It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid-December, with the sun shining and a look of light dry snow in the clearness of the mountains. He was wearing a light tan trench coat over a tweed jacket, a light blue Oxford shirt, tie, and black brogues. He was neat, clean, shaved, and sober. He was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be, because that is what he was. If this sounds like a description from a Raymond Chandler novel that is because it mostly is. I'm not that in to detailed descriptions myself. If you are thinking Kirby sounds like a fugitive from a nineteen-forties film noir, you just may be right.

Keeping with the film noir mood I was in, I began wiping down the bar and asked, "What'll ya have bub?" He was a stranger. I could be any genre I wanted.

"Hey Mac, how's about some info?" Was it my imagination or did the stranger sound like Humphrey Bogart? He even looked a little like Bogart.  That is if Bogart had been a black man. He leaned on the bar and informed me, "I'm looking for Joe."

"You're looking at him," I informed him.

"I know who you are. I'm the one who found you. I'm looking for the other Joe, the one who hired me."

"Backup. What do you mean, you found me?"

Without answering, he just gave me a quick glance and then began looking around, "Is the other Joe here? I need to talk to him."

"Well, the medium won't be in until this evening. She's the only way you are going to talk to Joe Bob now. He passed away a few months ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that." He seemed genuinely distressed and perplexed. "I guess it doesn't matter now."

"Want to catch me up?" I asked.

"I don't think I can. This was for Joe Bob's ears only, client confidentiality." He seemed to be struggling with a dilemma. "Of course, if the client is dead?" He took off his coat, folded it, sat down at the bar and put the coat down on the stool next to him. "Why don't you get me a brew while I figure out what I'm supposed to do now. This could affect you."

By the time I sat his beer in front of him he had made up his mind. "I've decided there is no reason I can't legally tell a friendly bar tender a hypothetical story as long as I don't identify anyone."

"Sounds legit to me," I said to encourage him.

"By the way, I'm Kirby Jackson, private eye," he said shaking my hand. I introduced myself and he reiterated that he already knew me. By now, I had figured out that Joe Bob had hired Kirby to find me. For some reason, Joe Bob believed I was a nephew who he had never met. This led to Joe Bob giving me his bar. I had no reason to doubt Joe Bob was my uncle as I had no idea who my father was. My mother never married him or talked about him and I assumed he died before I was born.

With a worried look on his face, Kirby asked me, "Joe, are you familiar with ancestry dot com?"

"The genealogical research site? Yeah, I've heard of it."

"Have you ever joined or taken advantage of any of the services they offer? He asked hopefully.

"Pretty sure I haven't." I had no idea where he was going with this. If you are smarter than me and have figured it out, I am calling off that bet we made in the first story. The connection between Joe Bob and myself is about to get complicated.

"I was afraid of that," he sighed and stared into his beer. "I may have made a terrible mistake." I polished the bar while he pondered his next move.

He finally started up again. "I'm not sure where the line is," he said shaking his head.

"Why don't you get back to that hypothetical story," I suggested trying to get him on a track I could follow.

"Yeah," Kirby agreed. He took a few more minutes to consult his beer and began, "See, there were these two brothers. Call 'em the stallion and the straight shooter. The stallion is a real skirt-chaser. You know, a love 'em and leave 'em scoundrel. When the stallion is told he only has a few months till he croaks for good, he hunts up his long-lost brother. I guess, so he won't have to die alone. He spends his last months with his brother. This is when his brother learns of all the women the stallion had wronged. No names are any useful facts, just lurid details. The stallion dies, but his legacy lives on to haunt his brother.

"Some years pass and the straight shooter finds out that he too is dying of cancer. He also feels a need to reach out to family, but he doesn't know if he has any left. You see he and his brother were raised in an orphanage. He submits his DNA to ancestry dot com hoping to find an unknown sibling, cousin, aunt, uncle, anybody to call family. Months pass and he gets a message through the web site that they have located a potential relative. Turns out his DNA connects to the offspring of one of his brother's many debaucheries. He messages back, but they are both hesitant to share too much personal information including their full names. They do eventually figure out the nature of their relationship. Then the offspring stops replying to the straight shooter's messages. The straight shooter desperately wants to find this offspring; so, he hires a private detective.

"The only info the detective has to work with is what little the straight shooter knows of his brother's past and the ancestry dot com login ID of the offspring, 'Jo1990SACTO.' Not an easy job." Kirby consulted his beer again. This time, I don't think he was looking for inspiration as much as commiseration.

"So, what did the detective discover?" I was anxious to get to the punchline.

"The detective figured the offspring's name was probably Joseph and that 1990 was probably the year he was born and since he knew the stallion had spent time in Sacramento, that is where the search should begin. The search was to find a Joe born in 1990 whose mother had an affair with the stallion." Kirby paused then added, "Who would have thought there would be more than one?"

"I'm not liking where this is headed." I wasn't sure I wanted to hear anymore.

"The first potential offspring the detective found, turns out wasn't the stallion's offspring at all. Although his name was Joe, he was born in 1990, and his mother did have an affair with the stallion. The timing just wasn't right. The stallion had moved on two months before the first Joe he found would have been conceived. Unfortunately, before the detective found out about the timing issue, he had already told the straight shooter about this Joe." Kirby stop speaking to give me time to connect the dots. I did and it was not a pretty picture.

This is how I found out I probably wasn't related to Joe Bob. The mysterious stranger who gave me the bar had intended it for someone else. It was simply a case of mistaken identity. The bar rightfully belongs to the stallion's offspring.

"You have to tell me where the other Joe is. This bar rightfully belongs to him." There was a little bit of anger in my voice as I confronted Kirby. I'd just had my world turned upside down.

"There's one problem," Kirby hesitated. "I haven't found him yet. I came here to find out if Joe wanted me to keep looking."

What else could I do? I told him, "The answer to that is yes. I'm sure the bar can pay you to find its rightful owner. Can you come back here tomorrow morning before the bar opens? I need some time to digest this and I'd like to sit down with you and all the bar's employees to figure out how to proceed."

"Sure, no problem. How does nine o'clock sound?" I nodded and he left — without paying for his beer. That was the least of my worries.