Without his beard, Roan thought his face looked thinner, almost gaunt, hungry in some frightening way. He didn’t always used to be this raw boned, did he? He thought he looked kind of like a homeless guy before, but now he looked like a junkie hitting bottom. Maybe that was appropriate. His eyes seemed too big and too empty over hollow cheeks, and he suddenly wondered how much he weighed. He could have weighed himself, but he didn’t want to know.

He decided to dress as an average joe, a person who wasn’t special and meant nothing to anyone, which meant sneakers, jeans (by necessity baggy - he had none that fit him anymore), and a grey t-shirt, this one an Australian tourist one he picked up in a thrift shop. It displayed Aboriginal style art across the torso apparently titled “Crocodile Dreaming”, and Roan couldn’t remember why now, but at the time he found it he’d really liked it. Paris had too, which could have been the deciding factor.

He found a black nylon duffle bag on the upper shelf of the closet and rather than pack of change of clothes, which he felt he didn’t need (why would he have to rough him up exactly?), he just packed in his laptop, a baseball cap and cheap sunglasses (the basic anonymity kit), and after putting on his black leather jacket, he went into his “library” and scanned the shelves, grabbing a hardback and two paperbacks. Considering he wouldn’t be gone even overnight that might seem excessive, but he knew that even with puddle jumpers, a lot of traveling was just hurrying up to wait. He could catch up on his reading.

Roan took the GTO, and he thought he could still smell Paris in the car, traces of him like an olfactory ghost, and his stomach knotted like a fist. It felt wrong to even be in here since the cars were Paris’s babies, his pride and joy for whatever reason. No, that wasn’t completely fair. At first, he hadn’t understood Par’s love of muscle cars, but once he’d restored these and Roan had driven them, he got it. They were cars as missiles, metal bodied torpedoes with substantial power under the hood and good “Road Warrior” cars (defined as ones that could survive a crash to crash again), and while Paris liked to make several jokes about the potential phallic imagery of it all, it had nothing to do with that. It was all about escape - open the throttle, and you could just go, straight on until morning. It was a tempting thought right now, except he couldn’t bear to leave behind these traces of Paris. It was all he had left of him. As he drove to the airport, he found himself fingering the ring hanging from his necklace, and wondered if he was just scenting Paris from the traces left on his ring.

He found a good overnight lot to park in, and braved the general madness of the airport, which more and more felt like a rather pathetic mall. It even smelled like coffee, wafting over from the Starbucks outlet, and cinnamon buns and egg rolls, from two competing places (presumably), only the soundtrack wasn’t depressing pop music but announcements that were almost impossible to interpret.

It really wasn’t that difficult to find Randi, as she decided to dress somewhat loudly in an effort to stand out. (Or at least he hoped that was what she was doing.) She was petite, five foot three, about one hundred and forty pounds, neither fat nor thin but somewhere in the comfortable middle. Her bone structure was delicate, so she actually did have an attractive, open face, her eyes both almond in shape and color, her glossy black hair cut in a chin length style that strove to be punky but usually settled for just slightly messy. She had an unexplained love for lipstick in purplish shades, today it was a kind of frosted plum color, and her earrings were dangling, tiny wedges of plastic cheese. (Again, never explained.) She wore a red t-shirt with a Homer Simpson “Mr. Sparkle” head on it, jeans with random rhinestones in vague patterns up the legs, red tennis shoes with platform heels, a silver silk jacket, and a metallic gold scarf, with a crocheted purse and a World Wildlife Foundation logo backpack dangling from one hand. “Over here!” she shouted, waving wildly, even though he’d already seen her and started walking her way. He briefly felt like turning and walking in the opposite direction, but fought back the urge.

Randi may have had an unusual dress sense - he suspected she had it long before Paris came along and encouraged it - and a cute, delicate look about her, but she was unbelievably shrewd and according to Par, packed a hell of a punch. She was a shark in Hello Kitty clothing who could smile at you whilst making sure you were about to get audited by the IRS until you were bleeding out the eyeballs. She was actually a lot of fun, as long as you didn’t get on her bad side.

She made some jokes about him having been in a coma for a while and then moved on to his hair (okay, so he hadn’t cut it as straight as he usually did), and by the time they made their way through the security line up, Randi had decided to pretend to be a Japanese tourist who spoke little English and giggled a lot (never mind that her ethnicity was actually Korean and she was born in Portland, Oregon - she was counting on none of these people picking up on that). Most of the guys on the security detail found this charming, although the woman found it the exact opposite. If Randi noticed her death stare, she didn’t let on.

