The door swings inward to reveal a huge man with no neck and a shaved head, wearing an ill-fitting suit. He looks me up and down. “If you don’t got a delivery, fuck off.”

“My name’s Susannah Faulkner,” I say. “My uncle owns this bar.”

The man blinks, then smiles crookedly. “Sorry ’bout that, Miss Faulkner. Didn’t recognize you. I’m Gus. I work for Mr. Shaw.”

Johnny Shaw is Uncle Gavin’s lawyer, who wears seersucker suits and likes it when people mistake him for an old coot, right before he cuts them off at the knees. Gus is his driver-slash-bodyguard, has been forever. Ethan once said Gus reminded him of Luca Brasi in The Godfather, big and a little slow but loyal. I’ve only seen Gus two or three times in my life, and always sitting behind the wheel of a car.

“You moonlighting for Uncle Gavin now?” I say.

“Mr. Gutierrez needed some help,” Gus says. He means Frankie. I doubt Frankie hired Gus to wait tables, unless he wants to scare off the customers. If his size alone wouldn’t intimidate you, his too-tight jacket shows the bulge of a shoulder holster.

“Come in, come in.” Gus steps back out of the doorway, holding the door open with a hand the size of a dinner plate. He’s so big I have to squeeze past him into the hallway. But I notice how his eyes rake the lot outside before he shuts the door and throws a dead bolt.

The hallway is the same as always—wood floor worn smooth, the smell of beer and fried onion rings and some kind of orange-scented industrial cleaner. Gus lumbers down the hall behind me as I pass the bathrooms and a couple of doors that lead to private rooms. Then I’m through a swinging door and past the stairwell that leads up to my uncle’s office, and I walk into the kitchen. It’s the lunch hour so the kitchen is humming. Two waitresses are shuttling in and out with service trays of sandwiches and hamburgers. A kid is spraying dirty plates and shoving them into a dishwasher. A woman wearing a hairnet stands in front of the stovetop, brandishing a spatula and cooking something in a sizzling pan.

“Mr. Gutierrez is out front,” Gus says, meaning the dining room. “You can go upstairs and wait in the office, Miss Faulkner. I’ll go tell him you’re here.”

I nod and turn toward the stairs, but then Gus clears his throat and I turn to look back at him.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he says. “About your uncle. Mr. Lester’s a tough old bird, though. He’ll be okay.”