It wasn’t hard to find him - his number was listed in the white pages. He wanted to apologize to him, to say he was sorry for boneheaded comments that could have been taken the wrong way, for general insensitivity, but then he realized that maybe Dylan didn’t expect him to know his real past. Maybe what he thought were hints were simply cryptic comments that he invested with too much import only because they were so odd. They just set off his own puzzle solving aspect, that’s all, and right now that seemed to be the most hyperactive part of him.

He forced himself to let it go, and concentrated on Vance/Ron/Ryan/Ben. As far as he could tell, while he took a couple of waiter jobs as Ryan, he never got married in that identity. There were lots of Ben Hicks, so yes, he needed to narrow it down.

What he needed to do was start from the beginning, so he did - he spent all afternoon unearthing the life of one Vance Robert Ladowski. His online records were spotty, so he had to make a lot of phone calls and fax a couple of people, but he started building a timeline of his life, such as it was. He was born on May 13th, 1970, in Nashville, Kentucky, the second son of John and Helen Ladowski - Vance had a three year old brother named Mark when he was born. John and Helen split up when Vance was six, and Helen got custody of the kids and moved to Florida. She married two times and moved six times, finally settling in Blackwell, Idaho. John Ladowski was a real rolling stone, though, getting married four more times, fathering three other kids (one outside of marriage), and eventually ending up in Sweetwater, Texas, where he died of cirrhosis of the liver in 2001. Helen was still alive, but she was in a nursing home that was known for its care of Alzheimer’s patients, so she’d most likely be no help at all. But his brother Mark was alive; he was married to a woman named Catherine, they had two daughters, Sarah and Rebecca, and had lived in Bayonne, New Jersey until they moved to Blackwell, Idaho (to look after mom, presumably) two and a half years ago. He found Mark’s number in the online white pages, and wrote it down, trying to figure out the best way to approach this. If the Las Vegas PD had contacted him about his dead brother, this would seem as insensitive as hell. But the longer he waited, the more likely it was that the LVPD would call him first. He just hoped their cases were as backlogged as other police departments, making notifying a family about a probable suicide a lower priority.

He called, and it was Mark Ladowski who answered. Roan identified himself as a private detective looking for some background information on Vance, and Mark sighed heavily. “Jesus Christ, what has he done now?”

This told him a couple of things. Namely, Mark didn’t know his brother was dead, and two, he knew he was a fuck up on a grand scale. Maybe he wouldn’t feel protective of him, therefore he might tell him the whole truth.

Of course, he knew his brother was dead, and he knew he should tell him, but that was the LVPD’s job, and besides, did he know for a fact it was Vance? He thought it was; certainly circumstantial evidence pointed that way, but he never did stop to get his fingerprints. What if he was wrong? (Okay, yeah, he knew he was a chickenshit, looking for an excuse not to do it. He hated telling people their loved ones were dead.)

Mark was willing to talk. Vance had a long history of petty crimes, nothing major, but Mark had kicked him out of his house when Vance was in college because apparently Vance got a credit card in Mark’s name without telling him; Mark just found out about it when he started getting the bills for a Discover card he didn’t have. Mark eventually found out that Vance had done the same thing to a college roommate, and that’s when Vance dropped out and disappeared. Mark said he’d hear from his brother now and again, but usually just so he could wire him some bail money. Their relationship had never recovered from the credit card fraud, although Mark admitted that they had never been that close to begin with. Vance was the “black sheep”, always a little “strange”, always on the fringe of the family. Roan suddenly felt a bit of sympathy for Vance, even though he was apparently a dick.

Mark turned out to be very helpful, as he remembered an alias that the Oklahoma cops who arrested him said he’d been using: Brad Wilson. Roan added it to the list. He also said that he thought Vance had “settled down” and lived in Fresno for a while, but that was several years ago.

As soon as he was off the phone with Mark, he did some searching, made another few phone calls - and again, missed Paris with an ache that was palpable - but was able to connect “Ben Hicks” to Fresno, about a year before he moved up here and met Dalisay. He was emailing Randi to let her know what he’d discovered about the Ben Hicks ID, in the hopes that that would help narrow it down, when Dee came over with some take out food. Dee stared at him in disbelief. “You’re awake. When did hell freeze over and why was I not informed?”

