“So, where are you stayin’, Rev?” Suzy asked, leaning on the bar, her head laying heavy on her hand, her lids drooping under the weight of her make-up. She was a lovely woman, really, but she dolled herself up like a burlesque dancer whenever she left the house. Dolled up or not, she was young and pretty enough for me to seriously consider breaking my four-year streak with her. Except she wouldn’t bend to my charms, and I knew it. Suzy sold pussy for a living; she didn’t give hers away for anything.

And I’m not the kind of guy who pays to play.

“Misty-Lee Constatino,” I said, savoring my second beer as a free man. The small crowd had grown larger, but since I sat at the bar I was treated to a more exclusive party. Those who knew me drifted by to shake my hand and welcome me back into the fold, but a man getting out of jail wasn’t exactly a rare thing at the Pied Piper, and I’d been so young when I went away that I hadn’t made a huge impression on a lot of the locals.

Millions’ crew, though. They knew me. Shark. Tanner. Slickboy. Suzy and Tommy, to a much lesser degree. These were the people I needed to talk to.

Just saying Misty’s name influenced them. Tanner and Slickboy especially. They were both Millions’ age, probably the best friends any criminal could claim to have. Tanner made a lot of money selling stolen goods back in the day, and saved it well enough to retire. Last I heard he had a small team of guys who sold grass for him, but that’s it. Hell, the way states keep legalizing the shit, he might end up totally legitimate in a few years.

Slickboy was a jack of all trades: a lock pick and safe cracker, a tradesman with the tools to saw off shotguns and file off serial numbers, an expert in slipping out of cops’ hands, and, weirdly enough, he was a decent jewelry appraiser.

Shark was a people person. Literally. He had a small army of boys who did his bidding, muscle for hire.

That’s how I knew them, and how they knew each other. We weren’t a gang by any official means, but Millions brought us together for a reason. Millions could think his way out of a doorless, windowless room. Tanner could get us into that room in the first place. Shark provided plenty of expendable bodies. I got everyone back safe and sound. Slickboy knew how to offload anything we got our hands on.

In Millions’ heyday, which happened before I knew him, he got his hands on plenty. Made himself a rich man – and he made rich men of Tanner, Slickboy, and Shark while he was at it.

So, yeah. Misty was right to expect some loyalty from them. And their silence was a heavy mark against each one of them, in my opinion.

“Misty?” Shark was the first to speak up, in shock more than anything else. “You’re shacking up with Misty?”

“How in the hell did you manage to pull that off? Shit,” Tanner said, and I heard the harsh note in his voice, even through the smile he painted on. His old scar, the one that cut across the black skin of his cheek like a pale pink ribbon, wrinkled with that fake smile.

“First day out of prison and you already managed to slip your way into Millions’ baby girl,” Suzy marveled, blinking up at me.

“It’s not quite like that,” I assured them. “We’ve got a mutually beneficial thing going on.”

“What else do you call it when a man and a woman decide to make the beast with two backs?” Luis observed with a smirk, listening in on our conversation.

“Nah,” I said. “It’s not like that. Don’t want Millions coming to get me from the other side, you know.”

“Then what’s the arrangement?” Tommy pressed. They were downright rapt, all of them. Like I was reciting The Odyssey or something.

“Seems like the poor girl found herself in some trouble,” I said, holding back from revealing how much I knew about how much they knew. “Someone’s after her for some money she doesn’t have. So I agreed I’d hang around and be some muscle to back her up. And, you know, see if I can’t figure out who’s after her. Maybe I can talk them down.”

The silence that met my story was telling. And tense. When Leathers pounded on the bar for another beer, everyone pretended they hadn’t just jumped.

“What?” I finally asked. “I figured you guys knew something was going on. I mean, she’s Millions’ daughter. I figured she’d turn to you first. You’d owe her old man enough to back her up, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course,” Tanner said. “We didn’t know nothing about that.”

Liar.

“What kind of trouble?” Suzy asked, frowning. She didn’t really have any loyalty to Millions, except that he was a regular customer and a good tipper. But she always had a fondness for the old man.

“Just like I said, someone’s bothering her. Coward won’t say who he is, but he’s threatening her.”

“That’s a damn shame,” Slickboy said, holding his pint glass like a rosary. “Poor little thing…”

“Well, now she’s got you to protect her…”

“Sure,” I spat, cutting Tanner off. “But I don’t know how safe she’ll be with me, unless I can figure out who’s after her. And why.”

More silence. We were playing some kind of game now, a standoff. I was pretty sure they knew I was holding back what I knew, and I knew they were holding back what they knew, and who knew who was going to cave first?

