City of the Sun by David Levien Page A

the noise and bustle of the low-lit, maroon-boothed, old place would block the path of his memories and focus him on the new task at hand.
     
     
    Behr arrived at Donohue’s, which was just catching fire for the night, barely a step ahead of his recollections of Linda screaming in the halls of the hospital, of the horror of the funeral home. The casket, closed due to the damage. The empty, helpless silence that followed the funeral, which had strangled his heart and slowly killed everything decent in his life. He slid into the last available booth, the vinyl crunching quietly beneath him.
    Arch Currey nodded over his white mustache from behind the bar. Behr waved back with a finger that sent Arch to the tap to draw the first Beck’s Dark. Behr had been a heavy drinker in the past and it had led to problems, especially around the time of Tim’s death, and he’d quit altogether for two years. He was a bit of an oddball now, an ex-abuser who could drink light when he wanted to. It was strange even to him, just another thing he couldn’t figure out about himself and the world.
    Behr looked toward the corner booth that was Pal Murphy, the owner’s regular spot. He’d clocked Pal’s Lincoln out back and expected to see him there, thin as a rail, in a crisp white dress shirt and butter-soft leather jacket, tinted shades perched on his nose, hunched over a cup of coffee. But Pal must’ve been down in his office, as the booth was currently empty. Pal and Behr were something like friends. Pal’s age and bearing gave Behr a comfortable feeling, as if all problems and challenges were temporal, that one could ride it out, that time resolved all situations no matter how confusing. The bond had first been struck when Tim passed, and had deepened when things foundered between him and Linda.
    Behr flipped open his notebook and began scanning his notes. The words blurred in front of his eyes for all their lack of information. He pulled out pictures of Jamie and studied them, noting the changes in the boy over time. He was a towhead when he was a toddler. Over the years his hair had darkened, but just a bit. Some freckling came up across the boy’s cheeks. His baby teeth fell out; his adult teeth gapped and finally filled in over the course of the photos. In the last shots Jamie seemed poised to grow like a reed. He was four foot ten and one hundred and five pounds at his disappearance.
    “Family photos?” Kaitlin asked, placing his Beck’s Dark on a paper coaster. She stepped back and stood over him, order pad in hand. Behr slid the pictures under his notebook.
    “Not exactly.”
    “Regular A or B tonight, or do you want to hear specials?”
    “Regular A,” Behr said, ordering his usual steak and baked. Regular B was his second-most usual meal — the broiled chicken and fries. “And keep these coming steady.” He raised the beer and knocked off half of it as Kaitlin walked toward the kitchen.
    Donohue’s filled up around him. Behr glanced over to see Pal Murphy sliding into his regular spot. He used his hand to smooth the wispy rust-colored hair pasted across his scalp, then nodded to Behr. Pal was sitting with a younger man Behr didn’t know, which wasn’t a surprise. Ownership of the pub was only the beginning of Pal’s business ventures. Several other people Behr knew nodded to him from the bar; several he didn’t stared over at him, a lone big man taking a booth that seated four. None of them were going to complain though; Arch kept a shillelagh hanging behind the bar in full view and was willing to use it to keep order.
    Behr knew how to cook. It was something he’d had to learn when things ended between him and Linda, but some nights he needed the hum and flurry of a place like Donohue’s. The fact was, he needed it more and more lately. Behr worked on his third beer and thought of her. Linda. He hadn’t spoken to her since January 6 three years back. She lived down in Vallonia now, near her folks. Behr had