“Oh, talked to him a few days ago,” she said.

“How’s he doing? He get back up this way much?”

“Sometimes, yeah, the little fucker. He does a lot of important business, of course. He was in Chicago not long ago, he was telling me.”

“Love Chicago,” I said.

“So what you say your name was?” Mrs. Merker asked, squinting in my general direction.

“Zack,” I said. “He probably never mentioned me.”

She was thinking. “I think he mighta. You used to hang out at the Kickstart?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That was probably me.”

“Well, he’s not here.”

“What’s he up to?”

“Like I say, he’s a businessman. Doesn’t run that hotel anymore, doesn’t hang out with those motorcycle friends of his, ’cept for Leo, that dumb, pitiful son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, Leo,” I said. “Edgars.”

“I guess Gary missed having a little brother, so he adopted Leo. When they was handing out brains, that boy was out getting a sandwich.”

“Does he keep in touch with the old gang, the customers?”

Mrs. Merker reached into the box for another cracker, shrugged. “Not too much. One called here the other day, though, wanting to pass on a message.”

“Oh yeah? Who was that?”

Mrs. Merker was swallowing some cracker and winced. She coughed, tried to clear her throat. “Fucking dry cracker,” she muttered, and turned to go back into the kitchen. I listened to the familiar pish! of a beer can opening. A moment later she was back in the doorway, tipping back a Bud.

“What?” she asked.

“You say someone called a few days ago for Gary?”

She nodded, took another sip. “Did you want anything?”

I thought she meant a beer, and shook my head no, I was good.

“No, I mean, why’d you come here?”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, I’d heard, one of the guys was saying, that there was this girl from the Kickstart, that Gary was always wondering what happened to her, and if we ever heard anything, we should give him a shout, or get in touch with you, and you could pass it on.”

“This about that cunt?” Mrs. Merker said. “Candy?”

I tried to keep the surprise off my face. “Actually, yeah, I think so,” I said.

“That’s what that other boy called about,” she said. “He called about that cunt too.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“Said to tell Gary he thought he knew where she was.”

“No kidding?” I said. “Where was that?”

“Shit,” said Mrs. Merker. “I wrote it down somewhere.” She looked about the room. “I think I wrote it on a piece of newspaper.”

Terrific.

Of course, I had a pretty good hunch what this caller had said. But if the answer was, indeed, Oakwood, it would mean that things were starting to fall together.