Once they were through the intrusive security scan (for a puddle jumper to Vegas? What kind of low rent, low aiming terrorist would end up here?), he asked, “Why the hell did you decide to be Pink Lady all of the sudden?”

She grinned at him, and he caught a glimpse of the green apple gum she was chewing. “Oh come on - that was fucking hilarious.”

Paris had warped this poor woman. He’d probably have been very proud of that fact.

The seats on the plane were tiny and close, just as everything on the plane was tiny and close. He and Randi sat together, him in the window seat since Randi said she couldn’t stand seeing take offs or landings, and he noticed that the plane was essentially full, but most of the people on it seemed to be elderly. A gambling junket? Probably, or the AARP was sponsoring some sort of gathering in Vegas. “I hope they stocked enough prune juice to go around,” Randi whispered, and he shook his head, pulling out a paperback.

Randi didn’t let him read very much, because once they took off she wanted him to talk to her and keep her distracted. Of course this begged the question if she hated flying, why did she insist on coming with? But it was too late to toss her out on the runway now.

He was afraid she wanted to talk about Paris, but she kept the conversation weird and utterly pointless. They had similar tastes in cult television shows, so they discussed what characters they’d nail. While they disagreed on which alien and which vampire was the most doable, they did agree that Captain Jack was the only Doctor Who character they’d both be willing to nail (it wasn’t like there was a plethora of hot guys or cheerful bisexuals on Doctor Who), and they both thought Sayid was actually the hottest guy on the island. God, this was sad - they were such geeks. Lonely, desperately needing to be laid geeks on top of that.

But this was silly and oddly distracting, and they both laughed enough that they got evil looks from a guy who could have been Wilfred Brimley’s stunt double. Roan couldn’t remember the last time he laughed, so that was nice.

They hit a bit of turbulence, which was always more violent on a smaller plane. But there was a moment when it felt like zero gravity, when the plane seemed to be simultaneously going up and down at the same time. He liked that feeling of being unencumbered by gravity, of competing forces canceling each other out, but from the tense silence in the cabin and the way Randi’s fingers dug into his arm, he was the only one. After it had settled, she gave him a slightly dirty look, apparently figuring out he was the only one who didn’t care. “Didn’t that bother you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He wanted to say “Because I don’t care if I live or die,” but didn’t, because that was fucking disturbing. True, but disturbing. He settled on a shrug.

They eventually got back to their discussion of fuckable fictional characters, but Randi took it into a really weird area: cartoons. He couldn’t even conceive of thinking of an animated character as attractive, not to mention fuckable, but Randi had some ready to go. She accused him of being “uptight” (him?!), but by this time they were finally landing in Vegas.

To say it was hot was like saying the Pacific Ocean was a tad damp - it didn’t begin to describe it. The heat was dry and oppressive, the sunlight bright enough to make him squint, so he pulled out his sunglasses and put them on. It was in the upper 80’s to low 90’s, so he shucked off his jacket and shoved it in his duffle bag. Randi eventually took off her jacket and managed to squeeze it into her backpack.

She’d gotten them a rental car, a homely little white Infiniti that had two things that she considered absolute necessities: air conditioning and satellite radio. He was actually glad about the air conditioning, but he could foresee arguments over the radio.

She had print-outs of directions from Mapquest, which she double checked because she didn’t completely trust Mapquest, which put the Calico Cat on the outskirts of Vegas. They drove there, avoiding most of Vegas proper, ensuring views of the dreary desert where the city actually was. They passed pre-fab housing projects and collections of trailers roasting under the unforgiving sun, the dirt baked to a sandy brownish grey, and every now and then they passed a sad gas station or run down quick mart that looked as if they could be set pieces in some modern, bleak horror movie.

Eventually they came to the Calico Cat, an L-shaped complex with a large parking lot of cracked, baking asphalt, and a roof that had probably once been red but had been bleached by the sun to a disturbing fleshy pink. It had a sign depicting a winking orange and white striped cat (by definition not calico), but part of the sign had been broken, making it look like its front feet were missing. There were a couple of cars in the parking lot, all dusty from exposure to the relentless Nevada hellscape, and none more recent than a ‘05 Civic.

According to the information that Randi had illegally dug up, Vance had room number eleven, but just to cover all the bases he went to talk to the desk clerk, asking Randi to stay outside and out of view. She was happy to do so, since she figured that such an exercise was a waste of time. In the brief walk across the parking lot to the glassed in office, sweat coated his back and made his shirt cling to him uncomfortably.

