"You think it'd be okay if we call Sam dad?" Lydia asked, leaning back in her seat.

Philly grew uncharacteristically quiet and looked the other direction in symbolic deference to Tommy. Their bus was still about ten minutes out from Alhambra, and several minutes before, Tommy had finished preparing Lydia for the night's festivities. (The telltale little puffs of smoke coming from the kid's ears were a sure sign she'd had enough.)

"I think he'd like that a lot," Tommy answered. "If he starts crying, don't let that put you off ... but, doesn't Celia know that?"

"Nah ...," Lydia said. "She promised she wouldn't look in people's heads anymore."

"Except yours?"

"Yeah," the girl said with a broad smile.

"Doesn't it make you uncomfortable having someone rattling around in your noggin all the time?"

"Nah, it's like having an extra set of arms and legs."

"For kicking my ass in the gym?"

"Nah, that was all her," she said and laughed loudly.

Tommy looked at Lydia, his curiosity piqued. "So, what's it like being off on your own?"

"It's alright. It's nice to explore new things. But I can't wait to get back home, after." She hesitated. "So, what if no one wants to talk to me tonight?"

"You're a lovely young woman," piped in Philly. "People will talk to you. Trust me."

"And even if they don't," continued Tommy, "all you have to do is watch and listen ...."

"... and remember anything I hear about Fleener or that other guy, and tell you after," she responded by rote. "Always stay close, watch my drink, stay conscious of where I am, if I see a gun ... run, and if anybody touches me in a way I don't like, don't hurt them too bad ... oh, and if I see any more people from The Range, let you know."

"I think you got it down," he said.

They arrived at their stop about two hours before dark. He'd noticed crowds frequently changed in bar-restaurants between dinner and party time, so they'd arrived early. He wanted a proper view of the place. Still, he had no intention of staying late, fully meaning to have Lydia in a cab back home no later than 11:00 pm.

Alhambra was busy again, but they opted to wait for a table rather than sit at the bar; with no prompting, the hostess placed them in a small booth with a clear view of the room and at least three large televisions. It was perfect.

Philly almost immediately excused herself to have a look around. Tommy knew she worried about being surplus. Her Gift, the ability to move about unnoticed, had failed her the previous year when she'd most needed it. It simply had grown rusty from neglect. She'd trained with it daily since and at various times had told both him and Sam that she would never again let them down. It was a silly notion in his view. Her aid and friendship were beyond calculation.

When he cast about, there was no sight, sound, or recent scent of Paloma or any of the men they'd followed the previous day. But he did catch a rather strong scent of the driver of the '71 Charger, who he knew to be Paloma's brother Cesar. The man soon showed himself, occasionally moving in and out of the kitchen.

Not long afterward, a server arrived, and an enthusiastic Lydia ordered virtually the entire menu. She then began to query Tommy on the various sports that were on the screens. 

He let her yak and fielded her questions patiently. The youngster's understanding of pop culture was limited, and it was important for the evening's success that she feel at her ease. Tommy's Gift was a magnet for women and men both, but Lydia had little practical experience in social settings. This evening was about more than collecting information; it was also a lesson in social interaction that he hoped she would share with her sister.

Dinner was great, and within an hour of finishing the mountain of food she'd ordered, a relaxed and jovial Lydia was chatting freely with the young men and women who stopped by the table to converse.

All the lads were happy to explain to her the basics of baseball, soccer, or whatever happened to be on the screen at the moment. She even endured some of the bolder youth giving her tutelage on kick-boxing and mixed martial arts, topics upon which she secretly knew a great deal—"Men have such fragile egos," Philly had warned her before they'd reached the bar.

Sadly, though, Tommy neither saw nor heard anything of interest.

At just past dark, several large bouncers came on duty and the lights dimmed slightly. The after-dinner crowd at Alhambra consisted of a surprising number of college-age youth, both male and female, and Lydia accepted an invitation to learn darts from a young man. With a slight, knowing glance toward Tommy, she smiled as she slipped off and was soon laughing with the lad and a small knot of his friends 20 or so feet away.

As women came and went, chatting and flirting with him, Tommy found himself watching bullfighting on the nearest widescreen. It was one of the activities for which he had a strong nostalgic attachment, having been present in the eastern Mediterranean when the ritual was first established there. Still, he had an extremely difficult time watching the television screen. It seemed to blur and shimmer slightly no matter how he turned his head, and after fifteen minutes or so, he was convinced either the television was either broken or his eyes were.

Suddenly, Philly was standing immediately in front of him, blocking his view of the bulls.

