"Thanks. That's very-Thanks. But I was wondering if you know a guy by the name of Danny Pescara."

She rolled her eyes. "He got himself arrested again, right?"

"Well, you know Danny. Always up to something with him."

No answering smile. "Does he owe you money?"

"No, I was wondering if you saw him in here last week."

She swiped her tip off the table, a dollar bill and a couple of quarters. Hefting the change in her hand, she snorted at it before sliding the money into the pocket of her short apron. "Yeah, Danny's in and out of here a lot. Thinks he's a player. Comes across as a guy who's connected, you know, but he's strictly small time. He's not worth the heartbreak, honey."

"Who does he talk to when he's here? Anybody in particular?"

She shrugged, picked up her tray and braced it on her outthrust hip. "Lots of guys. This place sees a lot of horse trading, you know? Bikes, that is. You want a good bike, you come here and ask around."

"I see."

"Danny's not into bikes, but he pretends, you know? But these guys?" She indicated the crowd with a snap of her head. "You want to spend some serious money on serious motorcycles, you come here. Which means things aren't always clean and pretty. You've got to look after yourself in this place, honey."

"Thanks. I wasn't planning to stay long."

She nodded. "Good. There are some guys you just don't want to tangle with, you know?"

Again, I hoped Richard had hooked up with Brinker already. I felt the need for some backup.

"I gotta get back to the bar, honey. Can we shoot the breeze later?"

"Of course. Thanks."

She was gone in a blink, whisking off to take more orders.

I lingered at the back of the room, trying to blend in but watching the crowd while I tried to decide if I should chicken out and go home.

I was still dithering when Brinker arrived. He came in carrying his trademark camera and followed by his entourage. They dodged among the other patrons to make sure Brinker had enough light to adequately photograph the surroundings.

The bikers in the bar roared his name rather like a parody of a television show. Suddenly the air was buzzing with excitement.

Ashley responded to Brinker's arrival by pointing him to the empty table right in front of me.

If I had planned to hang back to reconnoiter, I was out of luck. Brinker headed straight toward me. With dismay, I noticed Richard was nowhere to be seen.

Brinker strode through the bar, scanning the crowd with his camera. He lingered over a scene of two guys arm wrestling. But when nothing exciting happened, he gave up and sat down at the table, his back to the wall so he could watch the proceedings through the lens of his camera, just five feet from where I stood.

One of his muscle-bound compatriots came up to me. "Hey, you can't hang around here. We're waiting for somebody, and we need the space."

"Are you the owner?" I asked.

He was very handsome in the cut-cheek way of models, but gave me an unattractively slit-eyed look and didn't answer. "We're gonna do some business. You can't stay here."

Brinker heard us and turned. I saw the dark lens of his camera focus on me.

He gave me a head-to-toe once-over before realizing who I was. Then he lowered the camera and frowned. "Are you following me?"

"Are you following me?" I asked in return, mustering some indignation. "What do you want?"

"What d'you mean, what do I want? I come here all the time."

"I was here first."

"But-Oh, hell, just get away from me, will you?"

Instead, I sat down at his table.

"She can't stay here, Brink. The guy is on his way. You don't want to piss him off."

"Take it easy." He tracked me with the camera again. "Now what?" he asked from behind it. "Are you stalking me? Get in line. I've got women waiting all over the city."

"I just want to know how much you paid Gallagher. For the bra."

He took his thumb off the "record" button and put the camera on the table. Then he popped the tape out of the machine and removed a Sharpie pen from inside his leather jacket pocket. Carefully, he wrote my name on the tape. "So you think you know something," he said, capping the pen.

"I know you paid off an old man-"

He stopped me with a gesture. "Fellas," he said to his hangers-on, "why don't you get a round of drinks from the bar?"

"But what about-"

"This will only take a minute."

They melted away unwillingly, leaving us alone at the table.

I said, "You paid Gallagher a pittance to get your hands on a design that's worth a fortune."

"I call that good business."

He put the videotape with my name on it into his messenger bag and retrieved a new tape. He tore off the cellophane wrapping and dropped it on the floor before popping the fresh tape into the camera. He said, "I don't know what you're talking about. I invented the Brinker Bra, and I'll sue anybody who says otherwise."

