Eddie Hawkins was my biggest fan. I'd represented him several years prior on an indictment for Armed Robbery in the Hernando County Circuit Court. The indictment alleged that early one Sunday morning, Eddie had robbed an Exxon cashier at gunpoint while his accomplice, Terrence Bird, stood outside as the lookout. The cashier, a man of middle-eastern descent who'd just been hired the day before the incident, was unable to identify either of the accused in a photo lineup. The only other evidence was surveillance video, which showed the offender's face, shrouded in a dark hoodie, turn toward the camera for a couple of seconds. It was entirely too grainy to identify the gunman.

The State wanted Eddie badly; he'd been indicted as a habitual offender, having served time on two previous felonies, and was looking at a mandatory life sentence in prison if convicted. The police investigators questioned him several times, even after he requested an attorney, but couldn't crack him. When they finally realized he wasn't going to cooperate, they turned their attention to Terrence.

Bird, as they called him on the street, was a first-time offender. The Coles Creek Police Department knew Terrence would likely agree to "flip" on Eddie in return for a dismissal of his charges, but before they were able to offer him the deal, he bonded out. His bail was only ten thousand dollars, a paltry amount for a serious felony. I was pretty sure Terrence's father, a pastor in town, had called in a favor with the city court judge.

Eddie didn't take it that way. He was back on the street within a week of his arrest, having put up the entire amount of his own substantial bail in cash. The next week, before the CCPD could track him down, Terrence was killed one street over from Eddie's neighborhood. The investigative report said he'd been robbed during a drug deal; the word on the street was Terrence had *already* flipped on Eddie—if not, why the low bail, the thinking went—and Eddie had killed him as payback. Eddie was never charged.

With Terrence dead, the police changed tactics. The State's story immediately changed; Paul Maxwell now expected one of the investigators to testify that he could identify Eddie on the video.

At the pre-trial hearing a week before the trial, I moved to exclude the investigator's testimony based on case law precedent which clearly held that testimony from a lay witness identifying an offender based on their review of a video is only admissible when the witness knows the offender personally and has seen them in real life situations. Basically, only family and close friends can identify offenders from a video. The Judge agreed and ruled the investigator's testimony inadmissible. Without Terrance's testimony or the video identification, the State had no choice but to dismiss the case against Eddie. He'd gone from a possible life sentence to freedom, just like that.

A short time later, I found out I had earned a new nickname: "The Truth".

I was sitting in the garage with my vehicle idling when I dialed Eddie's number. Instead of a normal dial tone, I heard Chris Tucker's famous line from the movie Friday: I know you don't smoke weed. I know this. But I'm gonna get you high today. He still hadn't changed it, despite my insistence. The first time I'd heard the line, I'd asked him what a potential employer would think. "Jack, I ain't worried about no employer," he'd said. "Only the dope fiends. When they call an hear that, they know they got the right number."

Eddie sold weed and every lowlife in Coles Creek between the ages of fifteen and thirty knew it. Unlike some of the other clients I'd represented over the years who robbed and hurt simply because they could, Eddie did it solely for the money. He liked to "stack paper", as he put it. Who was I to say his ringtone shouldn't be an advertisement for his services?

Smokey's line had already gotten annoying by the time Eddie picked up. I could hear the bass from the club thumping in the background. We shouted back and forth for a moment before he finally went outside. I told him we needed to talk—immediately—and he agreed to meet me at the usual spot.

About twenty minutes later I pulled behind the Quick Stop across the street from Club 801. There were only four gas pumps, and two were covered with plastic bags to signal they were out of order. Permanently. Several men stood outside the building sipping beverages from paper bags directly under large, painted letters that had once clearly read NO LOITTERING. Some of the letters were still legible, but most had succumbed to weather and time along with the rest of the building. Not that they'd be effective anyway. The entire east side of downtown was similar—dilapidated buildings, boarded up store fronts, and overgrown lots. Once you passed the train tracks, you knew you'd crossed into a wholly different world.

