Reynolds rolled his eyes. “Oh, shit. I wondered when that was gonna come back to bite me. Yeah, I was.”

Sam turned her phone around to face him. “Is that the owner of the car?”

“Yep. Lemuel Shaw. A real flamer, if that’s okay to say. I got permission from my boss to ban him from the place. Not a huge loss. Hardly a big spender.”

“Run it down from the top,” Lester asked him. “Beginning with when you were first aware he was here.”

“Not much to tell,” Reynolds addressed Les, shooting the occasional nervous glance at Sam. “He was parked over in the far corner. He came in about once a month, staked out a table as usual, bought a couple of beers, and disappeared. He’s been doing the same thing for about a year. We get a lot of old-timers like that. Harmless. That night, I don’t know what got into him. I thought later he’d either hit the bottle at home, or he’d had a fight with his old lady, but he was wired. I finally had our bouncer show him out. That’s when he came back saying his car had been stolen.”

“And the shit truly hit the fan?” Lester asked.

“Not really. It was like a bucket of cold water. I guess it was ’cause he knew he was screwed good and proper now. He came in, meek and mild, and said what had happened. He’d called his wife and wanted to wait for her inside, where it was warm. But he’d burned that bridge with me. I told him to piss off. That was the last I saw of him.”

“Hold it,” Sam finally said. “You’re leaving something out. Caspar Milquetoast comes in once a month to watch your girls wiggle their butts, and then one night, out of the blue, he turns into a raging asshole and gets thrown out? On the same night his car gets stolen?”

The manager looked at her as if she’d taken flight. “Caspar who?”

Lester had been similarly impressed, but at least understood the reference. “Mr. Meek and Mild,” he filled in.

“It might not’ve been all him,” Reynolds conceded.

Every time, Lester thought. They always leave something out.

“Don’t hold back now,” Sam recommended.

“Something happened between the bouncer and him. I don’t know what. One second, everything’s fine and the girls’re doin’ their thing, next I know, the two of them are getting into it.”

“The bouncer and Shaw?” Lester asked incredulously. “He’s an old man.”

Reynolds pursed his lips, embarrassed. “You’re thinkin’ bouncer as in Monday Night RAW or somethin’. This guy was not that.”

Sam picked up on the past tense. “Was? What happened to him?”

“He quit. That same night.”

Sam slapped the bar testily. “Goddamn it. Spit it out. All of it.”

The manager put on a beleaguered expression. “I’m sorry, okay? This is not Vegas, and we’re not made of money. The bouncer’s an obligation, but we go through ’em like M&Ms. I’ve had some turn over so quick, they never even got paid. College kids, old rummies, crippled bikers, who the hell knows? They come and go, they do the job or they don’t. Most of the time, it don’t matter. Worst that happens is a horny drunk gets escorted out with a free drink voucher, or a bunch of kids get stopped at the door. Hell, these guys get paid so little, some of ’em sweep the floor and clean up after for extra cash.”