“You all wouldn’t have any idea about that, right? Someone who might think Misty has some money she doesn’t have? Maybe someone who’d hire a hit on Millions in jail?”

“No,” Slickboy said quickly. “If I did, I’d tell you, Rev. Owe it to him, sure.”

“I’d cut my own arm off before I let Misty get hurt,” Tommy swore.

“You know it,” Tanner agreed. Shark was frowning, brow furrowed, like he was thinking hard.

“Millions had a lot of friends,” he finally said. “But he also had a lot of enemies.”

I bit my tongue against a sarcastic response to Shark’s way-too-obvious comment on Millions’ social life.

“Wait a minute,” Suzy said, and I watched every man’s eyes go huge, turning to her with obvious alarm. All but Slickboy and Leathers, anyway; Slickboy was busy helping Leathers with his jacket, and Leathers was busy continuing to be alive and mobile. “I’m trynna think…you know, I had a girl two-time me recently. She was a good pro, it was a real bitch losing her. She used to do this trick… she would get a bottle of champagne and…”

“Suzy,” I said. “That sounds like a great trick, and I want to hear all about it. But you were saying something about Misty?”

“Well, this girl left me to go work for some other asshole, no clue why. I mean, I treated her as good as any of my girls, she got more than her fair share of the cut, and you know she opted in for the college fund, where I put some of her cut aside to pay for school. So I figure she must have gotten herself on the needle or in the snow. I mean, what kind of escort prefers working for a man over a woman? It’s downright self-loathing, to me, because…”

“Suzy!”

“Right. Well, it’s not much, but she said that this kid she spent the night with was pretending to be a pirate.”

I blinked, waiting for her to finish off her cranberry vodka before she went on with the story. She waved for another. The men at my back, leaning on the bar to look at her, shared expressions of barely-concealed discomfort.

“He was talking about how he was working for a guy who was convinced there was some big money hidden somewhere in the Bend. And he was high as a kite, I guess, because he was rambling on and on about being a pirate looking for the buried treasure.

So I asked her, well, where did he say this buried treasure was? Because damn, if there is a buried treasure somewhere, I wouldn’t mind getting some of it myself. But she said he was flying, so she couldn’t really understand what he was talking about, except he was fixated on that word, millions. So I figured, you know, that must be how much money it was. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was our boy he was rambling about, bless his soul.”

We raised our glasses in a perfunctory toast.

Well, it wasn’t nothing. And I could guess why Misty hadn’t approached Suzy on her own behalf. I didn’t think Misty would be that comfortable talking to a woman who’d sold her father prostitutes. Misty was cool, and certainly didn’t pass judgment, but women draw the line one place or another.

“Huh,” I said. “And who’s this chick?”

“A right bitch,” Suzy scowled.

“Her name, Suz,” I smiled.

“Oh. Well, if you were any old guy, I wouldn’t tell you. But considering the circumstances, and considering she’s a two-timer, she goes by Tallulah Honey. At least, that was the handle she used for me.”

“And who’s she working for now?”

“Some pimp who works out of the Dragonfly,” Suzy said, rolling her eyes and scrunching her nose. The Dragonfly Motor Lodge was not a nice motel. It was not a nice place to bring the kids. It wasn’t even a nice place to rent by the hour, unless you were looking to pick up an STD from the sheets. Suzy had very high standards and clearly didn’t think much of the Dragonfly, or anyone who would do their business there.

“Maybe I’ll look into it,” I said. “Thanks, Suz.”

“Anything for you, babe,” she said, pinching my cheek. Looking down the bar, the men who owed everything to Millions sat displaying various shades of alarm and shame and doubt. All except Leathers, who was doing an excellent impression of the Crypt Keeper. Suzy pulled my attention back to her by pulling on the cheek she still held. “Speaking of which, handsome, I know a man needs some things, first night out of prison. And if you and Misty aren’t bed buddies maybe I could give you a little something on the house…”

“We’re not,” I said. I knew where she was going with this. And god, did I need a release. But even while my brain screamed at me to say yes, to ask for her best girl, to break this four-year frustration, I heard my mouth say something totally different. “But I think I’m alright. Really, thanks for the offer.”

The surprise on Suzy’s face was mirrored on every other man in listening distance. Here I was, being offered a free ride after four damn years of sharing a dirty shower with two hundred other men…and I was turning it down.

Trust me, I was just as surprised as the rest of them.

Fact is, in a few hours I’d be strolling through Misty-Lee Constantino’s door. The thought of facing her smelling like sex and liquor made me feel downright filthy. That was not a good sign. Because I was filthy. I reveled in being filthy. I was a pig in shit, and I loved it.

But she was so fucking clean. And that made being dirty a lot less appealing.