"You're an old lecher," she said with a judgmental smirk. "I've been standing here watching you for close to twenty minutes, waiting for your jezebels to depart. Is there a woman in Chicago you haven't tried to seduce?"

He managed to keep his composure. It was the first time he'd seen Philly's Gift, and it was impressive. She wasn't truly invisible, but somehow her Gift tricked people into not seeing her. It dawned on him that her Gift didn't differ significantly from his own ability to shroud is true appearance, save for the control the young woman exercised over her Gift. Philly had been standing between Tommy and the television the whole time, and a pronounced vertigo remained with him from the experience.

"We are here to work. Speaking of which ...."

Philly almost let out a shriek. "Oh, I got stuck in the back office for, like, forty minutes." Her voice was just above a whisper, and as she spoke, she slid into the booth beside Tommy. "Jeez, the security is tight here. There's a steel door with a cypher lock on the office. You'd think it was Fort Knox. Some bloke was on the phone in there most of the time ...."

"Big guy?" he asked. "Bullet-proof beard? Lots of tatts?"

"Yeah, Cesar I think his name was. He was on the phone in some language I didn't recognize. But I recorded it," she crowed quietly. "God, it was unnerving being stuck in there."

She sent Tommy the file, and he discreetly listened to it while Philly nibbled at odds and ends on the table.

After fifteen minutes or so, Tommy spoke. "He's speaking Polish. I could only catch one side of the conversation, but there appears to be some sort of delivery ... tonight. I couldn't make out the details." He thought for the briefest of moments. "What was his mood?"

"He was annoyed," she said, "and I think a little scared."

"I got that, too." He bit his lip. "You've gotta be hungry?"

"No." She shared a guilty grin. "I've been filching eats in the kitchen since we got here."

She continued to nibble at a few cold fries that had survived Lydia's onslaught until Tommy ordered some hummus and onion rings.

"He definitely is afraid of something," he told Philly once the server had departed. "Just like his sister ...."

"What do you think it is?" She'd moved closer until she was leaning against him affectionately.

"I don't know. But you're right. That does sound like a lot of security for a restaurant office." He set that thought aside. "Hey, did your friend ever get back to you about Fleener?"

"Yeah, he did." She pulled out her phone and opened a file. "But he didn't have much to add ... former army ranger, got drummed out of the service five years ago ... not much of a credit history ... credit card statements put him in Oregon, Utah, and Montana at the right times. Alvin couldn't find a recent tax return."

As Philly recited the high points, Tommy's eyes skimmed the notes on her phone. They were more detailed, but Philly was right. It basically was the same information she'd dug up on the man over the last two days. But it was enough to get a picture of Fleener.

"Any paperwork on his discharge?"

"No," she replied. "Just a dishonorable. It isn't clear why."

"What about his Internet presence?"

"No social media that I can find ...." She nibbled the back of a knuckle. "I'll look at his credit card statements again. Unless he's one of only 53 Americans under age 80 who doesn't use the Internet, he has to be paying for it somehow."

She began to click a short message, most likely to her partner in crime, Alvin. For some moments, Tommy was so deep in thought he lost track of what was going on around him, until he heard a voice.

"Another niece?" said a cheerful Paloma .

"No, this one's a sister," he replied before turning to look at the young woman leaning against their table. "Paloma, this is my sister Phil. Philly, Paloma."

As before, the tough girl gave a warm grin and a friendly handshake.

"But she's not from Arkansas," he added.

The three exchanged several minutes of niceties before Philly took the initiative and began looking around the room. When she caught sight of Lydia, who was still at the dartboard, she spoke. "It was good meeting you, Paloma, but I should make sure our niece hasn't gambled away her college fund." With a hidden wink at Tommy, she disappeared into the crowd.

"Oh, you have a very nice-looking family," Paloma said as she watched Philly depart.

"And you're wondering what happened to me?"

"No," she said somewhat too emphatically.

"Speaking of family, I think I saw your brother earlier tonight," he said. "He was looking harried."

She gave a sigh. "Yeah, this place really was his dream, but so many responsibilities go with it."

"I can understand that. You know, this an interesting place. You have a lot of college kids here."

"It's I-290," the young woman said. "Lots of college-age kids come in from the burbs thinking it's a real city experience because we're so close to Garfield Park."

Neither of them could suppress a chuckle.

"Which is why you have the foofy drinks, hipster food, and the large-screen TVs?" he asked her.

Paloma appeared unable to control her mouth, as it simultaneously twisted to both suppress a laugh and to erupt in humor. "We're still working out a business model," she said as she drew back her fist in feigned anger. She seemed more irked that she couldn't control her laughter than she did by Tommy's playful jab.