The desk clerk was a compact Cambodian man who had his air conditioner cranked up to sub-arctic - Roan shivered convulsively after walking in from outside, and half expected to see his breath - and was watching Oprah on a portable television. He identified himself as a private detective, which earned him his partial attention, and told him he was hired to find Vance Ladowski, whom he knew had been here, and wanted to know if he was still here.

The man asked if Vance was a criminal, and when Roan told him yes (technically he was - he wasn’t wanted, which was probably what the man meant, but he wasn’t going to split hairs), he suddenly stole away all of Oprah’s attention. The man insisted he didn’t keep track of his clients and simply couldn’t, this being a rather “transient” place (no kidding), but he consulted his ledger and confirmed that Vance had rented a room two days ago, paying for three days in advance to take advantage of a discount. He’d asked for the maid service not to bother him, but that was it - otherwise he hadn’t made contact with anyone, and no one had complained about him. He hadn’t seen him today at all.

The clerk asked him what he had done, and Roan told him he couldn’t say due to client confidentiality. The clerk guessed murder and then bank robbery before Roan told him he wasn’t a violent criminal, just a sneaky one. He made a couple more guesses before Roan left the office, and he must have grown accustomed to the chill, because the heat of outside slammed down on him like an anvil. The sweat that had dried on him in the cold office was now joined by a new wave of sweat springing out all over his body, plastering his hair down to his scalp. He was going to need a shower, or good spray down with a fire hose.

He found Randi standing under one of the covered walkways besides the complimentary ice machine, fanning herself with her hand. She complained about the heat, but all he could do was shrug. He should have packed a tank top like a good gay man.

Room eleven was at the end of the L, whereas the front office was at the head of the L, and not in direct line of sight. Roan was sure that had been done on purpose. They found the grimy door of room eleven, and it was remarkable for being the only obviously occupied room that you couldn’t hear something through: a television, shouting voices, noises of sex.

He knocked on the door, and realized it felt a little loose, the door rattling in its frame. His hackles rose as he realized the door was open. “Stay here,” he told Randi, pushing the door with his foot, making it swing open effortlessly.

The room’s dusty blinds were shut, making it a gloomy cracker box of a room that smelled of unwashed socks. The bed was mussed, the ugly bedspread of pink and brown flowers thrown back to reveal off white sheets that were approaching beige faster than was appetizing. The walls were painted a pale yellow, the carpet a threadbare, mottled brown color that would have successfully hidden both mud and blood stains, and there wasn’t much in the way of furniture: a nightstand, a small television bolted down to a small table across from the bed, and a tiny armchair with a black jacket tossed casually over it. There was no luggage or any other signs of habitation beyond a loose scattering of pennies beside the phone on the nightstand, and the bathroom door was slightly ajar.

Maybe it was the little air conditioner rattling like a jalopy and circulating chemically cooled air combined with the rank cigarette and exhaust smell outside, but Roan didn’t smell it properly until he stepped well inside the room. When he caught it, though, he scowled down at the floor, waiting for the nausea to pass. Son of a bitch, he’d expected this, hadn’t he? You didn’t leave a door open unless you never intended to return again or your room had been robbed. This room didn’t appear to have been robbed.

Randi came in after him anyways, and he held out an arm to hold her back. “Hey, I didn’t get us these tickets just to be left outside,” she protested, ducking under his arm and looking around the drab room. When she made to move further into the room, he grabbed her shoulder.

“You shouldn’t be here; this is a crime scene. I can explain my presence to the cops but not yours. Get out of here before you leave evidence they can find.”

She looked at him stunned, and she narrowed her eyes, as if trying to figure out whether he was joking or not. “What do you mean this is a crime scene? This is just a shitty motel room - oh, wait, are you smelling something?”

He nodded, backing up and pulling her towards the door. “Death. The body’s in bathroom. Go now, I’m gonna call the cops.”

The look she gave him was one of torn disbelief, but she didn’t resist as he backed her out the door. “What does death smell like?” she asked, lowering her voice to whisper even though there was no one out here but them.

Should he tell her the truth? “It varies depending on how long they’ve been dead, but shit is pretty much a constant. The bowels -”

“Yeah, I’ve actually seen CSI, you know.” She then grimaced in embarrassment. Anyone who knew him knew he hated that show. Forensic guys interviewing suspects? Not to mention the lab work getting done in record time, as well as a billion other things that really couldn’t happen in this universe. Yes, it was fiction - The Wire, which generally got it right, was still fiction - but too many people accepted it at face value, which was what really annoyed the shit out of him. “You’re going to tell me what happened, right?”