“Very funny. I have a case, remember?”

“It must be a good one if it gets you out of bed. Or did you have help?” He put the white plastic bags on the breakfast bar, and the smell of Thai food drifted towards him, making his stomach growl. Roan realized he’d forgotten lunch - was it dinner time already? Roan also didn’t remember turning on the stereo, but Porcupine Tree was playing faintly in the background, and it was doubtful Dee had put that on.

“Help? Meaning what?”

He snorted derisively as he unloaded the cartons. “Like I didn’t notice the boy toy was wearing your shirt.”

Roan sighed, wanting to bang his head on the table, but unwilling to give Dee the satisfaction. He knew this would happen. “It was pouring last night, remember? I gave him my shirt while his was in the dryer.”

Dee arched an eyebrow at him and put a hand on his hip, giving him a look that could have blistered paint. “Oh sure, like I haven’t heard that one before. What the hell is it with you and superhot guys? What do they see in your pale Scottish ass?”

Luckily, he knew an easy way to distract Dee. “You tell me. I mean, you qualify as one of those superhot guys, right?”

He looked briefly confused, a look of annoyance flashing across his face as he figured he was flattering him to distract him, but he still bought into it. “I think it was temporary insanity. I hadn’t eaten for hours and my body chemistry was off. Also, I have a weakness for cops who don’t freak out and lose their lunch at gruesome accident scenes.”

Which is where he first met Dee. He’d still been a cop then, although it was in the waning days of his “career”. He was one of three squad cars that responded to a five car pile up on the interstate, and one of the victims, in an insanely accordioned Hyundai, had taken a stomach laceration so deep that his insides started spilling out when another cop tried to unwittingly pull him out of his vehicle for safety. That cop had to go away to vomit, while Roan reached into the car and tried to close the gap in his skin to hold his insides in, putting pressure on the wound until the first EMTs- including Dee - arrived. Somehow this guy lived for a while, although he would die two days later at the hospital, but that was still longer than you’d think a guy who had his guts spilling out would live. He got some credit for keeping the guy alive until the EMTs arrived, but he didn’t think he deserved it, especially since he didn’t ultimately live. “I’m not squeamish,” Roan pointed out. “I’m infected. I’d better not be.”

“You’re just Mr. Tough Guy,” Dee replied, somewhat dismissively, as he moved around his kitchen like he owned the place. “Hey, I think we just figured out what your appeal is. So, Clint Eastwood, who was the eye candy?”

“His name’s Dylan, and he’s just a friend.”

“Sure he is,” he said, in a way that suggested he didn’t buy that for a moment. “He looked kind of familiar. Where have I seen him before?”

“You’re asking me?” He knew that wouldn’t put him off, so he sighed and admitted, “Panic. He’s one of the bartenders.”

Dee whistled as he dumped various amounts of food on a couple of plates. “That’s why I couldn’t place him - I didn’t recognize him with his shirt on.”

“I think that’s a common problem.”

“I suppose it’s crass to ask that when you’re done with him if I can get a shot? I mean, those young guys are pretty much sluts, and bless their hearts for that.”

“Stereotype much? He’s not like that. He hasn’t hit on me once.”

Dee’s look was dubious. “Damn, Clint, you must be losing your touch.”

This was exactly why it was nuts to be friends with an ex. The amount of shit they slung at you was really annoying.

But he was able to change the subject easy enough. Although this meal was Roan’s dinner, it was technically Dee’s “breakfast”, as he was working the night shift tonight, which was also known as “drunken prime time”, as most incidents with people in various states of intoxication happened the later it got, for obvious reasons. When the bars closed, it was a positive boom time. So Dee was getting himself psyched up, pounding energy drinks and giving him crap, all in preparation for a very long night. At least the food was good.

Once Dee was gone, he went back to his computer, to discover that Randi had managed to get a hit on his Ben Hicks identity down in Fresno - he’d once used a credit card to pay his rent at an apartment building named Casa Vista. But before he googled the address for the apartment building, he rubbed his eyes, which ached a bit, and asked, “What the hell am I doing?”

“Dalisay asked you to find out why he lived a lie with her for several years,” Paris said. “That’s what you’re doing. It’s psychological profiling. You used to do that, yes?”

