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dead, her mind elsewhere. “Harder, Daddy!” sounded hollow and false.
    The air was bad in the enclosed booth, and I felt hot and itchy, as if spiders were crawling up my pants legs. When Krista straddled the lard butt and rode him, cowgirl style, a memory came back to me. That night long ago, I’d seen the same shimmy of her hips. Were there sparks in her eyes then, or the same cold flatness I saw now?
    My stomach was starting to feel queasy, and I wanted to get the hell out of there. I had what I needed. “Charlie Ziegler” was the guy’s name. Krista had been one of “Charlie’s Girlz.” I could turn this over to Amy Larkin and weasel my way off her Most Wanted list. Go back to my life of work and play and play some more. Focus on the present, not the past. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?
    But something kept my ass glued to the chair, my eyes on the screen.The camera cut to a close-up, revealing Krista’s smile to be all artifice, her moans halfhearted. Girl at work. Her job was to make the pig grunt and to feign pleasure herself. This was a transaction. She was paying her rent.
    On the screen, Krista was pleading, “Fuck me, Daddy!”
    My stomach heaved, and I tasted bile. Was I any better than the bastard screwing her on the screen? Any better than Charlie Ziegler? For one night, at least, I was as sleazy as the pimp and porn king. Only difference, he made a career of it.
    I couldn’t take any more. I banged through the door of the booth and stomped to the register where Coleman was ringing up a customer with a stack of DVDs and a plastic tube of lubricant.
    “You done already, Jake?”
    “Pop it out. Give me the disc.”
    Coleman hit the EJECT button on the master player and handed me the disc. I slammed it against the counter, breaking it in two.
    “What the hell!” Coleman’s cigarette flew from his mouth. “That’s fifteen bucks.”
    I tossed a twenty on the counter and crashed out the front door and into the humid night.

7      The Do-Over
    I got into my car, pulled out Amy Larkin’s business card, and punched her cell number into my keypad.
    I paused without hitting the CALL button. Elmore stood in the window of his store, watching me. If I dived into the search for Krista Larkin, where would it lead? If Charlie Ziegler was guilty of some terrible crime, just what would my culpability be? Maybe Ziegler pushed her off a cliff, but I’m the guy who drove her up the mountain.
    Damn, a mirror can be a lethal weapon, and self-knowledge a poisoned pill. I had been a self-centered and egotistical jock with all the trappings of stunted male adolescence. Back then, I had yet to develop the empathy for others that marks the passage into manhood.
    The defense lawyer inside of me said I wasn’t the proximate cause of Krista’s descent. But why the hell hadn’t I sized up the situation, grabbed Ziegler by the lapels of his suede jacket, and tossed him halfway across the street? I could have taken Krista to Social Services or a girlfriend’s place or put her on a plane back home. Instead, I gift-wrapped her and delivered her to Charlie Ziegler.
    There’s a difference between criminal guilt and moral culpability. Sure, I was off the hook in any court of law for whatever happened to Krista Larkin. But while I could not be criminally prosecuted, I could suffer self-imposed shame.
    I should have helped her.
    Could have. Would have. Should have
.
    But we don’t get do-overs.
    Or do we?
    I hit the CALL button. “You were wrong,” I told Amy, when she answered.
    “About what?”
    “You said I wouldn’t call.”
    “What do you want, Lassiter?” Her no-nonsense, no-bullshit tone.
    “I have a lead on a guy Krista was involved with.”
    “
Other
than you?”
    “I told you about that night. Nothing happened.” Trying hard to sound truthful.
    “And I told you I didn’t believe you.”
    “I’m hoping, in time, you’ll start to trust me.”
    “In
time
? What do you think, we’re going