“As soon as the cops let me loose, which could take a couple of hours depending on how much they dislike me.” Cops generally didn’t like private detectives; in fact, many of them loathed the average PI, seeing them as just a sleazier version of a rent a cop. They often liked to sweat them as much as they could for sport, and he couldn’t count on his status as an ex-cop getting him off the hook. If they were really bored, they might keep him for half the night. “Find a place to hang out. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

“You’re not bullshitting me, are you?”

He sighed wearily, but couldn’t blame her for her skepticism - he hadn’t wanted her along in the first place. “I wish I was. I’m tired of constantly stumbling over dead bodies.” He gave her the rental keys and she took them, walking back to their bland little Infiniti.

Roan ducked back inside the room and walked towards the bathroom, shoving it open with the toe of his shoe so he didn’t leave any prints. A man was hanging from the shower curtain rod, which was bowed under his weight, enough that the man’s legs were touching the floor. He wore nothing but tighty whiteys, now stained brown and yellow from his released bowels and bladder, and he had an unremarkable body, with a smattering of hair and zits on his back and a saggy gut in the front, his chest undeveloped and his arms stringy. His face was swollen and blue, eyes and tongue bulging, but Roan still recognized the nose, jaw, and forehead of Vance Ladowski. He had a plain brown belt knotted around his neck and attached to the shower rod, and judging from its original height and his, he could have hung himself from it, although it would have been a close thing.

There were two things wrong with this scenario, as far as he could tell. The main one was he’d hung himself so he died of strangulation, not of a broken neck, and that was one of the most hideous ways you could die. Strangulation, suffocation, drowning - anything that deprived the body of oxygen was not only painful, but triggered something in the animal brain. The body fought; no matter the wishes of the person involved, the body wanted air. Drowning was the hardest scenario to fight back from, simply because there often wasn’t a choice involved in that, or an ability to get to air; in this scenario, not strangling would have been easy to achieve. He could have stepped on the floor if the shower rod was sagging this much, or, if not, on the edge of the tub; it would have relieved the pressure off his windpipe. This didn’t automatically mean he didn’t hang himself, though, as he’d actually seen at least one auto-erotic asphyxiation accidental death in his short life as a cop (in that case it was especially difficult for the family, as it was a fifteen year old boy). Sometimes strangulation/suffocation happened, even if you didn’t want it to. But …

It was the smell, wasn’t it? Beneath the heavy scent of shit and piss, there was another scent. Hard to make out in the miasma, but it was a vinegary undertone, sharp and sour, a scent he associated with fear. It could have been anything - Vance could have eaten asparagus before he hung himself - but he found himself wondering why a man who had chosen to hang himself would be so frightened of it.

No, he wasn’t going to do this. It looked like a suicide, and probably was; he had no doubt this was a troubled man. His case ended here. Dalisay had wanted him to find her husband, and he had. So what if it was dead in a sad, messy bathroom in a Las Vegas motel? It was an answer and an ending. That was probably all she wanted.

He scanned the ivory walls, for what he wasn’t sure, and as he dialed nine one one on his cell phone, he caught himself in the pitted bathroom mirror. He looked like a ghoul, a ghost, his cheekbones sharp and his eyes too green and too bright, sunken in a pale face. He didn’t look like a murderer; he looked like a victim. He turned away and walked out of the room as he reported the dead body - a possible suicide - at room eleven of the Calico Cat motel. As he gave the operator all the information she required, he looked around the room as unobtrusively as possible.

No luggage - hell, no clothes. He’d heard of losing your shirt gambling, but this was ridiculous. Just the coat on the chair, which he frisked for a wallet. He didn’t find one, just a half roll of Life Savers (peppermint), an unopened condom (Trojan), some Dentyne gum (cinnamon), and a receipt for his motel room bill. But Roan felt something that he couldn’t find in the pockets - inside the coat? As soon as he was off the phone, he inspected the lining of the jacket, and because it was black it was hard to see, but he eventually found the cut, a small slit that he reached inside. He felt plastic and pulled it out, and found he’d discovered Vance’s secret stash of cards: two driver’s licenses and two credit cards, one each for a Ryan Solgot and a Ben Hicks.

He knew he should give these to the cops, but he hid them in his shoe instead, on the assumption they would frisk him and take his wallet to check his info. Roan knew that Vance would have clothes and at least one bag, as well as a wallet; someone had been here. Maybe after he committed suicide, someone noticed the open door and helped themselves to his things, unaware there was a body in the bathroom. That was certainly possible and plausible. It didn’t mean he was killed; it didn’t mean he’d finally screwed over the wrong person, who caught up with him and made him pay a pound of flesh for his fraud and embezzlement. This was a problem for the Vegas PD, not him.