Most of the people from "my side of town" would be scared to venture across the tracks after dark, but I was as comfortable there as I was in the courtroom. Many of those who hung out on the streets were simply victims of circumstance: born into homes rife with drug use or to parents who were never learned the value of education or hard work. Their parents had been the same way. It's hard to break out of that kind of cycle—and most of them don't. Regardless, they're still people, and the ones at the bottom deserve the most help.

I hit unlock when I saw one of the men in a dark hoodie walking toward my passenger door. Eddie Hawkins slid into the leather seat reeking of alcohol and marijuana. I'd asked on a prior occasion, being paranoid, whether Eddie was worried about people seeing him get into my SUV, considering the sensitive nature of our conversations. Eddie had a good laugh at my expense. "Half tha people out here drunk or high," he'd explained. "The other half think I'm selling you weed."

"There he is," he said as he got in. "My man. The Truth." He held his hand up, thumb in, and we clasped hands. We hadn't spoken in months, but things picked up right where they'd left off.

"Hey Eddie. Thanks for meeting me. Been a bit."

"Definitely been a minute. Aight if we make this quick? I got business tonight." He looked out his window and surveyed the area around the car as if every shadow carried a potential threat.

"Yeah, no problem," I replied, reaching into my center console and handing the photo to Eddie. "You know this guy?"

I'd found Ronald's picture on the school's website. Eddie took it from me and studied it. "Maybe," he said.

"This picture's old." It was probably from when Ronald was first hired. "He has a goatee now and has lost a lot of weight."

He rubbed his hand across the stubble on his jaw. "Rabbit," he said finally. "I think that's what they call him." He handed the picture back.

"His name's Ronald Babineaux." I looked around as if someone might have heard me.

"No real names out here," Eddie said. "You know that, Jack."

I did know that, though it still amazed me that people on the street didn't bother to find out each other's names. Maybe they thought it would make them less likely to be identified by police? Except every police report I'd ever seen listed the offender's alias beside their name. And they were usually correct. On the street, Eddie was known as "Money" for obvious reasons, but I never called him that.

"Do you know anything about him? Is he into any street stuff?"

His phone dinged and a text message dropped down onto the screen. He tapped a response then slid the phone into the front pocket of his hoodie. "Off and on," he slurred. "If that's who I think it is, he in with them dudes from Nola. They cook that crystal."

He sniffed when he said crystal, as if he'd smelled something foul. I understood why. Eddie dealt in marijuana, which is considered pure because it's from the earth. You smoke it to free your mind. Crystal methamphetamine, better known as "meth" on the streets, is a dirty drug. It's "cooked" in a kitchen—if you can call a basement lab or a trailer in the woods a kitchen. Most of the ingredients are toxic and highly flammable, including acetone, lithium, and hydrochloric acid. Word around town was meth was a white person's drug. In Coles Creek, the rednecks that cooked it were called "crystal-billies". Funny, but only partially true. I'd represented plenty of clients—white and black—who'd gotten hooked on the stuff. Once you start, it's nearly impossible to stop. Experts say a single hit of meth can rewire your brain and make you an addict for life. If Ronald was using it would explain his drastic weight loss—a common side effect— though he didn't have the typical pock-marked face and rotting teeth of a meth-head.

"Anything else?" I tried not to sound pushy, but I really needed specifics.

"Yeah. Dude they call White Mike. He hang out at the Corner Bar and deal prescription shit to the white kids. He might know who Rabbit is." He pulled his phone back out and started texting again. "I'll get back wit ya on my part," he mumbled without looking up. Then he held out his hand. "You buyin' the tall boys tonight?"

I reached into my pocked and pulled out two twenties.

"All I got, Eddie," I said as I placed the crumpled bills into his hand. "I appreciate the help."

"We straight, Jack." Eddie wasn't picky. Just as long as he got to stack a little paper. I watched him cram the bills into his hoodie pocket and then slide out of the seat and into the night, the bright glow of his phone screen lighting the way.

The clock on the dash read 10:07 p.m. A year ago at this hour I would have already been three whiskey drinks in, with many more to go. Tonight, the Corner Bar was my last stop.