Tommy wished Rhonda was with him. She would like this young woman to no end. She's an enemy, said a familiar voice deep inside him. A picture of Mindy Meeker flashed in his mind, and he wondered briefly what had become of the woman.

"Anyway," she said as she pretended to tamp down her pretend rage, "between college kids in the city and twenty-somethings from the burbs, we do okay. The car crowd is pretty good, too. But they're mostly on the weekend."

"So, what's your day job, then?"

"I run the family business," she said.

Without his thinking, a sign for Zielinski's Auto Parts popped into Tommy's head.

"Oh, right, the place down the street."

"Yep, that's us. Mom is Mescan and dad was a Polack," she drawled, obviously trying to contain her pride. "For a couple of immigrants, they did pretty good for themselves."

For the barest of moments, he thought of broaching Fleener with her but hadn't been able to come up with a believable approach. Now that he knew of the connection between Fleener and the building in front of which Tommy first had met Paloma, it was clear his mentioning the man directly would sound too uncoincidental to her.

"Where are your people from, Tommy?" she asked.

He'd missed his moment.

"Oh, shit, I don't know," was his honest reply. "I think my folks were born somewhere in Russia, but I'm half convinced they were some sort of Persians or Mongols." It was all true; the language of his parents had smidges of each tongue.

"What's your family name?"

"Wigand," he said. He, Lydia, and Philly had adopted the name for the evening. "I know, it doesn't sound very Persian, does it?"

"Sorry, honey. I think you're just a GP white guy."

"I hear that a lot." He thought for a moment before switching topics. "You hire many vets here?" he asked. The moment he asked the question, he knew it was too heavy-handed but had to ride it through.

She leaned closer before slowly sliding into the seat next to him. "Maybe," she said, setting her chin on the heel of her hand. "You looking for work?"

"No. There were a couple of guys in here the other day ... GP white guys," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "and one of them was a dead ringer for a guy I went to Ranger School with. I couldn't remember the guy's name to save my life ... but he walked around like he worked here."

"What'd he look like?"

Tommy described the man Lydia had pointed out the day before. As he did, he felt Paloma stiffen and saw the smile leave her eyes. She was still pleasant, but he could feel her heart was racing.

I know what you're scared of now, he thought. "He had a couple other guys with him that had that same crew-cut, I-spend-too-much-time-at-the-gym look. You don't know them, do you?"

It took Paloma a moment to speak. When she did, her mouth obviously had gone dry. "I think," she began, clearing her throat, "they might be guys who do work for my brother sometimes. The one you were describing sounds like Weliver. He was in the army, I think."

Paloma hid her anxiety over the man well, but he knew that if he pressed her too much further, she might shut down. He'd done a sloppy job of attempting to elicit information on this Weliver character.

What the fuck is going on, here? he thought. More government voodoo? Why are these two kids so afraid of this guy?

He decided to give it a rest. "The name doesn't sound familiar. But who knows ... does he come around often?"

"Yeah, most nights," she said. It was short and polite.

That was the answer Tommy needed. He would have to have a talk with Weliver.

"So, what's your niece's sport?" Paloma asked with a new enthusiasm.

He wanted to laugh. She'd switched the topic of conversation for him.

"What do you mean?"

"Come on, look at her." She was staring over at a laughing Lydia as the youngster cast a dart. Philly was standing with several others watching. "Tell me she isn't a volleyball player."

"I don't think so. Come to think of it, I don't know that she's ever done organized sports. She's a great runner, though ... like a gazelle." He looked back to Paloma and didn't know why the devil was suddenly in him. "And you ain't gonna believe me, but she's a helluva fighter."

"Get the fuck out." The warm, relaxed Paloma was back.

"I will get every fuck out if I'm proved wrong, but my niece is a badass. You know those hillbilly girls. She could kick the shit out of anybody in this place ... including me, if I ain't careful."

"Get the fuck ... out." She seemed to savor the words, her enormous smile a bouquet of perfect white.

The two chatted and laughed some time more about nothing of any import before Paloma announced she had work to which she needed to tend. She left with a smile and a playful swipe at Tommy. By that time, Philly and Lydia had moved to the bar, where it appeared the young men were offering them shots.

Good luck with that, lads.

Philly was a seasoned drinker, and Tommy strongly suspected the teetotaling Lydia's tolerance for alcohol would rival even Sam's. To his shock, though, he saw Lydia bend her head back and take a shot of what looked to be whiskey. The moment after, she glanced across the room at him with a guilty smile and that bitter-lemon look.