He went outside and sat on the concrete edge of the parking lot, under the shelter of the walkway, and listened for the distant scream of sirens as he baked in the heat rising off the asphalt in shimmering waves.

He went to a high school in Blackwell, Idaho - not Franklin Pierce but Elmer K. Thomas High (presumably some local figure of renown) - but then pretty much disappeared from the few records that Roan had access to. What he needed was the man’s real social security number, but he didn’t have it, and wouldn’t have a chance to access it unless Randi could use her magic. He called her and told her about the development in the case as he emailed Ron again, this time asking for every scrap of information he had on Vance. Randi agreed to dig around for Vance Ladowski tomorrow at work, but she was going out for the night, so he was going to have to wait for more digging. This really bugged him, and he didn’t know why.

Wrong, he did know. The B-12 had kicked in completely now, and he’d been sleeping for days. He didn’t want to sleep, he didn’t want to think about himself or Paris; he just wanted to find Vance Ladowski and get his ass prosecuted for being a fraud and an all around bastard (which wasn’t a crime, but damn it, it should have been). But he was stuck in this empty house, all by himself, and this house had seemed too damn big since Paris had died. Before Paris, he knew it was probably a bit roomier than he needed, but he thought it suited him just fine. He was one of those guys destined to be a cranky old loner, a hermit that everyone avoided, alone with his books. Or so he thought; Connor had gotten under his skin first, and then Paris had totally ruined his confidence that he was a born loner. He wasn’t sure he even knew how to do it anymore.

It finally occurred to him that Matt hadn’t shown up tonight. He was hiding from him now, wasn’t he? Roan called him but only got his answering machine, and he hung up before leaving a message. Matt would show up sooner or later, and he could ask him then how long he’d been keeping his office solvent - as well as playing detective.

Roan tried to watch t.v., but he didn’t want to sit down, and bizarrely enough, too many shows reminded him of Paris. He wasn’t sure he could ever watch South Park again. He did some more random and desperate searches for Vance Ladowski, but he kept coming up blank. It was like trying to find out who Chief was. He called Kevin’s house, and once again was greeted by an answering machine. He left a message asking if he could run a Vance Ladowski through the system and see if he turned up anywhere. As soon as he hung up, he realized he’d never confronted him about Parker Davis. Did he still want to? He really didn’t know.

Roan felt like he was going crazy being here, doing nothing, and he really regretted taking that B-12 shot now. He couldn’t stay here, but he couldn’t imagine where he could go. He could probably go to Dee’s, Dee would probably let him in - if he was awake - but he’d imposed on Dee enough, and frankly, he was kind of sick of him at the moment. Seriously, nobody needed to spend so much time with one of their exes. “Am I going crazy? He asked himself.

“You’re talking to yourself,” Paris pointed out. “Also, you think I’m still here. Neither of those are good signs.”

Finally he did something he thought he was crazy to do whilst doing it: he called Panic. It was really hard to hear on the bar floor, but the guy who answered did hand him off to Toby, and he asked when he got off work. “About an hour from now,” Toby said, almost shouting into the phone over the raging house music. It was one in the morning, which put him off at two. “Why?” A brief pause. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m crazy.” He was about to hang up, as it suddenly struck him how embarrassing this was. He didn’t know this guy at all; he didn’t even know why he was talking to him, except he showed him a single moment of compassion. That was his big mistake, wasn’t it? You’d think a bartender, used to dealing with drunks, would know how dangerous that was, showing weakness around the unstable.

Before he could slam down the receiver in sheer embarrassment, Toby said, “Do you know Gracie’s?”

There was a name he hadn’t heard since he left the force. “The all night diner on Lawford? Yeah.”

“Meet me there in an hour, okay? Can you get there?”

“Uh yeah, sure.”

“Good. I’ll see you then. Right?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” He almost thanked him, but hung up instead. This was a huge mistake. Why did he just do that?

“Because it’s easier to unload crap on strangers,” Paris said. “It’s why people see therapist. Also he’s a Buddhist - he’s got to listen to you and forgive you.”

“I can’t believe there aren’t bitter Buddhists.”

“Oh, I’m sure there is. Just hope he’s not one of them.”

Roan figured he wouldn’t go, he’d just call and apologize, but somehow that seemed unfathomable. His head was starting to ache, he felt a little dizzy, and his face felt really hot, like he could keep a mug of coffee warm on it. The fever. Should he be driving? Fuck it. If he was going to die in a stupid car accident, that might be better than some of the alternatives.