Built in 1922 by Donald Corwin and his brother Pete, the Corner Bar was Coles Creek's response to prohibition. It sat on the corner of Broadway and Main Street, but its main entrance was originally hidden in the alley between it and the barber shop next door. Patrons needed a secret code, which changed weekly, to get in. I heard the bootleggers used to smuggle the liquor in garden hoses, since there was a hardware store on the next block. Now the bartenders use the old door to take out the trash and the barber shop is a pottery studio for local artists. Sometime in the 1930's the owners moved the door to the Main Street side, where you entered through a set of swinging wooden doors just like in an old saloon. There's even a sprawling window that looks out over Broadway now. If you sit by the window after six, you can watch the sun set over the Mississippi River.

One thing that hadn't changed was the cigarette smoke. The Corner Bar was the only bar in Coles Creek that still allowed smoking indoors, and that suited the regulars just fine. I'd sat at the bar many a night wondering when the leathery bartender—Darla was her name; she'd been there for at least the last two decades—would finally die of lung cancer.

"Jack!" Darla mouthed over the music upon seeing me brush past Sam, the bouncer. She waved her hand like it was on fire and she was trying to fan it out, but that was too much activity for her strained lungs to handle; she doubled right over into a coughing fit. I'd already made it to the bar before her head popped back up.

"Girl, what have I told you about taking her easy? The dude abides, remember?" Darla liked to talk movies and The Big Lebowski was her favorite.

"Aw hell, don't start on me," she wheezed. "I ain't seen ya in months I feel like." She wiped a strand of her thin, silver-blonde hair from her damp forehead. The Corner Bar hadn't had a properly working air conditioner in years.

"It's been a while," I admitted. "I see y'all have gotten along fine without me."

"Where ya been, hon?"

"Around I guess."

"Well, what can I getcha, Jack? Turkey rocks?" She moved to grab a glass from the shelf behind her.

I held up my hand. "Not tonight, Darla. I think I'll take a Miller Light, though. And then I want to ask you a question."

She put her hands on her hips. "Jack Price, what's gotten into you? First you don't come see me no more, now yer drinkin' girlie drinks." She coughed out a raspy laugh.

"Gotta drive tonight."

"Well that never stopped you before, hon."

She was right. At least I could say I was ashamed about it. "You got me there. Just the Miller, though. Please."

"You got it." She slid open the cooler beneath the bar and popped the top off the beer with her flat bar before I'd even reached to pull out my wallet.

"Still the fastest in town, that's for sure," I said, taking a seat in front of her. I slid a five her way. "You can keep it."

She winked at me as she stuck the five in her bra.

I'd gotten to know most of the regulars over the past two years and recognized many of them through the haze of smoke. A few old acquaintances were slow dancing to the Pink Floyd song blaring through the speakers in the corner while several more regulars shouted at a pair of women walking past the Broadway window. I was pretty they'd all been doing the exact same thing the last time I was there. I waited for Darla to serve another couple before calling her back over.

"I need a favor. You happen to know a guy named White Mike that hangs out here? I don't seem to recall the name."

She leaned in close. "Sure do, hon. He started comin' around after you stopped, but he ain't the type you typically associate with. What you need him for?"

"Can't tell you that," I said, sipping my beer. "But it's for a case."

"A case, eh? Maybe that's why you forgot about me. Yer one of them big-time lawyers now."

"I could never forget about you. Promise. And I'm not a big-time lawyer, trust me."

She flashed a semi-toothless grin. "Yer representin' that Lester Crowe fella, aren't ya?"

When she said the name, the woman sitting next to me at the bar jerked her head in my direction, shooting me a look of utter contempt.

"I guess I am," I confessed, shaking my head. "But that's on account of bad luck, not skill." I accentuated bad luck so the woman beside me would hear, but she was already too deep in her double whiskey and coke to notice.

Darla laughed that time, then put her hand over her heart. "Ooowee. I can't do it like I used to, Jack. This broad's getting' too old."

"I was serious about what I said, now. You gotta take care of yourself. Only one life, and all that."

"Ain't that the truth," she replied like she'd heard the gospel. "But a cheetah can't change his spots."

It was leopard, but I didn't bother correcting her. I got the point. She'd talk to me until sunrise if I let her, so I pressed again. "You know if this White Mike is here tonight?"

