There was no sense in lying. “It’s been rough,” I told him. “Lonely days and lonelier nights.”

He nodded like he understood and said, “How long do you think you can keep it up?”

“As long as it takes to find out who killed Benny,” I said. “Nobody’s gonna do this if I don’t.”

“The police—” he began.

“The police have given up,” I said. “They gave up a long time ago. ‘Do you know how many murders go unsolved every year?’ one of the detectives had the gall to ask me. ‘That’s the way it is sometimes,’ he said.”

The waitress brought me a cup of coffee. Howard waited in silence while I stirred in cream and sugar. Someone was playing a slot machine in the bar. I heard the lever being pulled and the reels spinning and clicking.

“Listen,” Howard said. “I’m not gonna pretend I know what it’s like to lose a child, and I admire your dedication, but maybe there comes a point where you have to accept the tragedies life throws at you.”

I took out my wallet and opened it to a photo of Benny. “You remember this kid, don’t you?” I said. “That laugh he had that made everybody else laugh? At what point am I supposed to forget that?”

“I’m not saying you have to forget him,” Howard replied.

“He hid a stray dog in his room for a month,” I said. “Wanda hates dogs, but he convinced her to let him keep it. He was tenderhearted, couldn’t stand to see anything suffer. I took that for weakness and was hard on him when I shouldn’t have been. I said things to him that haunt me, things that made him leave home.”

Howard reached across the table and laid a hand on my arm. “Charles,” he said. “Charles, listen to me. Benny was a drug addict. He was a prostitute. He got into a car with the wrong person. That’s the truth of it. The ugly truth. You feel guilty about what you said to him, and maybe you should. But you also gotta know that whenever someone dies, someone else always wishes they’d set things right with them before.”

I felt my anger building. It doesn’t take much to set me off these days. All of a sudden it was all I could do to keep from pounding my fist on the table.

“So you’re another one like that detective,” I said. “Gonna tell me how it is.”