“Ready?” asked Peter, settling his trucker’s cap more firmly on his head.

“I hate that hat.”

“Maybe it’ll grow on you after you have a few brewskies.” He pushed open the outer door.

“Brewskie?” I asked, following him inside.

The interior was dimly lit and furnished with the expected assortment of Formica tables with faux-wood finish and chairs upholstered in cracked and peeling vinyl. A man was perched on a stool behind the bar. He’d been reading but looked up as we approached.

“What can I get you folks?” he asked.

“Iron City?” suggested Peter, raising an eyebrow at me.

“Why not? With a Diet Coke chaser?”

The bartender closed his book and placed it on the rear counter next to the cash register. I made a mental bet-either The DaVinci Code or The Illustrated DaVinci Code-before stealing a glance at the title. It was Edith Wharton, House of Mirth.

“How are you liking Lily Bart?” I asked as the bartender poured our drinks. He glanced over from the tap in surprise. The economics half of my double major may have proved more lucrative over the years, but the literature half occasionally came in handy.

“She’s something,” he said, his tone admiring. “I just hope she ends up with that Selden guy.”

Half an hour later, the bartender and I were debating Wharton’s use of symbolism, we were on our second round of drinks, and the place was starting to fill up.

Half an hour after that, the bartender was our new best friend, we were on our third round of drinks, and the place was packed.

And a half hour after that, our new best friend was personally introducing us to Frank Kryzluk. Apparently, he’d managed to come in and seat himself in the back without us even noticing, probably at some point between rounds three and four.

A s far as I could tell, Peter and Frank Kryzluk had nothing in common beyond both being males of the human variety.

Peter was the son of a lawyer and a doctor and had been raised in an environment of enlightened liberalism, complete with whole-grain baked goods, organic vegetables, fervent recycling, and family vacations that involved hiking, cross-country skiing, and other healthy and ecofriendly pastimes. When he left his parents’ comfortable Bay Area home, he didn’t go far, earning his degree at Stanford and then returning promptly to San Francisco. In fact, before his recent move to New York, he’d never lived anywhere but northern California. He was handsome in a boy-next-door kind of way, and his quiet charm sometimes made it easy to forget just how smart he was. He also seemed to have been spared the gene that was responsible for interest in professional sports, golf, and cigars, and, until the advent of the trucker cap, he had never dressed in a way that embarrassed me.

Frank Kryzluk had a couple of decades and more than a couple of pounds on Peter, and he wore his flannel and relaxed-fit denim ensemble as if this was his customary attire. He’d never attended college but had gone directly from high school to his first factory job. “I got my union card the same day I got my diploma,” he told us proudly in a booming voice, after insisting that we toast to the Steelers.

Given their differences in background and interests, I could come up with only one explanation for why Peter and Frank hit it off so well and so fast: the hats. Frank’s trucker cap was almost identical in style to Peter’s, albeit more worn and adorned with a Steelers logo. And, to my eye at least, Frank’s hat looked like it belonged on his head, whereas Peter’s didn’t quite seem to fit.

But it was as if wearing the hat had changed more than Peter’s usual fashion statement. His voice was louder, and his manner was practically gregarious. He was also exhibiting a taste for draft beer-and belching-that was completely unfamiliar to me and more than a little disconcerting. I only liked to drink beer with spicy food, so after a few sips and in the absence of a decent Pinot Grigio or Shiraz, I’d focused my attentions on Diet Coke. Peter, however, had been sucking down glass after glass of beer, and he didn’t stop when we joined Frank at his table. Watching the two men bond over Iron Cities, I made an executive decision that once it had fulfilled its current mission, Peter’s favorite new accessory was going to mysteriously disappear.

Kryzluk’s initial reaction when we introduced ourselves was a mix of surprise, concern, embarrassment, and curiosity. Surprise because he thought he’d warned us off, concern because of the dangerous turn events had taken, embarrassment because he’d both enjoyed and recognized the absurdity of his cloak-and-dagger shenanigans, and curiosity because he was eager to hear if we’d turned up any new info.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that you thought Perry had Brisbane manipulating the contracts?” I asked, trying not to sound impatient.

Frank rubbed his nose, which was on the large side and reddish in color. “I didn’t have any way to know for sure. I had a hunch, but that was it. I was worried that you’d think I was some sort of crank, or not trust my motives, being the union president and whatnot. I thought I could give you some hints and get you interested. Then you’d start digging around.”

“Why me?”

His nose grew redder. “Well, I don’t know if you’ll like the answer to this one.”

“Try me.”

“I had my daughter call that Gallagher guy’s office and pretend she was Perry’s secretary. She got a list of all the folks who were working on the buyout, and I thought you’d be the best person to contact, being a female and all. I wasn’t trying to be a male chauvinist. It’s just that sometimes women care more about these things.” I had been a pretty soft touch as it turned out, so I probably couldn’t blame him.

“Dahlia gave you my name, but how did you get my e-mail?”

“That was my daughter’s doing, too.” The pride in his voice was almost tangible. “She’s only fourteen, but she’s a real computer whiz. She figured that a young urban professional lady like yourself would probably have that fast Internet thing-”

“Broadband?” interjected Peter, popping a potato chip into his mouth. I brushed ineffectually at the crumbs that dropped on his sweater.

“Broadband, right. She figured out which companies offer that service where you live, and then she called them pretending to be you. After a couple of tries she found the right one. That’s how she got your e-mail, and then she got me all set up to write to you. Wasn’t that smart? She’s a real pistol. She does all my research for my show, too. Did you know I’m a TV personality? FrankTalk with Frank it’s called. Every Saturday morning on public access channel fifty-five.”

It was a bit unsettling to learn that an adolescent girl in another state was successfully able to impersonate me and access my various service provider accounts, but I would worry about that later. Instead, with Peter’s help, I brought Frank up to speed on our theory about Jake and Annabel being responsible for Gallagher’s murder and the ways in which I had been set up to take the blame. “But not only do we not have any proof about what Perry and Brisbane and Gallagher were all up to, I’m wanted for murder and the real murderer and his girlfriend are about to make a mint.”

“That’s a real pickle,” Frank agreed.

“My friend Luisa is checking for any sort of legal paper trail that can show that Brisbane and Gallagher were invested in the deal, but I doubt she’ll be able to find anything before the shareholder vote tomorrow morning.”

“Well, I have a plan for that. I had to do something, and I didn’t realize you two were going to show up when you did, so I hatched a plot of my own. But now that you’re here, I could sure use your help.”