"They never made no provision in the original plan"
-- Nick Lowe, Half a Boy & Half a Man

Reno's was on the east side of the river, under one of the bridges. Before it was reborn as a club, it had been a series of trendy restaurants. I was mildly surprised to learn that it was still around. I had thought it was one of those places that had been doomed to constant change. I suspected it beat the odds because it didn't serve any one scene exclusively. Different nights catered to different clientele. This night it was the Cocktail crowd.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I remembered a nasty trick for grabbing someone in a place like this. It was best with a two-man team -- though you could make it work with one in a pinch -- and a flashlight. This would be the perfect place for an op like that. If you do it right and no one would know what happened, and be able to ID the team.

I walked up to the bar. The bartender was a tall man with light brown hair. He had no definite style to him, but seemed in place with anywhere you might put him. He wore the light blue shirt that seemed to be the uniform of all of the staff. He worked his orders quickly and efficiently, chatting with the others sitting at the bar.

"Do you serve a full bar?" I asked.

"Name it and I can make it, he told me. His voice was soft and deep, but loud enough to easily hear. "I got one of the best bars in town."

"Do you serve advice as well?" I asked.

"Answers to the hard questions come with every order," he said. He was a man who enjoyed his job.

"Should you judge a person by the best or worst of what they know?" I asked.

"I judge a man by what he drinks," the bartender said. "Vodka martini, extra dry?"

"Tempting," I said.

I saw the cobalt colored glasses resting upside down in a bowl of ice. It would fit my James Bond musings back in the restaurant. