We went up the stairs and into a big room with a high ceiling and maybe twenty tables and a splintered floor that went pretty well with the stairs. A dozen kids in black leather jackets over white T-shirts shot pool and smoked and sucked on red cans of Coca-Cola as if this were still 1957, only most of them had long shaggy hair or buzz cuts. Pool cues like prison bars stood upright on racks against the walls, and fluorescent lights on the ceiling made everyone look dead. One of the lights flickered. A sixty-year-old bald guy with knotty arms sat behind a short bar where you could get beer or soft drinks. He was reading a copy of Sporting Times. I didn’t see any ladies and no one except the guy behind the bar looked over sixteen. I didn’t see Richie Sealy, either. Pike said, “I’ll check the back.”

Pike went across the big room and into a little alcove where a couple of signs said restrooms and exit. I walked over to the guy behind the bar.

He watched me come over the top of his paper and squirmed around on his stool. Nervous. I said, “We’re looking for Richard Sealy. Is he around?”

The old guy glanced toward the rear of his place, where Pike had gone, then back to me. He didn’t fold the paper or put it down. “You guys with the cops?” First Sal Cohen, now him. Maybe if we let our hair grow.

I said, “Richard Sealy.”

More of the nervous. “Look, I’m straight now, okay? I did the nickel and I’m good at my parole and I live straight, so whatever Richie’s got going, I don’t know.” He shot little glances at the kids and kept his voice down, hoping no one would hear. They probably thought he was tough, and he didn’t want them to know he wasn’t.

I gave him a hard cop look like I’d seen Robert Stack give in old Untouchables reruns. “We just want Sealy.”

In the back, a fat kid with glasses laughed too loud and then a gray metal door that said GENTLEMEN opened next to a pay phone and Richard Sealy came out. He was wearing the same two sweatshirts and the same fingerless gloves and he was smiling. Thirty-five years old and he was hanging out with kids.

The old guy said, “No shooting.”

I looked at him. Life at the Longbranch.

Pike came out of the back as Richie went over to a green table where a couple of kids were shooting eight-ball. Richie grabbed a pack of Marlboros off the edge of the table, lipped out a cigarette, fired up, then bent over to line up a shot. Someone had taped a poster of Heather Thomas in a bikini onto the wall. Heather looked okay.