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news, but now he was merely baffled. Who could be looking for him? He was totally out of the mob, had been for a couple of years. The Carmine thing was old stuff and anyway, thanks to some fence-mending with Humphrey, now himself deceased, that connection was defunct.
    It was true that Joe and Helen had since put in some time for a curious group of federal agents, who liked to style themselves “the Lucani,” but Joe didn’t consider himself employed by them; that was just a bit of contract work. In fact, he had no intention of working for them again, if he could help it. He believed they were a dangerousgroup of deluded men and women, tantamount to vigilantes, who themselves were operating on the edges of criminal behavior. If the Lucani were looking for Joe, they knew where to find him, not that it would do them much good.
    Joe thought it over and decided that it must just be an old acquaintance from his mob days, some guy passing through who had stopped into Smokey’s Corner, as one might do—somehow, old grifters always knew where to go when in a strange town. Perhaps this guy had heard on the grapevine that Joe was rumored to be in the Butte area and had idly asked Smokey about him, assuming naturally that Smokey would pass on the news to Joe that an old pal had been in town. Except that the asker hadn’t given his name and Smokey seemed to be a little uneasy about this contact. But Joe, in his newfound innocence, couldn’t take it seriously. He didn’t even mention it to Helen, but he made a note to himself to ask Smokey for more details when next he was in town.
    He didn’t get the opportunity for a couple of days, but then he had to drive in to Butte to pick up some hardwood flooring they’d ordered for the living room. He dropped Helen at the supermarket, drove to the lumberyard, and got the flooring loaded into the bed of the new four-wheel-drive Dodge pickup truck they’d bought when they decided to become carpenters.
    Smokey’s Corner was a pleasant if none too clean tavern halfway up the hill in one of Butte’s delapidated older neighborhoods. It was a long room with a pressed-tin ceiling, slowly rotating overhead fans, and a long, elegant bar, now somewhat scarred with carved initials and faded by many swipes of a bartender’s rag to mop up spilled whiskey. The back bar was still beautiful, with beveled glass mirrors. The wooden floor was littered with peanut shells and cigarette butts at this time of the day, late afternoon. A couple of the coin-operated pool tables were in play by tough-looking fellows in sleeveless sweatshirts, their hairy arms well decorated with tattoos.
    Smokey slouched in his regular place down at the end of the bar, which was presided over by the usual young, handsome muscle guy. The regulars were hunched over their shots and beers, mostly watching a sports news broadcast on TV. Smokey, a man past seventy, watched Joe approach. He had a long, sad face with baby blue irises painted onto hardboiled eyeballs hooded by heavy dark lids. He smoked a corncob pipe. He smiled at Joe’s approach.
    â€œSo, I drug you out of the woods,” Smokey said. “Ain’t seen much of you since last fall. How you gettin’ along out there?”
    Joe assured him everything was fine. Life was good. The weather was a little dry. Fish were biting—mostly at pale morning duns and #12 hoppers.
    â€œJeez, I didn’t know you was a fisherman,” Smokey said.
    â€œI had to take it up,” Joe said. “It comes with the territory—you live out here, you have to fish. Otherwise, what can you talk about?”
    They moved to a table and Joe accepted a cold draft beer. “So tell me about this guy,” Joe said.
    â€œJeez, Joe, I’m gettin’ to be your social seckaterry,” Smokey said. “Well, he didn’t give a name, except Sidney. I don’t know if that’s a last or first name.” To