When I reached Squirrel he was wildly bobbing his head up and down to a beat that had nothing to do with the noise coming from the band. His pupils were dilated so big that his eyes looked like shiny, black doll eyes and his mouth was twitching excitedly like he couldn’t control it. He was waving his hands in the air over his head and I think maybe he was trying to sing along with the band, but really it just amounted to him screaming nonsense at the top of his lungs.

I fought down the urge to smack him across the face for his sheer silliness and instead put a hand in the center of his chest and pushed him backward. He was so messed up that he lost his balance and tipped over onto his backside on the dirty bar floor.

“Hey!” His outrage was given fuel by the drugs in his system and a couple of the other grungy, crazy-haired kids stopped their partying to take offense at the fact that one of their own was being pushed around.

I heard muttering and felt the attention shift to what was happening between me and the gutter punk, so I reached out a hand, which the kid took, to help him to his feet.

Stupid.

Once I had his wrist clasped in my hand, I yanked it around the front of his body, spinning him around so that his back was to my front and my hand wrapped fully and firmly around his throat. I moved the kid toward the doors that led to the back alley off the side of the bar. I heard him wheezing and saw the edge of his very puffy cheeks already starting to turn bright red from a lack of oxygen.

“If you struggle it just makes things worse. I just want to talk to you.” I had my fingers tight enough to feel the air trapped in his lungs. Fingers clawed at my hand but I just kept moving the kid through the doors, and once we were outside, I backed him into the brick wall and held him there. I narrowed my eyes and told him, “Listen Squirrel, I have questions and you have the answers. You tell me what I want to know and I go away and you can go back to doing blow and acting like an idiot. Sound like a plan?”

I released his throat, which had him folded over and coughing dramatically. I curled my lip up in distaste and crossed my arms over my chest. First a disgusting club and now a repugnant and grotesque back alley. I was really glad I had left the designer duds at home for this outing. As if to validate that thought, at that moment a big, well-fed rat ran right between me and the kid with a squeak of alarm.

“You a cop?” The kid gasped the word out and his chubby cheeks started to fill as he struggled to suck in air.

Impatient, I snapped, “Do I look like a fucking cop?”

The kid let his head roll against the wall behind him and lifted filthy fingers to stroke at the circle of red marks I left around his neck.

“What do you want, dude?”

Dude? Was this kid for real? No one called me dude. I took a step closer to him. “I’m looking for a friend of yours. A kid named Tyler, and I need to find him tonight.”

Even as hyped up on drugs as he was, I saw the recognition flash in the kid’s blown-out gaze. His mouth started twitching and he began trying to slide along the wall like I wouldn’t notice him moving away from me. The metal studs on his vest scraped noisily as he shifted and I didn’t even bother to negotiate or barter.

I pulled my fist back and clocked the young man right in the nose. With the wall of the building behind him, his head didn’t have anywhere to go, so his skull bounced off the bricks as his eyes crossed and his nose started to bleed from the blow. I didn’t hit him hard enough to break anything, but if he didn’t get it together in the next minute or so, that would change.

“You know the kid. I need to find him and I want to know his real last name. You helped him get a job in my club. I can hold you responsible for all the shit he fucked up.”

The kid held up his hands in front of him and started to shake his head. “That was Noe! She got him the ID. I just introduced them. Tyler was in a tough spot. I wanted to help.”

“What’s his real name?” I shook my hand out and the kid watched my move warily.

“Tyler French.”

I frowned because the name didn’t immediately ring any bells. It was disappointing. I thought once I had a name, a clear line between who the kid was and whatever reason I had given him to mess with me would be clear, but I ended up with nothing.

“Why does he have it in for me?” I let my fingers clench into a loose fist and the kid gulped. He lifted his hand to wipe his bloody nose and cringed when he came away with blood on his arm.

“I don’t know. He wanted a job at the club really bad and that was all he said. Tyler’s life is shit. His dad is a freak, one of those people that can’t get rid of anything—ever. So he grew up in a junky house that was the worst on the block in a bad neighborhood. The old man was rough on him, really rough, so I wasn’t surprised when he said he needed money to get out.”

The kid shifted again and his eyes looked away from me and then back at me.

“What else?”

The puffy-faced young man slowly started to slide down the wall until he was resting at my feet with his head in his hands. He fisted a bunch of dreadlocks between his fingers and pulled.

“He also asked me to hook him up with a gun. He’s got a couple sisters and Child Welfare just pulled them from his dad’s care. I think that was the final straw for him. Like he had nothing left to lose, ya know?”

My back teeth clicked together in aggravation. “Did you come through for him?”

The kid peeked at me over his bent knees. “Yeah. I had a buddy that wanted to buy a plane ticket back home to New York. He sold Tyler a piece for a few hundred bucks.”

“When was this?” This was information that made the situation with the unpredictable Tyler even more dangerous. Messing with my club and my money was one thing. Having the means to permanently take away the one thing I had ever wanted for myself was another. I couldn’t risk Key like that. I wouldn’t risk her.

“A few days ago.”

“So where can I find Tyler French now?”

The kid shook his head and he looked like maybe he was going to cry. “I don’t know, man. We run the streets. We hop trains. We sleep in squats and under bridges. It’s not like we have addresses.”

I grunted. “Tyler didn’t look homeless when he worked for me.”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t know where he’s been staying. Maybe he got a girl or something.”

I considered the cowering kid in front of me as I tried to decide if he was telling me the truth or if he was protecting his friend. Between the bruised and bloody nose, the watery eyes, and the generally defeated demeanor, I came to the conclusion that he knew I wasn’t messing around and could bring a world of hurt down on him if he wasn’t up front with me.