"You did more than sue Kitty Keough."

"If you claim I had anything to do with her untimely death, you'd better have some good lawyers standing behind you." He fussed with the camera. "But you may be too busy with family problems to worry about Kitty Keough much longer."

"What are you talking about?"

He thumbed the "record" button on the camera and pointed the lens at me again. "I hear your sister drinks too much."

I stared at the eye of his camera. "Emma has a problem, but she's dealing with it."

"You know that for sure? You know, for instance, where she is tonight?"

I held still and let him record the expression of loathing on my face.

"She's with a friend of mine," Brinker continued. "Monte Bogatz works for me, you know. In a roundabout way. They're probably partying right this minute."

Partying. I nearly lost it. Instead, I asked, "What does Monte do for you?"

"A little bit of everything. He's expensive, though. It's not just the liquor I have to buy for him and his girlfriend, but he loves that hillbilly heroin, too. Maybe he's introducing your sister to its pleasures tonight."

"Emma wouldn't do that."

Brinker laughed. "Don't bet on it."

"She's not as weak as you think."

"It's not a matter of her being weak. It's the dope that's strong."

"You want me to back off," I said. "Or you'll hurt Emma. You're gifted, Brinker. You've only gotten better at torturing people."

He lifted his shoulders. "The ball's in your court now, isn't it? Thing is, I wish you'd hurry up and decide, because I've got business to do tonight."

"Is it Emma? Are you-"

"Don't flatter yourselves. I'm meeting someone who's got something I want, so you're gonna get out of here before he arrives, understand?"

"Where is Emma now?"

"You think I bother to keep track of people like her?"

"How can I reach Monte?"

He laughed. "Hit the road. I've got an important meeting."

"With whom? Another lowlife?"

The bar suddenly turned quiet. Within an eerie moment, all conversation stopped.

From behind me where he'd slipped in through the back like a ghost, Michael said, "Lowlife?"

"Don't listen to her." Brinker scrambled to his feet. "She didn't mean-"

Michael put his hand on top of the camera before Brinker had a chance to focus it on anything but the floor. Gently, he pushed the camera down to the tabletop.

"Give me the tape," he said quite reasonably.

Brinker obeyed, fumbling a little, but handing over what he'd just filmed.

Michael dropped the videotape on the floor and stepped on it. The crack of plastic sounded very final.

"Who's this?" Michael said, looking down at me with a complete lack of recognition in his face. "She with you?"

"No, no. She's nobody important," Brinker said. "You have the crotch rocket I asked about?"

"Don't rush it," Michael said, still looking at me with a poker face so good he could have cleaned out Atlantic City.

"No rushing. Okay, good."

Michael said to me, "You're a surprise."

I stood up from the table. "You must be the motorcycle salesman."

"I haven't decided if I'm going to sell anything yet. Especially to anyone who calls it a crotch rocket. And what's your story?"

"I'm here to ask Brinker a question."

Michael remained unfazed. "So go ahead. What's the question?"

Brinker said, "She just came up to me, man. Have a drink. Let me buy a round. Where's your crew? We'll get acquainted."

"Shut up," Michael said. "Let's hear her question."

I cleared my throat. "I want to know if Brinker met somebody here last week. A man named Danny Pescara."

"Who?"

"You heard her," Michael said.

Brinker heard something in his tone that I could not. "Pescara? Oh, yeah, I know the guy. A little, that is. We're not best buds or anything."

"Best buds." Michael almost smiled.

"Was Danny in here last week?" I asked. "Did you meet with him?"

Brinker glanced at Michael and realized he wasn't going to complete any transactions until he answered my question. So Brinker said, "No, I didn't meet him last week. I've been tied up with the fashion show. Lots of details to take care of-you know what it's like," he added to Michael. "There are some things you just can't trust to anyone else. It's the price of being your own man. This is the first chance I had to get away."

I asked, "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

Michael said to me, "You don't believe him?"

"I don't . . . I'm not sure."

"He wouldn't lie to me," Michael said.

"How can you . . . Oh."

"Anything else?" he asked.

"Brinker," I said. "He has my sister."

"What do you mean, he has her?"