Best Laid Plans(74)

“We’ll check both.”

Walking into the bar from the bright sunlight outside blackened Lucy’s vision, even though she’d been wearing sunglasses. She put her glasses on the top of her head and followed Barry to the counter as her sight adjusted to the dim light.

Though it was not yet noon, there were six men sitting at the bar. One guy slouched in the corner watching a baseball game on one of two small televisions. All seven men, plus the bartender, turned to stare at the two agents.

Barry showed his badge to the bartender. “We hope you can help us, Mister—?”

“Call me Al.” Al was the size of a linebacker, large and meaty with tattooed arms.

“Al, I’m Agent Crawford, this is Agent Kincaid. We’re trying to track down a patron who was in here about four weeks ago, on a Monday afternoon. Were you working on May eleventh?”

Al snorted. “I’m here every day. This is my bar.”

Lucy noted that the two men at the far side of the bar got up and left. Guilty of something? Or simply didn’t trust cops?

“The person we’re trying to find was with this man.” Barry showed Al a picture of Harper Worthington. “Well dressed, drove a dark Lincoln.”

“Yep. We don’t get many people in suits in here. I don’t remember the exact day, but it was a few weeks ago. He’d never been in before, and hasn’t been in since.”

“What about the man he was with? His initials are G.A.”

“Gary. He’s a semiregular.”

“Do you know his last name?”

“Nope.”

“Can you give a description?”

“Midfifties, but he looked older. Skinny, balding white guy. Pasty white. Had a scar on his head from here to here.” Al made a motion with his finger from his temple to behind his ear. “Might have been longer, the hair covered some. He limped from an accident he was in, he once said.”

“How often does he come in?”

“Once, twice a month. Has for a few years. Doesn’t talk much, but when he does, it’s about some wild-ass conspiracy theory after he’s had a few. You know, like Kennedy was assassinated by the Cubans or Hinckley was paid off by the Russians to kill Reagan and the government just used his obsession with Jodie Foster as a cover. Didn’t have a cell phone because he thought the government could track him. Shit like that.”

Al refilled one of his patron’s drinks, then returned to Barry. “He always drank from a bottle—and insisted he open the bottle himself. Afraid someone would slip something in. A kook, but a harmless kook.”

“Does he live around here?”

“Don’t know. He comes in on the bus, though. I know the schedule well, it drops off at the corner eight times a day. He’s usually inside a minute or two later. Always leaves before the last pickup, on the six forty-five or eight ten.”

“So you can confirm that this man”—Barry tapped Harper’s photo—“met with Gary here one time a few weeks ago?”

“Yeah. Gary was here first. The guy comes in, looks around, totally out of place and he knew it. He came to me, ordered a bottle, tipped me ten bucks. Ten. Bucks. No one here tips ten bucks on a four-dollar bottle. Took a table over there”—Al gestured to the corner where the old guy was watching the game—“and waited. Gary was at the bar a good five minutes before he went over to talk to him. I don’t think your suit had known Gary, didn’t recognize him. They had their heads together for twenty, thirty minutes. The suit didn’t even finish his beer.”

“And that was it?” Lucy asked. “Anything else about their conversation that stands out? Even if you don’t think it’s important.”

“Why?” Al asked. He was simply curious, Lucy realized.

Barry said, “We can’t tell you, this is a federal investigation. We really need to find this guy.”

“Well, I can tell ya two more things. First, Gary hasn’t been in since that day. He wasn’t really regular, but I’d see him every two or three weeks for the past couple years. Second, I didn’t hear any of the conversation. But Gary handed the suit a folder. That caught my eye, ’cause Gary had the folder hidden under his shirt. Oh—and Gary left out the back door, not the front. That was odd. He said he was using the bathroom, and then he just walked out.”

Barry gave Al his business card. “If Gary comes in, call me, anytime. My cell phone number is on the back.”

Al didn’t take the card. “You know, I don’t mind talking to you guys, I’m all for doing my civic duty, but I’m not going to rat out my customers if I don’t know what they’re wanted for.”

“He’s just wanted for questioning,” Barry said.

Al snorted. “I don’t get a lot of cops in here, and never once a fed. My business is slow but steady, I have no employees, I’m here every day. I run a good business, honest, no drugs, no whores. Just guys who need a beer or two because they can’t get a job or work twelve hours for minimum wage or less. These guys need to believe I’m not gonna sell them down the river on some petty shit. Unless you tell me that Gary is a f*cking pedophile, I’m not gonna be your snitch.”

Barry tensed and looked like he was ready to argue, but Lucy sensed that Al was done. She said, “Thank you for your time, Al. We appreciate it. By the way, is that the bus schedule?” She gestured to a bulletin board behind the bar. It was crammed with flyers and receipts, maybe months or years old.