"He won't be using his real name. Now come on. We're wasting time." He leaned forward and gave her a hard look. "You wouldn't be protecting someone, would you?"
She flushed. "No. Of course not. It's just…" Her shoulders slumped in resignation. "All right. What records do you want?"
"Any groundskeepers hired in the last five years."
Renny stood and drummed his fingers on the counter, looking calm and patient, but inside he was urging her to hurry her ass before one of her supervisors came back. She went to one desk, then to another, then to a computer, then she disappeared into the back. Finally she reappeared with a small stack of buff folders.
"I brought all I could find. Some of them don't work here anymore but I brought them anyway."
Renny grabbed the stack and opened the one on top. He stifled a curse.
"No photos."
She shrugged. "Some do, some don't."
He flipped through quickly, reading the names, searching for photos: Gilbert Olin, Stanley Malinowski, Peter Turner, Will Ryerson, Mark DeSantis, Louis—
Whoa!
He shuffled back to Will Ryerson. Right age, right height and weight, hired almost three years ago. Will Ryerson… William Ryan. Renny's pulse ripped into overdrive.
Gotcha!
He memorized the address, then made a show of looking through the rest of the folders. Finally, he slid the stack back to the woman.
"Nope. Doesn't look like he's here. Another false lead. Thank you for your help. Have a nice day."
And then he was out of the office and hurrying down the hall, wondering where he could get hold of a city map and find out how to get to Postal Road.
Got you, you bastard. Got you at last!
Lisl started by knocking on Ev's door, then graduated to banging with her fist. When she got no answer, she fished the key from her purse and unlocked it.
"Ev?" she said, closing the door behind her. "Ev, are you here?"
All was quiet. She looked around the apartment. Ev was nowhere in sight. The place felt empty, but that might not mean anything. With her pulse pounding in her throat, she headed for the bedroom.
God, what if he's dead? What will I do?
She paused on the threshold of the bedroom, then forced herself to peek inside.
Empty. The bed was made, the spread pulled tight and unwrinkled.
Not sure whether to be relieved or even more upset than she already was, she let out the breath she'd unconsciously been holding. Where could he be? Everything in the place was perfectly in order, just like she and Rafe had left it Wednesday night—
Except for the kitchen. The orange juice carton sat on the counter; a pulp-streaked tumbler huddled against it. Lisl grabbed the carton. A low moan escaped her when she felt how light it was. In a sudden fit of anger—at Rafe, but mostly at herself—she hurled the empty carton against the wall, then grabbed the glass and did the same. The carton bounced, the glass shattered.
Why did I do it?
Lisl sagged back against the refrigerator and closed her eyes, waiting for an answer. None came. She set her jaw and straightened up.
All right. She'd gotten Ev into this, so she had to help him get out of it. But first she had to find him. And she was going to find him if she had to comb every bar in town.
Lisl headed for the door but stopped before she reached it. What if Ev wasn't in a bar? What if he was in a hospital?
She ran to the phone and called the Medical Center switchboard, a number she still remembered from her days as the wife of an intern.
No, there had been no one named Sanders admitted during the night.
She sighed with relief, then wondered why she should be relieved. At least if he were in a hospital it would mean he was being cared for. If he was lying unconscious in an alley somewhere…
She ran out to comb the nearby bars. But it was slow work, and after covering only three places in the space of an hour and getting nowhere, she realized she couldn't do this alone. She needed help.
But who? Rafe wouldn't lift a finger to help Ev. In fact, he might even talk her out of looking for him. She could think of only one person she could count on. But that would mean explaining what she had done. How could she explain the unex-plainable?
She headed for the next bar. Alone. :;.
Sick.
Ev felt terrible. Sick to his stomach and sick at heart as he leaned against his apartment door and twisted the key in the lock. He lurched in and staggered the short distance to the reclin-er. He dropped into its comforting familiarity and closed his eyes.
Off the wagon. He'd fallen off before, but the last time had been so many years ago he'd begun to think he'd never fall off again. He pressed his fists against his eyes. He wanted to shout, he wanted to cry, but he wouldn't allow it. What purpose would that serve? He wouldn't wallow in self-pity or recriminations, or look for someone else to blame. He'd been down those roads before and they were dead ends. He had to make something positive out of this. Everything was a learning experience. What he had to do was turn this episode around and see if he could learn something from it.
Well, the lesson was obvious, wasn't it? A drunk is a drunk, and no matter how long you've been dry, you shouldn't get too comfortable with your sobriety. Yesterday was a good example of how fast it can desert you.
But why? Why had he gone off the wagon? He'd felt strange all day yesterday—it had been yesterday, hadn't it? Of course it had. He'd seen the newspaper in the box on the corner. It was Friday afternoon. He glanced at his watch: 4:16. He'd lost almost a whole day to booze. Not the first time for that either.
But what frightened him was how it had come without warning. An odd sensation all day, then he'd come home as usual. He'd been sitting here drinking orange juice, and when he'd finished it, he'd gone out for more. But he never made it to the market. As he passed Raftery's he'd hesitated only a heartbeat, then he was inside ordering a Scotch.
No warning. One moment outside, the next moment inside, drinking.
But Lord how good it had tasted. Even now his mouth watered with the memory of it. One of the few memories left from yesterday. A montage flickered through his brain, a procession of drinks, of buying a bottle, of upending it and gulping it down like a desert wanderer finding a cache of cool spring water.
His next memory was of waking up sick, dirty, aching, shaking in the early afternoon sunlight under a sheet of cardboard behind an appliance store. He still had his wallet so he'd bought himself something to eat and another long procession of drinks—all coffees.
He pushed himself out of the recliner and headed for the bathroom. On the way, something crunched under his foot.
Glass. Fragments of the tumbler he'd used for the orange juice were scattered all over the kitchen floor. The o-j carton was on the floor too. There was a stain on the wall, as if someone had smashed the glass against the wall.
Someone. Who? Me?
Who else? The door had been locked when he'd come in. Nothing was disturbed. He was the only one with a key.
He must have come back and gone out again last night. He shook his head. If only he could remember. It was scary to lose little pieces of your life.
Despite his throbbing head, he swept up the fragments, put them in the juice carton, and tossed everything into the garbage. Then he continued on to the bathroom for a shower.
Half an hour later, clean, shaved, wearing fresh clothes, he felt almost normal. He'd go to the Friday night meeting of his AA group, something he hadn't done in years. He'd find another AA group that met on Saturdays and he'd go to that meeting too. He'd go every night until he was sure he was in control again.
But it was only five o'clock. Hours to go before the meeting. His hand shook as he lit a cigarette. What was he going to do till then? He wanted a drink, he craved another damn drink. Good thing there wasn't any in the apartment. He went through the ritual of making himself a cup of coffee and worried about how he was going to stay sober until the meeting. He didn't have an AA contact anymore—Ev's had moved away a few years ago and he'd never bothered to get another. He'd thought he didn't need one.