"Peer pressure," he muttered.

The urge to laugh was powerful, but he resisted, not wanting it said he'd encouraged the young woman. He even fleetingly considered clicking a quick photo of the Lydia in flagrante but knew his last picture of her had not gone down well in Murray Hill, meriting him a cautionary, "keep it up, funnyman," text from his woman.

The conflict was mooted when he saw Weliver walk through the main entrance.

The man was older than Tommy had first estimated, probably in his early thirties, and he was with a different companion. That fellow was fifteen or twenty years older and strongly built, though not nearly so lean. Both men were around six feet.

But whereas Weliver's appearance screamed 'military contractor', the other man's look was more subdued. Anyone glancing at him, with his plain clothes, short and oily hair, and horn-rimmed glasses, would not have remarked on him, thinking his outward appearance no different than any high school teacher, postman, or bricklayer. Weliver had a look of thick-necked belligerence. His companion was something else.

Tommy leaned back in his seat and struck his cockiest pose. He just needed some information.

"Hey, Weliver," he said more than loud enough for the man to hear, "when did you go through Ranger School?"

The man turned a dirty look in his direction. There was no question, even in the now crowded bar, who had spoken.

"Motherfucker, I don't know who you are, but I ain't no pussy-ass ranger."

"Oh, shit, that's right. You're a marine." It was the right answer and an easy one. Only one group spoke so dismissively of army rangers.

"You got a fucking problem?" Weliver said even more loudly, turning and taking two steps toward Tommy.

"You know whether Valhalla is hiring?" Tommy enquired.

The question brought the former marine to a sudden stop. He hesitated before speaking. "I don't work for those cheap bastards, anymore," he said aloud but now with a hint of uncertainty.

"I'm looking for work," Tommy said. His tone was friendlier. "Hook a brother up?"

"I don't know who the fuck you are, pretty boy." Weliver's voice had dropped, but his tone had changed from hostile to dismissive.

"We worked together in Montana for, like, 15 minutes ... I had a beard then."

The man hesitated. By that time, his companion was standing beside him. Both men were just a few feet from his booth table. The companion stared at Tommy with a flat and blank look, not moving and only occasionally blinking. There was no real emotion. Whatever the man's deal, Tommy suddenly smelled prison-rat. He met the gaze of the man, who didn't avert his stare the way a normal person would.

"What the fuck you want, convict?" Tommy said aloud and with contempt. From the corner of his eye, he saw a slight smirk cross Weliver's face.

The affect of the Weliver's companion didn't change, not even in the slightest. He continued to stare, his eyes cold and dead. Tommy had met plenty like him before. Every society had a name for his type. People nowadays called them sociopaths. Tommy looked back to Weliver, who was speaking.

"How'd you know where to find me?" His tone was no longer disagreeable, but neither was it pleasant.

"Saw you in here the other day," Tommy said with a shrug. "Couldn't remember your name, then."

"Yeah, same here," Weliver muttered back. "I got nothing for you." He turned to leave.

"You know who's hiring?"

Weliver paused. "Try Hollirich. They're staffing for a gig in Syria ... if you don't mind getting your ass shot the fuck off for 65 a year."

Weliver looked at his companion, but before he could speak, Lydia appeared beside them, as if she wanted to reach the booth. The teenager said nothing but merely paused politely and quietly for the two men to let her by.

On seeing her, though, the manner of Weliver's cohort changed. As his cold eyes fixed on the young woman, he took a half step toward her, as if to further block and to intimidate her. Looking her up and down, he said in a low voice, "ooohhh ... me likee...."

Tommy noticed the man's right hand disappear behind the youngster's backside, but before he even could leave his seat, Lydia's body coiled and released once, ever so slightly, and her forehead cracked the nose of Weliver's companion.

The man collapsed in a heap.

"Keep your motherfucking dick-beaters to yourself, asshole," she said before stepping smoothly and confidently past Weliver and sliding into the booth next to Tommy.

She stared hard at Weliver, a look in her eyes Tommy had never seen there before. It was more than defiance; it was something predatory. It was clear he never again would have to worry about Lydia, at least not in that way.

"Finch, you piece of shit, get up," said an obviously disgusted Weliver. The man ignored Tommy and Lydia as he scruffed the still-rising Finch and half dragged him to the rear of the restaurant, toward the office.

"I didn't hurt him ... too bad," murmured Lydia. There was no sign of a smirk on her face.

Tommy began to smile and noticed a shocked Paloma looking at them from where she stood two booths away. "I told you my niece is a badass," he called to her.