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who lived here before me was killed by muggers.”
    My stomach clenched hard enough to make me flinch; if I’d eaten anything since awakening in the hotel room, it would have ended up all over the floor.
    The woman’s eyes widened, making me nervous.
    “You did it.” She jabbed the gun towards me, making me flinch again. “You killed him and took his keys. They told me they changed the locks.”
    A siren wailed in the distance and I realized there was a good chance I might not get out of this: either she’d kill me or the cops would arrest me. Neither seemed a good option.
    I lunged for the door, catching her off-guard. I hoped she was the kind of woman who kept a weapon to scare would-be intruders, not to punish them.
    “Stop!”
    I cringed as I sprinted down the hall, half-expecting to feel of a bullet slam into my back. She didn’t pull the trigger, but she didn’t want me to escape either--the blue vase shattered against the door frame near my head, showering me with flowers and glass. I yanked the door open and dove through, barely keeping my feet under me as I blundered down four flights of stairs to the exit, never looking back to see if she followed.
    I didn’t know I’d been sweating until I burst through the door into the chill night--the autumn night six months after I’d been mugged. The siren I’d heard was closer now so I darted across the street and hid in the shadows, panting clouds of mist into the night. Less than a minute later, a police cruiser skidded to a stop in front of the building; its siren cut off but the cherries still flashed as two cops spilled out and went to the front door. They buzzed the apartment and waited for the woman to answer, so I took the opportunity to get the hell out of there.
    My thighs burned as my feet pounded the pavement, carrying me away from my former home. Possibilities, excuses, scenarios raced through my mind, playing and replaying, but none of them made sense, none of them seemed remotely plausible. Underneath them, the same refrain kept repeating over and over:
    Thiscan’tbehappeningthiscan’tbehappeningthiscan’tbehappening...
    My head buzzed with a feeling of helplessness, panic pushing me on without knowing where to go. I ran until a stitch in my side forced me to stop. Like the world’s worst long-distance runner, I paused--bent at the waist, gasping for air. When I looked up again, I saw my subconscious had led my feet to a familiar place, somewhere I felt comfortable, safe.
    Sully’s.
    ***
    They say smell is the strongest trigger of memories. I believed it the second I stepped through the door of Sully’s Tavern. The odor of beers spilled decades before – many of them spilled be me--soothed my jangled nerves, reminded me of countless nights seated at the bar, elbows propped on the stained wooden surface, sometimes alone, sometimes not. I sat on a stool that once could have described every contour of my ass and waited for the barkeep to notice my arrival. A miniature galvanized pail of peanuts sat before me, lonely without the once ubiquitous ashtrays that disappeared as smoking laws changed, so I pulled it closer to keep it company. The peanuts tasted comfortable on my tongue, adding to the assuasive smells. Maybe I’d been gone for six months but Sully’s Tavern still felt like home. After the kind of day I’d had, I needed that.
    I shoveled more peanuts into my mouth and began wondering where-the-Hell I was going to spend the night.
    “Good evening.”
    The words startled me, making me jump a little. I stopped chewing and looked up from the bucket of nuts into the bartender’s familiar face, complete with bushy red mustache and freckles. I always thought Sully appeared to have stepped straight out of a day job singing baritone in a barbershop quartet. The only thing missing was one of those funny hats.
    “Hi, Sully.”
    “What can I get for you tonight?”
“I’ll have the usual.”
    He stopped in front of me, favoring me with a