I ended up in the other room watching Anna play pool. With her in her red leather miniskirt and her red sequined tank top, most of the spectators were more interested in her butt than her bank shots. Her opponent might as well have been her twin, a woman roughly the same age and the same build. Her coloring was different. Where Anna was dark, this girl had red hair in a long braid that was wrapped around her head like a crown. She wore a snug black dress, cut midthigh, with a low square neckline. I’d seen her come in, arriving with a guy who looked like a biker: overweight, balding, with a thick handlebar mustache and a tiny gold ring in one ear. The judgment was unfounded and probably inaccurate. I’m sure there are countless slim, handsome bikers rumbling down our highways. For all I knew, this man was a renowned neurosurgeon for whom buxom redheads were a means of relaxation after countless hours in an operating theater. She played with a single-mindedness I admired and eventually Anna went down in defeat. By then, she’d switched from martinis to Champagne, which probably affected her coordination, as she drained each flute like it was apple juice. The beefy guy took her place and she and I ended up on the sidelines, idly looking on while play continued.

“You know that woman?” I asked.

“That’s Markie. She’s in here all the time.”

“What’s she do for a living?”

“Not what you think. She’s an aesthetician.”

“Ah,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely certain what that meant. Hooker seemed like a better fit, but what did I know?

I’m not sure why I stayed. I was tired and the bad wine was making my head ache. The bar had filled to capacity and the noise level was almost unbearable. Cigarette smoke had tinted the air with a milky pallor. Hank and Ellen joined us just long enough to say their good-byes, not wanting to impose on his mother’s generosity. Ellen leaned into Hank like the floor was aslant, and the last I saw of her, one leg gave way as though she’d stepped into a hole. Hank had to steady her while she righted herself. Chances were, I wouldn’t see either one of them again.

It occurred to me that since I’d be hitting the road first thing the next morning, this might be my last chance to pump Anna for information. Mercifully, she’d dropped the subject of her hitching a ride with me. I had no reason to believe she was reconciled to her father’s fiduciary rebuke, but that was another subject she hadn’t mentioned in the last hour.