Way Down on the High Lonely by Don Winslow

from the truck.
    Neal stood in the parking lot for a few long moments. He tried to shake the image of Anne Kelley’s tortured face from his mind, but it wouldn’t go. He opened Paul Wallace’s door and stepped in.
    Wallace looked small and skinny in his underwear, a white T-shirt and boxer shorts. He was an older guy, now that Neal took a closer look at him. He was in his late forties, with a lot of hard miles behind him. He had a full head of black hair, streaked with silver, greased straight back. He had heavy bags under his eyes and deep lines on his face. His skin was pale. He was trying to pour some Old Crow from a pint bottle into a motel glass, but his hand was shaking so badly that he spilled the booze on the floor.
    Neal took the bottle from his hand, poured three fingers of whiskey into the glass, and handed it to him. Then he sat down on Wallace’s bed.
    “We have a problem, Paul,” Neal said quietly.
    “We!” Paul asked sarcastically. He took a heavy gulp of the cheap whiskey.
    Neal nodded. “Well, you. You do.”
    “You were the guy outside my door. I recognize your voice.”
    “See, they’re thinking about whacking you.”
    Paul tried to sound tough but his voice cracked as he asked, “What do they have against me?”
    “They think you’re lying. So do I.”
    “I—”
    “Shut up. See, I have to wonder why you opened the door if you don’t know who Reverend Carter is. So that makes me wonder if maybe you also know Harley McCall. Now you can talk.”
    “All right. I didn’t find the wallet. I took it. Okay? Now leave me alone.”
    Neal shook his head. “You’re not a pickpocket, Paul. You’re a loser. A dues-paying member of the fraternity of losers.”
    “I’m going to walk out there and call the police!”
    “You’ll never hear the sirens, Paul.”
    “You said you’d help me! Give me money! I didn’t know who this Carter was, but if he was going to give me money … well, look around you. I could use a little money.”
    Neal pointed his index finger at Wallace’s face and pulled his thumb back like the hammer of a revolver.
    “Maybe Harley and I were drinking together once,” Wallace said quickly. “Maybe he gave me the wallet.”
    “Why would he do that?”
    Paul stuck out his empty glass. Neal poured him another belt.
    “I been having some problems. Alimony. They hound, they hound me. 1 just wanted a fresh start. McCall said maybe we could help each other out. Said maybe his ID was more useful to him in my hands than his. Said just to travel with it … use it. Throw people off his trail for a bit.”
    Which it sure did.
    “Were you friends? Did you work together?”
    “He worked at a place where I used to do a little business. We maybe had a few drinking nights together.”
    “Did he have a little boy with him?”
    Paul was eager to answer by now. He sensed that salvation lay on the other side of the right answers. “Yeah, yeah. A cute little kid. And a woman. A real looker named Doreen.”
    “How old was the boy?”
    “Three, maybe four?”
    Neal got up and made a show of pulling the curtain aside and looking out the window. He turned back to Wallace.
    “Now, Paul, I have a two-part question to ask you and you really need— really need, Paul—to give me a true and accurate answer. Tell me you understand that.”
    “I understand that.”
    “Where and when did you have this remarkable conversation with Harley McCall?”
    Paul’s eyes starting flipping around. He looked like one of those little dogs you win at the carnival. He was thinking up a lie.
    Neal thought about Anne Kelley, crossed the room, and slapped the glass out of Wallace’s hand. The whiskey splashed against the wall.
    Paul looked mournfully at the booze dripping down the cheap paneling.
    “Next time it’s your brains,” Neal said. He was furious at Wallace and himself. He’d never done anything like that before.
    “He told me to say I found it! Not to say where he was!” Paul said