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Joe’s further questions he described a small, rather dark man, middle-aged, maybe forty. Smokey thought he was Italian. “Not long outside,” he threw in.
    â€œHunh,” Joe grunted. “This guy connected?”
    â€œSeemed likely,” Smokey said. “He’d been away for a while. Not quite comfortable in his new clothes. Stands to one side, looking at things without looking, you know?”
    Joe knew. But the name Sidney didn’t mean anything to him and he wondered if it should.
    â€œHe dropped the name kind of odd, mumbled or something,” Smokey said. “I didn’t quite catch it. Ray!” He called to the young bartender and beckoned. When the man came over he asked, “Thatguy who was in here? Aksed about Joe, here.” Smokey nodded toward Joe. “Did he say his name was Sidney? Or what was that?”
    Ray nodded to Joe. “I thought he asked about Sidney. You know, first about Mr. Service. I said I never heard of him. Then he said something about Sidney someone. I thought he meant another guy. I said I never heard of Sidney.” Ray shot his eyebrows upward in an expression of incomprehension. “Of course, he could of been asking about Sid Kiprovica, but I didn’t think of that. I doubt he was asking about him. Sid never comes in here anymore, not since you eighty-sixed him last winter.”
    They chatted about Kiprovica for a minute or two. Joe didn’t know him, had never known him. A man of no consequence, it seemed. Nobody was interested in Kip, a shiftless drunk on disability from the mines.
    The trouble with this was that the only Sid that Joe could think of was Helen’s late father, whom Joe had met a couple of times but could hardly claim as an acquaintance, even if by now he knew rather more about the man than he wanted to. In some way, Big Sid Sedlacek had been a key figure in Joe’s history, since it was Carmine’s ill-advised hit on him that had led to Joe’s involvement with Helen, and, subsequently, his difficulties with his old employers, the mob. Those issues were long resolved, Joe felt. But . . . he had to face it, with the mob some things are never over until they’re over. Still, damn, that was years ago. He’d known that, once Humphrey died, he’d never be employed by the mob again. So he’d let that phase of his life expire, without much thought about it. It was over. On to whatever was next.
    What was next was now so different. He was finding it difficult to get his mind back into the old track, the Life. He was no longer involved in the Life, the Inside. He felt an unfamiliar pang, and realized for the first time how completely he’d left that old life behind. He wondered if he could ever find his way back, if hewanted to. He didn’t miss it, but he had to admit that he felt disconnected.
    This must be one of those watershed moments, he thought. His life had changed and he hadn’t even noticed how much, until now.
    He assured Smokey that it was of no consequence. Unless, of course, the guy reappeared, asking more questions. They passed on to other chitchat. They even discussed fishing. Smokey was a devotee of the Big Hole, a good fishing river south of Butte. They discussed the salmonfly hatch, always a topic of conversation for fly-fishing enthusiasts. The hatch had been good, but it was history. Smokey didn’t get out much anymore, but he’d be glad to take Joe fishing on the Big Hole. He had a good boat. The Big Hole could only really be fished by drift boat.
    Then Smokey made a mistake. He seemed eager to be friendly, but he started talking about the explosion and fire that had wrecked Joe’s old place, down in the Ruby Valley. “I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that, you know, Joe,” he said.
    â€œIt’s all right, Smoke,” Joe said, for what he thought must be the tenth time. “Forget it.”
    But Smokey wouldn’t let it drop.