He actually liked driving late at night, when it was late enough for the traffic to have thinned out and the city lit up like a landing strip. It had a different energy, something tangible, which may or may not have been connected to the parallel rise in the danger level. People started indulging in their vices, getting sloppy, getting needy, and so many people’s raw emotions mixing together could only add up to trouble. It was the best time to track cheating spouses, but the worst time to have some kind of breakdown. He drove the motorcycle a bit better this time, maybe because he was finally relearning how to do it, or maybe because the B-12 had improved his reflexes. Either way, he never came close to losing control.

Lawford Street was a couple of blocks away from the “gay” part of the city, and the change was quite startling. Gone were the clean streets and gentrification, and in its place were crumbling streets and sagging buildings with security grates over the windows. The gay part of the city used to be part of the poor section of town, only gays became flush with disposable income and brought the neighborhood up. In a downfall for the bullshit “a rising tide lifts all boats” economic theory, this didn’t happen in the surrounding areas. If anything, they seemed to get worse. Nighttime plunged the neighborhood into almost absolute darkness, with the well lighted Gracie’s a beacon amidst the gloom. There was no way he could park the bike around here, it’d get ripped off in no time, so he drove a couple of blocks out, towards the better edge of town, and parked the bike in the underground parking garage for an insurance company. No, he had no business at the insurance company, but the rent-a-cop who kept an eye on the place didn’t give a shit. Roan ended up walking to Gracie’s.

That was actually a dangerous prospect, especially around two in the morning, but he honestly didn’t care. Why would he worry about desperate crack addicts or bored teenagers? He’d bet hard cash he was the craziest, most dangerous thing out here. Again, he knew he took the mad, dangerous bastard sweepstakes no matter the participants. He saw some questionable men who couldn’t have been up to any good, possible gang bangers or gay bashers (they were often the same thing), but no one bothered him. He must have been giving off the proper “don’t fuck with me” vibe.

Gracie’s was a popular spot for drunks, drug users from the various nightclubs shutting down at this hour who had nowhere else left to go, and cops on the night shift. It was a potentially volatile mix, but it was understood that this was a neutral space, and if you didn’t start none, there wouldn’t be none. Sometimes there was an incident - a loud, angry drunk, a freaking out methhead - but not as often as you might think.

It was a homely place, full of white tiling and tables that could never quite be cleaned well enough to get rid of a persistent greasy sheen that covered everything from the ceiling to the stainless steel appliances visible behind the counter. Decades of fried foods had given the place a helpful coating of lard. It was an honest to god greasy spoon.

He’d been here a couple of times as a cop, but not often enough to be recognized, which he was actually relieved about. It was easy to pick out Toby, as he was the prettiest guy in the place by far - prettier even than the best looking waitress, who was Melanie. She must have been working here twenty years, and every bit of it showed in the worn lines around her eyes and mouth, although she’d kept a good figure, and most of the straight guys rarely looked beyond her breasts, which were large and barely contained by her blouses. Tonight her shirt was a sea green one with odd ruffles, her shoe polish black hair puffed up in an odd combination of a pompadour and a bun.

Toby looked tired but better, still in that leather jacket he saw him in at the store, but now he wore a yellow t-shirt with a cartoon horse on it. Roan slid into the blue vinyl booth across the table from him, and said, “I’m sorry about this. I don’t know why I called you.”

Toby shrugged casually. He had a cup of soda in front of him, but the level wasn’t down much, so presumably he hadn’t been waiting long. “It’s okay. You haven’t been using, have you?”

“What?”

“You sounded agitated on the phone, and you’re looking kind of flushed now.”

“Oh. No, I’m just feverish.”

That didn’t really appease him. “Should you be out?”

“I couldn’t stay in anymore. I think I’m going crazy.”

Toby shook his head. “You’re not.”

“How do you know?”

He smirked in a rueful way. “Trust me, I know crazy. You have a long way to go.”

Melanie came to the table and asked if they were ready to order. Toby handed him the laminated menu as he ordered a big plate of French fries and nothing else, and while Roan figured he was fine, the smell of all this heavy, greasy food and diesel strength coffee made him hungry. Gracie’s was a diner, and as such, was only good at diner food, no matter how fancy its menu got. He ordered a cheeseburger as he handed her the menu, and also asked for an ice tea, even though he knew it’d be disappointing. As she walked away, Toby asked him, “Should I just talk?”

Roan sat back and stared at him for a moment. He had been through this, hadn’t he? “I’d appreciate that.”

So Toby did just that. He told Roan all about his college boyfriend, Jason Westerfeld. They were both “art hags”, artists, specifically painters, although Toby had a more “realistic” style and Jason was rather abstract. They first met when they had an argument over whether impressionism was at all a viable style now that it had been completely co-opted by commercial forces. (Toby still liked Monet, even though his work was now appearing on tote bags; Jason thought it was now the equivalent of motel art.) In spite of that, they hit it off really well and started dating. He admitted it was cloying and naïve and stupid to think that he’d found his “soul mate”, but he felt he kind of did, as Jason “got him” more than anybody ever had.