“But there’s nothing psychological here. Right now I’m just constructing a physical timeline, just creating a file of fake identities.”

“Why?”

“Because I think it’s going to lead me somewhere. But what if doesn’t? What if this is pointless? Clearly he started his fraudulent ways young; the only thing he was ever running from was himself.” He folded his arms and rested his head on them, wondering if the picture would ever start to form. The most annoying thing was he was actually relatively certain there was a pattern here; he could nearly make out its edges. Yet here he was talking with Paris again - he couldn’t rely on his mind right now.

Suddenly he had that antsy urge crawling up his spine once more - he needed to get out of here. He needed a drink. Several drinks.

There was a pathetic little bar not too far away. It was a cramped place that was always dark, no matter the time of day, and seemed like some kind of natural black hole of despair that made misery an almost physical thing. He went there, perched on a leather stool, and had a truly awful beer that tasted liked piss. He took drinks of it while holding his breath, but he wasn’t doing very well.

His cell phone went off, and he almost didn’t answer it because it was Matt. But he did, and as it was, Matt was asking for help. Quite reluctantly, Matt admitted that he took on another “spouse job” just a few days ago, before Roan was “up and about”, but since he was now out of bed and relatively functioning, he thought maybe he’d like to do it. Or, in other words, he found stake outs so damn boring and the incident with Murchison last night so freaky that Matt didn’t want to do another photo session with a cheating spouse. Roan agreed to it before he knew what he was doing, and swung home to grab his camera and stake out kit before meeting Matt at the office.

Shit, the office. He got a lump in his throat just pulling into the almost empty parking lot, and he didn’t really know why until he realized that the last time he saw the home base of MK Investigations, Paris was with him. Oh god, he used to be so good at being alone; even when he was with Paris, there were times he wished he was alone again, or at least had his own space. Now that he had nothing but his own space he felt so empty he thought he was hollow, something fragile that would crumble at the first bruising blow. He hated it, and it shamed him in so many different ways he couldn’t quantify it.

Matt was leaning on his BMW, looking beaten and slightly miserable, and Roan remembered how much black eyes hurt. It’d been a while since he’d had one - for a while there as a kid, he was lucky to get through three consecutive months without three consecutive black eyes - but you never really forgot the toothache dull pain that seemed to sink into your eye socket and made your skin ache even if it was just the wind brushing your face. Maybe he’d decided to just sit out this stakeout because he felt so punk.

Matt gave him the standard record form and told him what he knew about the client. He was hired by Sheena Hancock to follow her husband Peter, who worked at that big monstrosity of a building downtown (the Brooks Insurance tower). Her husband had taken to spending a lot of “late nights” at the office, but she already knew from someone who worked with her husband that he always left at the same time. When confronted, Peter claimed he was working “off the books”, but she didn’t buy it - she was sure he was having an affair. And she was probably right, as most cheaters weren’t as subtle as they thought they were; if anything, most of them seemed to want to get caught. It was like they wanted out of their relationships but didn’t have the balls to face the person and say, “I want out”, so they chose a passive-aggressive way to go about it. He was bound to leave work at nine, which didn’t give Roan a lot of time to get there, and he drove a silver ‘06 Saab 9-5 , and Sheena had helpfully provided a license plate number so he could actually find the damn car (silver Saabs were a dime a dozen downtown). Since he didn’t have a lot of time if he wanted to catch Peter, Matt didn’t have a chance to mention Dylan, but clearly he was thinking about it.

At stop lights, he dug his infrared illuminator out of his stake out kit. You could hardly use a flash on a person you were taking surreptitious pictures of, but he’d gotten a miniature high powered LED illuminator (powered by plugging it into the car’s cigarette lighter) that lit up a scene with a light frequency that was beyond a Human visible wavelength, but still worked with his camera. The pictures came out as if they’d been lit with harsh fluorescents. Ah, technology was a wonderful thing for the rotten bastard.

He loaded up his audio book while he searched for the Saab 9-5, afraid he missed Peter, but as it turned out he was just going to his car. He was a very average looking man in his mid-thirties, with the savagely combed back hair of the severely repressed or potential neo-con, whichever came first. He let Peter get two car length’s ahead before he followed, letting another car cut in to put more distance between them. It was unlikely he’d notice he was being followed, but the GTO was a pretty memorable car, so he made sure to keep a good distance.

