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Paul, stepping forward.
    “Yeah,” she said. “Sure. About an hour and a half ago? Time goes by fast when we're busy. He didn't stay long – maybe five minutes.”
    “Any idea where he went?” said Malcolm.
    The woman shrugged. “He just sat over at the end of the bar, pounded his J and B, and left.” She leaned closer. “He looked awful. So bad I didn't even recognize him at first.”
    “He didn't say where he might be going?”
    “He didn't say anything at all. Like I said, I hardly even recognized him. How he drank was different too. He usually sips it real slow – he enjoys it, you know. But this time he just slammed it down like it didn't even matter to him either way.
    “And the way he looked . Oh my God. His eyes were so sunken. And some of his hair had turned white almost overnight. It looked like he aged thirty years since last time I saw him. I'm worried about him, guys. So worried I almost called the cops myself.” She looked around the bar like someone might be watching her. “Once I recognized him I tried making conversation like I always do. Just small talk stuff. He usually humors me… but this time he just sat there rocking back and forth on the bar stool with a grin on his face. His lips were moving – he was talking to himself – but it wasn't anything I could understand.” She sighed. “It's like I wasn't even there.”
    Malcolm and Paul looked at each other, frowning.
    “Hang on a second,” the bartender said, waving at a drunk man who'd crept up to the end of the bar to demand another fix. She turned back to them. “One time he told me how much he liked walking down by the river – especially when he was stressed out. You could try looking there.” She shrugged. “That's all I know. I hope you find him, but I don't think he's going to be able to help a lick with your case. He's more fit for a hospital bed than a courtroom.”
    “Thanks,” Malcolm said. “We'll keep looking.”
    Paul was already halfway out of the bar. He looked over his shoulder and watched Malcolm hobble over on his hurt ankle. “The river's just a few blocks from here.”
    “Lots of places for homeless people to hang out,” Malcolm said.
    “Yeah,” said Paul. “But it's also perfect for someone trying to slip away – to drop off the radar after they've done something horrible.”
    “We'll find out.”

 
    CHAPTER EIGHT
    Malcolm and Paul slipped away from the business district and all the bars and late-night restaurants that served it. They passed diners where loners sat sipping coffee at street-side windows, liquor stores from which shells of men staggered with brown paper bags, and abandoned corner stores whose windows advertised nothing more than graffiti.
    Grittier and grittier the city became as they drifted to the edge of the business district. Wide boulevards narrowed. Endless rows of apartment buildings squeezed in on them from both sides, many of their windows shattered. Malcolm could smell the river here. Its rotted-fish stench mixed with the cocktail of smells coming from the dumpsters and storm drains.
    The outskirts awaited at the end of alleyways and one-way streets. They worked their way towards them and the river beyond. The people were fewer out here, and their faces were unfriendly. They eyed Malcolm and Paul the same way predators eye prey. A man like Craig Fielder – a man whose soft hands were more comfortable flipping the pages of a book than throwing a punch – had no business being out here.
    And maybe that was the point.
    The company he kept wouldn't come looking for him out here. They'd write him off as a victim – they'd accept that the streets swallowed him up and he'd never come back. Then he'd skip town. Or maybe Craig Fielder wasn't thinking at all. Maybe he'd gone completely mad and retreated to his old haunts out of reflex instead of a savvy criminal mind. Paul led them into a little alley and Malcolm could almost see Craig walking in front of them, staggering