They stayed together throughout college and beyond. Shortly after graduation, they went to see a friend act in a local play (they had lots of friends in the artistic community, where they were so known as a couple they were often called by one name, “Dylson” - and it was at this point that Toby said his real name was Dylan, that Toby was simply a bar nickname), and driving back that night, they were broadsided at an intersection by a drunk driver with a suspended license. It was a violent crash - the drunk driver must have been going about fifty or sixty when he ran the red - and Toby said he didn’t really remember it, just flashes, bits and pieces that didn’t add up to much. When he came to in the hospital, he was actually rather okay, considering the car was totaled. But when he asked about Jason, people dodged the question, enough to make him feel truly queasy. Then his sister confirmed that Jason was dead, that he died at the scene of the crash. He was on the side of the car that was hit, and apparently the impact was great enough that it snapped his neck. Toby said he tried to take some comfort in the fact that he probably died very quickly, but it wasn’t really a comforting thought.

There was a brief interruption as Melanie brought their food, and Roan wasn’t sure he was hungry anymore. Toby said it took him a long time to get over Jason’s death, especially since he’d been driving the car. “Survivor’s guilt”, according to his therapist.

He didn’t see a therapist right away, though. He spent the first six months “or so” barely leaving his apartment, and he wasn’t a drinker, but he abused some prescription drugs. And basically just withdrew from life, until a “half-hearted” suicide attempt forced him into therapy, which he wasn’t thrilled with, but he found it helped. It also helped that a friend of his had recently become a Buddhist and dragged him to a temple, which he found incredibly peaceful. He found their theories on life and death rather comforting too, so he eventually joined them. He said he wasn’t a great Buddhist, but he tried his best. “The real test will be when Steadman gets out of prison, though,” he admitted, with a sheepish grimace.

“Steadman? The driver?”

He nodded. “Charles Earl Steadman Jr. Not that I’m planning revenge or something.”

“What’d he get, vehicular manslaughter?”

“And driving without a license and parole violations, as it seems he was out for other drunken driving crimes. He was a repeat offender, although this was the first time he’d killed anyone.”

“When does he get out?”

“Next year. He’s completed an alcohol treatment program - for the second time - and he’s been on his best behavior.” He picked up a French fry, looked at it, and put it down again. “I guess this will teach me whether I can forgive or not. I tried with Eric’s killer. I guess it wasn’t the hustler, huh?”

“No. But trust me, the guilty party had been punished.”

Toby finally ate a fry, and looked at him with curiosity. “Why does that sound ominous?”

“Just think of it as karmic justice.” He had lost track of what Adam was doing to the Lorimer/Braben family, but he had no doubt it had been quite good. Well, not from their perspective.

Toby continued giving him that questioning look. “That doesn’t make it sound any better. Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“I can’t, sorry, client confidentiality. Also, I suspect I have to take the Fifth.”

He studied him for a moment, scrutinizing him, then shook his head. “I’m sure at this point I don’t want to know.”

“It’s probably for the best.”

He took a drink of his soda as Roan sampled his iced tea. Yeah, it was disappointing. Toby then said, “See, I managed to talk about Jason without bursting into tears. I’m not telling you how you should or shouldn’t proceed, because everybody grieves differently, and you need to work out what’s best for you. But you do need to keep talking; you can’t isolate yourself, because that’s the worst thing you can do. There’s no healing if there’s no movement, and isolation is the same as standing still. Do you have someone you can talk to?”

Roan shrugged, tearing off a piece of his burger and eating it. It was as greasy as hell, which meant it was actually surprisingly good, as a cheeseburger was supposed to be greasy. “Lots of people.”

“Which is why you called me at one in the morning.” He gave him a slight smile, cutting down the harshness of that statement.

“Okay, so they’re not night owls.”

“I know a great therapist.”

“I don’t like therapists much. They always want to talk about my depression and anger issues and parental abandonment issues and other bullshit like that.”

“Well, I’m a bartender, I think that makes me an amateur therapist. I promise I won’t bring up any of those things, unless you want me to.”

“You’re offering to be my therapist?”

“Listener,” he corrected. “I can’t practice without a license.”

“I won’t tattle.”

Toby smiled, and settled back against his seat. “I appreciate that.”

