A petite girl with Rapunzel hair trotted toward him, but North waved her off and shouted something about a friend. Then he plunged into the maelstrom of noise and beer and ribs. He saw a one-eyed man kissing a stuffed pig that was mounted on the wall. He saw two women pressed against each other, bottles squeezed between their cleavage as they tried to drink without using their hands. He saw an old man racking pool balls and felt a moment’s pity for the pair of ginger brothers who were waiting to play with the old man, cash already folded on the side of the pool table; those boys were about to get taken.

North wasn’t sure the last time he’d eaten, and his stomach rumbled as he walked the length of the barbeque joint. He doubled back, made a second check, and then looked for the perky little Rapunzel. She was busy talking to a group of old men, who were laughing and staring down her shirt and probably telling her she reminded them of their granddaughters. Another woman, this one starting to sag, gave North a weary wave from the corner of the bar.

“Do you do takeout?”

She nodded.

“A full rack of ribs, please. No sauce. And whatever sides you like the best. And—do you have a plastic bag?”

She blinked. Her lash extensions had started to peel away, and they did a kind of wavering second blink from the momentum. Then she nodded.

When she brought the food back, North showed her the picture.

“Marky? What do you want him for?”

“I was supposed to meet him for dinner. You know him?”

“He’s been in here once a week since he was a baby, I guess. You got your schedule mixed up, hon. He was here last night.” An excited roar went up as a fight broke out on the other side of the room; the old man had snapped a pool cue over one of the ginger boys’ head, and the other brother was squaring off. “Lord, Darnell will kill both of them. Excuse me.”

“Was he with anybody?”

“No, Marky almost always eats by himself.”

North left cash and a decent tip—Matty was paying, after all—and carried the food outside. He circled the building, passing under the security lights where a few mayflies, early this year, bobbed and danced. Shaw stood just off the asphalt pad where the shadows were thick enough to hide him, and he had his arms wrapped around himself.

“Oh,” he said. “That smells good.”

“I had a hard time finding something on your diet.”

“On our diet, North. We’re both doing it.”

“I know you’re trying to cut out dairy.”

“We’re trying to cut it out, North. Both of us.”

“But I thought something simple would still be ok. Simple is still ok, right? No toxins, nothing processed. Definitely no dairy. Plant-based.”

“You didn’t get any sauce, did you?”

North had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. This was what everybody else missed when they dealt with Shaw. If they saw this part of him, this total authenticity that made him shine like a light through the best glass, they only glanced at it. Nobody, for some reason, had ever noticed how that authenticity gave Shaw an excitement for life, an energy, an eagerness that was totally genuine and, as far as North had encountered, unique in this world. Sometimes it was like electricity. Sometimes, like tonight, it could make the hairs on North’s arms stand up, even if he told himself it was only the cold. Somehow nobody else noticed, though.