What’re you after?”

Willy kept his voice low. “Look like I care?”

“I know you?”

Willy used a couple of names he’d been given by the Keene cop earlier. “I know Benny Studin, who knows Connie Baxter. What d’you care?”

Cody’s eyes dropped to the hand Willy had again placed on the bar. “You should put a glove on that thing.”