They finished their midnight snacks talking about almost nothing, but Roan actually did feel a little less crazy. Paris was right; it did feel good to unload crap on a stranger, even though he didn’t unload much. Toby did much of the unloading, and yet it still made him feel better. As they split up for the night, they shook hands, and Toby told him his real name, which was Dylan Harlow. Everybody at Panic worked under nicknames as a security measure, as sometimes really lonely guys could fixate on them and turn stalker. He explained that he got the nickname Toby because one day he came to work with blue paint on his hands, because he was using a new tint and didn’t realize that his usual paint remover wouldn’t quite take it off. Someone jokingly accused him of wanting to join the Blue Man Group like Tobias on the show “Arrested Development”, and that was shortened to Toby. Roan was pretty certain he’d never have guessed that.

Once back home, it was about four in the morning, and the B-12 was finally wearing off. He went to bed and slept, but not for long, as the ringing phone woke him up. He felt like he’d been asleep for an hour or two, but the sunlight streaming into his bedroom was bright enough to make him squint as he groped for the telephone. “What?” he muttered, although he was so tired it was barely a syllable.

“Hello to you too, Mr. Sunshine,” Randi replied, sounding far too chirpy for so early in the morning. “I’ve got a hit for you.”

Roan opened one eye and squinted at the alarm clock. Was it really ten thirty in the morning? It didn’t feel like it. “Not a slap, I hope.”

“If only I could do it over the phone. No, I found our lying bastard Vance Ladowski. Two days ago, he used a credit card in his name at the Calico Cat Motel in Las Vegas. You know what this means?”

He rolled over on his back and scratched his chin. His beard felt almost unbearably itchy today; he was probably going to have to break down and shave the bastard off. “You’ve been illegally accessing financial records?”

“No shit, Sherlock. It means this guy could still be in Vegas. We gotta go, pick up his trail, nail the bastard.”

“We? Randi, you’re a CPA.”

“Exactly, and I never get any action. So, I can get us two tickets on a puddle jumper that’ll get us to Vegas by three. We can catch the red eye out, so we’ll have enough time to arrest the bastard and catch the nude ice skating show before we leave.”

Roan hit his arm with the phone receiver, just to make sure he was actually awake. Apparently he was. “Are you high? What is this, Andy Barker PI? We are not a team. And why the fuck would I ever want to see nude ice skating?”

“’Cause you’re gay,” she teased.

“I’m not that gay. I’m not even sure Siegfried and Roy are gay enough for that.”

“Did Paris teach you nothing? We go for the commemorative t-shirts. That way we can say we saw the nude ice skating show without actually having to put up with big floppy tits and shrunken junk. It’s a foolproof plan.”

“With emphasis on fool.”

“Don’t make jokes - I’m the funny sidekick.” He heard her typing on a keyboard. “There, we’re booked. Get your sad ass out of bed and pack a change of clothes in case we have to rough this guy up. You need to get to the airport in an hour. I’ll meet you by gate ten.”

“Hold on a second. You’re not coming with me.”

“Yes I am. I’ve booked the flight, and I’ve never been to Vegas.”

“It’s a shithole.”

“So says the not gay enough gay man. You probably just can’t appreciate it.”

He rubbed his eyes, and wondered how much of this was Paris’s doing, and how much of Randi was already a pushy broad before he came along. “Look, what do you think we’re gonna do down there, even if we find Vance? What do you think is gonna happen?”

“We arrest his ass,” she replied with great confidence.

“Neither of us are cops.”

“So? It’s a citizen’s arrest.”

“We’re crossing state lines to make a citizen’s arrest? Do you know how stupid that is? Where the hell did you learn law - CSI?”

“God, you’re so grumpy after sleeping for a year. Meet me at the airport, Rip van Winkle, or I’m going alone. Hasta la vista, baby.”

“Rand -” But he was already talking to a dial tone. He sighed and hung up the receiver, wondering if he should call her back, and figuring it wasn’t worth the bother. Weren’t accountants supposed to be mousy, wimpy people? Why hadn’t Randi gotten the memo?

Besides, he didn’t want to admit it, but it was possible she was right. If he put a big charge on his credit card, it could have been him renting a room for a week, and it wouldn’t even have to be that big of a charge, as the Calico Cat was probably one of those run down, cheap ass motels - no Caesar’s Palace those - for hookers and for gamblers that had pretty much bankrupted themselves. It was the last stop before you were run out of town on a rail or in the trunk of a car.

Come to think of it, Las Vegas would be perfect for an identity thief. There was so much credit flashing in Vegas, people probably weren’t being as careful with their credit card numbers as they should have been. If he knew what he was doing, Vance could probably pick up a couple of new identities for him to use in other states.