Peter headed like a man possessed to the red light district, and while Roan idled at another light, he took several snaps of Peter talking to hookers. One eventually got in, an Asian woman in a turquoise mini-dress, and he couldn’t be certain without a close up look, but he thought it was Mika. Mika was a gorgeous, lithe woman with an impressive rack, who was actually transgender - meaning she was female from the waist up and male from the waist down. Apparently she got the breast implants as a “gift” from an older lover, but ended up getting dumped by him, rejected by his family, hooked on meth, etc., and ended up hooking. She was gorgeous, and she’d done enough hormones that you’d never guess he was a guy … as long as you didn’t reach under the skirt. Then you were in for a bit of a shock, no matter how well he tucked. Did Peter know he was picking up a shemale? Probably not. Mika didn’t really advertise that, except online.

Peter drove around behind one of those cheap teriyaki joints that looked like it promised a side dish of food poisoning in every meal, and the hooker who could have been Mika gave him a blowjob in his car. Admittedly there were no good angles on this unless Roan got closer to the car, but he got a couple with Mika(?) quite obviously putting her head in his lap. What else could she be doing, looking for her contact lens?

He got enough photos that he knew this stake out was over. Peter wasn’t having an affair per se, just having some fun with the local hookers. Still, he hung around to see where Peter would head next - no pun intended. After dropping Mika (?) off, he headed towards the airport, eventually stopping at one of those massage parlors that Roan always felt like he should give a kickback to. Jesus, what was this guy, a sex addict? (Although honestly, he hated that term - what man wasn’t a sex addict? What guy said, “Oh yuck, I’m never doing that again”? And if they ever did, clearly they had done it wrong.) Roan got photos of him going in, then drove off, figuring this was enough to not only confirm Sheena’s suspicions, but sink his marriage. What a life this was - snapping photos of guys getting blow jobs. He was going to take a scalding hot shower when he got home, but he knew it wouldn’t wash the feeling of dirt away.

Roan was shocked to feel something dripping off his face, only to discover he was crying. Why the hell was he crying? Yeah, he was disgusted by his job right now, but not enough to get weepy eyed about it. Then he realized he thought he could smell Paris in this car, a faint, lingering scent of him, and it had triggered his tear ducts. A hollow pocket behind his rib cage ached, and he had to wipe his eyes to see the road clearly. “Goddamn it, you pathetic son of a bitch, stop thinking about yourself,” he snapped, yelling at himself in the confines of his car. Yes, he was nuts. He thought that was supposed to be a freer state of mind. By the time he got home, he was seething with fury at himself.

While he showered, he had the photo printer spitting out the pics he took tonight, the nails in the Hancock marriage coffin. Just like he suspected, the shower didn’t make him feel any better, but he’d cleaned off the tears and felt a mite less pathetic. To distract himself, he turned on the television and went back to the computer to dig up more of Vance Ladowski’s past. He finally searched for the Casa Vista Apartments down in Fresno, and to his surprise, he turned up quite a bit.

Approximately four years ago, there was a sensational murder there. A woman named Desiree Jones was killed during an apparent robbery, which was just the latest crime in one of several plaguing the building. About a week after this, “Ben Hicks” ran off, and shortly afterwards “Ron Dormer” surfaced in this state, working as a delivery man. Surely it was a coincidence. The high profile crime had probably scared “Ben” off, just like the devastating accident in the fireworks factory scared “Ron” off. These weren’t identities that could hold up to a great deal of scrutiny, especially legal scrutiny.

Still, the timing was interesting, wasn’t it?

The phone rang and he ignored it, letting the machine pick it up. Could Vance have been involved in the killing? There was no evidence that he’d ever been violent, but it only took one time. As he was pondering how he was going to get the Fresno police department to cough up details on the Jones case, he heard, from the phone machine, “Hey, this is Tyler Hansen from the Las Vegas Police Department. If you can call me back as soon as possible, I’d appreciate it.” He then left his cell phone number, and Roan just stared at the machine like the handsome cop might poke his head out of it.