“Gimme what you got,” I said.

The barman poured something from a jug into a dirty glass. I sniffed it and put it down.

“Frenchie around?” I said.

“Her?” the barman said.

“Her,” I said.

The barman shrugged.

“Over there with the rest of ’em,” he said. “Pink dress.”

I looked at the whores. It was hard in the dim light, and I almost missed her. The pink dress was dirty. Her hair was ratty. She was a lot thinner than she had been, and the body that had once so proudly pushed at the confines of her dress now seemed shrunken inside her clothes. I studied her over the right shoulder of the fat man next to me. A lot less than she had been, but it was Allie. I watched her for a moment as she scanned the room, looking for prospects. Then I put a dime down beside my drink and moved away from the bar, not looking at Allie. The barman picked up my dime and then carefully poured the undrunk whiskey back into the jug.

I went back into the despondent street feeling tired and tight across my shoulders. So we’d found her. I didn’t want Virgil to see her in this setting. But it wasn’t for me to decide. It was the only setting she was in, and we’d spent a year looking for her. I started back up the street toward Los Lobos. For maybe the first time since I’d known Virgil, I didn’t know what he would do.

5

VIRGIL DIDN’T SAY A WORD from the time I told him we’d found Allie to the moment we stopped outside the rat hole where she worked. I had the eight-gauge with me, simply because I was more comfortable with it than without it, especially when I had no idea of what was going to happen.

Virgil studied the Barbary Coast Café.

“In there,” he said.

“Yes.”

Virgil looked at it some more. Then he nodded once and started forward, and we walked in through the front door. Virgil stopped inside to let his eyes adjust.