She pointed over her shoulder towards the room in the back. "Playin' pool right now, I reckon. He's short, got a black motorcycle jacket on. Mostly harmless, though last week ol' Sam had to toss him out for breakin' a cue over one of the pool tables," she said, leaning on the bar and blinking a set of weary eyes. "World kept turnin', though."

I touched my temple and saluted her, showing I understood, and made my way around the bar to the door on the other side. There were four pool tables, all occupied. Behind the far one, a man in a black jacket stood alone, chalking his pool cue. When he was finished, he didn't even have to duck under the low-hanging light to put the rack on the table. It was definitely White Mike.

I walked over and took a seat on a stool against the wall The table beside me was covered in beer bottles, the ashtray full to the brim with butts and ashes. I didn't see a cigarette in White Mike's hand or the man who'd helped him drink the beers. When he'd racked the balls, I asked him if he needed a second.

"Waiting on someone," he answered, glancing down at my wing tips. "You're welcome to play winner." I nodded without saying anything. That would be my "in".

Less than a minute later, his pool partner sidled up to the table, fresh from the restroom I guessed.

It was Ronald Babineaux.

He looked a little different from the picture I'd shown Eddie, but his eyes hadn't changed a bit: dark and empty, with heavy brows that hung over them like thunderclouds. He was wearing a motorcycle jacket that matched White Mike's.

I was so startled I almost dropped my phone. Eddie had made it sound like White Mike might have information about Rabbit—not that they were actually friends and might be hanging out together shooting pool. Was he trying to get me killed? I cursed myself for not pressing him further.

White Mike smiled. "You finally ready, man?"

"Fuck off, let's play," Ronald shot back. He started walking toward my end of the table.

Not sure what to do, I stood up and turned towards the wall, then pretended to drop something under the table, wondering whether he'd seen my face already. I sat there for a moment and listened as the two men argued over who would shoot first. As soon as I heard the balls break, I jammed my phone in my pocket and walked as fast as I could towards the door.

"Hey, where ya goin'?" I heard White Mike call out behind me. I ignored him.

In the main room, Darla's counterpart, a five-foot-nothing rabble-rouser who went by J.D., was just climbing onto the bar. "House of the Rising Sun" was playing on the jukebox, and J.D. was famous around town for taking off his shirt and performing his rendition of the song as the patrons raised their glasses and sang along and Darla poured shots down his throat.

Even in my haste to get the hell out, I was right upset I wouldn't get to stick around to see it again.

***

"Where'd you go last night?" Rachel asked over coffee the next morning. "I woke up to go to the bathroom and noticed you were gone."

"Over to the Quick Stop to talk to an old client."

"About?" she pressed, almost making it three syllables. Her green eyes sometimes seemed to flash when she was getting ancy.

"You know who," I said.

She'd apparently been waiting to say something; the words seemed to come out a bit too quickly. "Jack, why are you doing this to yourself?"

"I've told you why." I emphasized told like my mother did when I was a child.

She frowned. "Can't we just go to a different investigator?"

"And say what, Rachel? That my client, who's sitting in jail charged with murder, told me Captain Murphy's cousin kidnapped our daughter? Out of the blue after two years? They'd laugh in our faces. Remember all of the false reports and t leads that never went anywhere? Even if someone did believe us, Brian would find out. You don't think he'd let it slip to his cousin that there's been an accusation against him? Lester said if Ronald finds out, all bets are off. We can't take that risk."

Rachel shrunk back and I immediately felt bad.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you." The half-smile she gave me told she wouldn't hold it against me. "Rachel, listen. I went to the Corner Bar last night and almost ran into Ronald Babineaux."

"Shit," she replied, her voice dripping with that oh-so-familiar tone of disappointment. "Why were you there?"

"Not to drink, don't worry. I went to follow up on a lead Eddie gave me, and Ronald just happened to be there playing pool. This town is too damn small! If he'd seen me it could have screwed everything up. It was stupid and reckless. I'm going to have to be a lot more careful. And I can't explain how I know it, but handling this ourselves is the only option." I glanced absent-mindedly at the divorce complaint lying between us on the kitchen island.

"It's okay," she replied. "I understand. And don't worry about that right now." She said it as if she knew what I was thinking. "Just concentrate on finding our daughter."