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quizzical look. Another handful of peanuts went into my mouth.
    “And what would that be?”
    I returned the quizzical look, in case he might need it another time. “Vodka soda with lime. Don’t you know me, Sully?”
    “Can’t say I do. Should I?”
    I swallowed the peanuts half-chewed, coming dangerously close to choking on them; the feeling of comfort the tavern brought followed them into my stomach. Over the years, this man had poured me into a cab more times than he’d poured most other folks drinks. Mikey’s words crashed on me like an anvil in a Wile E. Coyote cartoon: no one will know you. I suddenly needed that vodka badly.
    “Guess not.”
    “Lime juice or slice?”
    “What?”
    He dipped a glass into the bin of ice, filling it. “In your drink. Juice or slice?”
    “Slice. And you know what? Hold the soda.”
    “Fair enough, but there’s no discount for skipping the mix.”
    He laughed at his own joke, but I only nodded. I didn’t see the humor in it, in any of this. A well-used Coors Light coaster landed on the bar followed closely by my drink, a short red straw leaning against the wedge of lime hanging on the rim of the glass.
    “You want to start a tab?”
    I stared at the glass in front of me for a second, at a drop of water running down the side, and felt a twinge of regret that I was about to consume drinks I couldn’t pay for from a man who’d always been good to me. The saliva flooding my mouth at the sight of the vodka convinced me it would be all right.
    I nodded.
    “Need some collateral. Credit card, driver’s license, keys. You know, something so I know you won’t take off without paying.”
    I felt that twinge again as I reached into my pocket and pulled out my now-useless set of keys for my one-time apartment and tossed them on the bar between us. Sully scooped them up and then paused, his eyes narrowed as he searched my features.
    “Sorry I don’t recognize you. Lots of people come and go here.”
    “Here’s to a busy tavern.” I chuckled listlessly, plucked the lime and squeezed it into the vodka, then tilted the glass toward him in a mock toast.
    “With a toast like that, the mix is on me next time.”
    He went back to bartender business and I stared at the drink in my hand, licked my lips. How long had it been since my last drink? I’d been off the sauce for nearly a year, desperately trying to prove to Rae I was a changed man worthy of her taking me back, worthy of being close to my son again. If you added my six months absence from the world, that made it close to a year-and-a-half. I should have felt guilty about even being here. I didn’t. I had no money, nowhere to sleep and no idea how to rectify either. Six months of my life was missing. Michael had told me no one would recognize me and Sully proved it. That meant Trevor and Rae wouldn’t know me, either.
    And they think I’m dead.
    A knife edge of regret sliced through my chest as I downed the vodka hoping the path it burned down my throat would counteract it. It didn’t work. I signaled Sully and order another then swiveled on my stool, surveying the room.
    Like the exterior of my apartment building, nothing about Sully’s had changed: the same sports might have been playing on the big-screen TVs the last time I was here, the same guys shooting pool, the same girl serving tables. It took an act of God to change places like this. I’d been so regular here it surprised me every time I walked through the door without someone shouting “Norm! ” to greet me.
    I drained the second vodka, the cool touch of ice against my lips a contrast to the liquor burning my throat on the way down. Sully looked up as I set the empty glass down and I nodded at him.
    “Mix?”
    I shook my head. “Why waste good soda?”
    Before the new drink arrived, I noticed three men sitting at a table in the far corner, their features all but hidden by the dim lighting of a wall sconce. My heart thumped.
    Marty, Phil and Todd. Drinking