“Stop.” he said. And for a moment, I thought he was going to wobble right off of the stool in the rage that suddenly overcame him. He jabbed a chubby finger towards my face. “I don’t care who you are. Police. Reporter. Pope. God Almighty. I’m done hearing and talking about Jack Ellington!”

“Yes, but I —”

“Not another word. You a cop?”

“No.”

“Then leave me the fuck alone, or I’ll call the pigs on you. Not another word. Now piss off.”

His face was stone, and it hit me then and there that the last thing I needed was to get into a bar brawl with this surly bastard. Besides, if the cops found out I was digging into this, it might mean trouble. Sure, Atkinson knew, but he was retired. Even so, in the back of my mind, I wondered if he would turn me in. Either way, I couldn’t risk pushing Bennett.

“Fine,” I said. I lifted my beer and nearly chugged the remainder of it. I tossed my money on the bar and slid it to the edge. “Thanks for your time.”

I walked back outside. Surprise, surprise, the sky was darkening to a raincloud pitch that seemed to weigh down on everything. I looked up and down the street, distraught.

All my meeting with Billy Bennett had accomplished was making me want to hit the next bar. I considered going to another pub and getting wasted. I was pretty close to home and would be able to walk.

But then something clicked in the back of my head. I stood there, motionless, as an idea started to form. I liked the way the old instincts came back — how when one idea bloomed, others started growing until everything started to seem related.

I pushed my need for a drink aside for a while, knowing full well that I’d probably give in before the day was over. Evening was winding down, and the night, as far as I was concerned, was made for drinking.

But that was later. For now, I had other things I wanted to check on.

***

Amir didn’t work on Thursday nights, and he seemed both pleased and surprised to see me on his doorstep a few blocks from the restaurant. He welcomed me into his home where he and his family had just finished eating dinner. I saw that he was sipping on a glass of wine. There was some momentary tension in the air as he wondered whether or not offer me a glass. In the end, he decided not to.

His wife and three children were cleaning up from dinner. There was much hustle and bustle in the house, the family getting along with one another and having loud and boisterous conversations. It made me miss family life, especially the winding down of evening after dinner and the nights spent with loved ones. It felt like a forgotten memory.

“What can I do for you?” Amir asked as we stepped away from the kitchen.

“I sort of need your help with this Ellington case.”

“How so?”

I spent the next fifteen minutes filling him in on everything I had discovered. This included how I had been embarrassed and sidetracked by having my theory about Harlowe being dead wrong.

“So how can I help?” Amir asked. He suddenly seemed very uneasy.

“I remember you telling me that your oldest son got into a bit of trouble a few months back when he started fraternizing with one of those online groups that hack into other peoples’ websites.”

“And?” Amir asked, a hard look on his face.

“I have a hunch I want to check on, but I can’t get it from the public records. Not that I can find, anyway. I was wondering if…”

“No,” Amir said. “Absolutely not.” He wasn’t offended, but caught off guard that I would even suggest such a thing.

“It won’t be long. Just a few minutes. Come on, you’re the one that pushed me to do this in the first place. Think of it as making up for ambushing me with that newspaper ad.”

Amir’s eyes widened at the mention of the ad and I could see the comment had almost worked. Then his brow furrowed and he shook his head. “I’m sorry about that, but I can’t allow what you’re suggesting.”

I shrugged. “I thought I’d at least give it a try. Thanks, anyway.”

I started for the door and made it no more than five steps before Amir called out, “Stop. Wait.”

I turned to him, hoping his mind was going where I hadn’t dared take it myself. His sister was still alive because of me—because of something that happened in that far-off world of New York City many years ago. Amir had told me once that he owed me more than he could ever give. It’s why he’d hooked me up with the cheap apartment and all the free food. It’s why he had posted the ad. Why he was always kind to me.

It’s why, I knew, he stopped me then.

“Jamal, come here, Son” he called out. He then looked to me and whispered: “You know why I’m allowing this, but there are limits, Thomas. You have ten minutes. That’s it.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling like crap for pushing the only man I trusted.

Jamal, Amir’s seventeen-year-old son came into the room, drying his hands on a dish rag. “What’s up?” he asked. The kid had the same intense eyes as his old man. He was wiry and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.

Amir sighed and gave a sweeping gesture with his hand, indicating that I had the floor. I clapped Amir on the back warmly and told them what I needed.

***

I was impressed and more than a little disturbed with Jamal’s skill. Within a few minutes, he had found his way into the classified files of the local council offices and schools. He fished around a bit and found the information I was looking for. As his fingers danced across the keyboard he chattered on about how hacking was “nothing like the movies” and how something called Social Engineering meant that people, not passwords were the weakest link in online security. I simply nodded as I tried to take in what he said. This was the kind of education you don’t get in College.

“So what are we looking for?” he finally asked.

“Any sort of connections between these people.” I said, showing him a list. “Let’s start with Stephen Harlowe.” I wanted to start there just to test myself. Had I really been that sure about his innocence?

Five minutes passed and he found nothing. “He seems pretty clean from what I can see,” Jamal said. “Who else?”

“How about Billy Bennett? Can you get me into the site for city works like transportation and public services?”

Jamal worked his magic once more and within five minutes, we were looking at just about everything we could ever want to know about Billy Bennett’s work history. As I started to scan over it all, Amir poked his head in through Jamal’s open door.

“Three minutes left,” he said, giving me a stern look.

I barely even nodded as I looked through the files. Before working for the school transportation system, Billy had been a dump truck operator and a sewage treatment specialist. But what I really found interesting was the References section on his application for employment under the school’s transportation department.

There were two references. One was some Council officer. The other struck me as very off-putting.

Henry Atkinson.

“Where else would we look if I wanted to try to uncover some dirt on someone?” I asked him.

“Man, there’s all sorts of places. Police records, psychiatric files, basic background checks. You name it.”

“Could we —” I started, but was again interrupted by Amir.

“Sorry, Thomas. Time’s up. That’s it.”

The look on Amir’s face told me that arguing would be pointless.

“Thanks,” I told Jamal, shaking his hand. It means a lot.”

“It better,” Amir said. “There’s a fine line between help and risking my ass.”

“I know.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Maybe,” I said, wondering why Henry Atkinson hadn’t mentioned any sort of relationship with Billy Bennett.

“Maybe.”

NINE

My mind fumbled with the jigsaw of pieces.

I wanted to go directly to Atkinson and ask him why he’d failed to mention that he’d known the bus driver well enough to provide a work reference for him. I also wanted to ask if he’d heard about the other missing kid more recently. There was anger and the first sparks of a connection firing in my brain but by the time I left Amir’s it was already dark and too late to get to Atkinson.