I felt a sense of unease sweep over me. “We’re going in here?”

“Huh? No. This is just part of the tour. We’re meeting Bruce someplace else.”

Cherry turned around in the gravel lot out front of the clubhouse and headed back into the city’s older residential district. We were driving through a neighborhood of traditional Victorian-type homes when we came upon a large park illuminated with flood-lamps.

We parked, and as we walked toward the park, we could hear the sounds of children’s voices, pounding feet, soft chatter. It was a kids’ soccer match, boys about ten years old, kicking the ball back and forth, working their way from one end of the field to the other. Standing along the sidelines, and sitting in a set of wooden bleachers, parents watched and cheered.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

Cherry ignored me, working his way through the parents. He glanced up the bleachers and started climbing them, a row of seats with each step. Sitting at the top, off to one side, was a large man in his forties, not fat but big, dressed in black jeans and a windbreaker. He was clean-shaven, with dark, neat hair and glasses. A bit Clark Kentish. This, I concluded, could not be the head of a biker gang. Maybe this guy was going to tell us where we could find Wingstaff.

“Hey, Bruce,” Cherry said.

Okay, so I was wrong.

Wingstaff kept his eyes on the field. “Mike, how’s it going?”

“Who’s winning?”

“Other side. We’re getting our ass kicked. Blake got a goal, though.” His eyes caught something, and he was on his feet. “Hey!” he shouted. “Come on!” He sat back down. “It’s not hockey, for Christ’s sake. You can’t check a guy like that.”

“This is the guy I told you about,” Cherry said. Wingstaff sized me up in half a second and returned his eyes to the field.

“Hi,” I said. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Anything for Mike here.” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “You’re looking for some woman?”

“That’s right. I think, although I don’t know for sure, that she might have something to do with Gary Merker, maybe from a few years ago. Or Leonard Edgars.”

“This lady you’re looking for got a name?”

“Trixie Snelling.”

Wingstaff was on his feet again. He coned his hands around his mouth and shouted: “Hey, ref! You wanna borrow my glasses?” He sat back down. “Name don’t mean nothing to me.”

“Maybe she wasn’t using that name at the time,” Cherry offered.

“Well, if you don’t know what name she might have been using, then I don’t know how I can help you. Hey, Blake’s got the ball. Come on, come on…Ah, fuck. He’s got to learn how to hang on to it. He’s falling all over himself.”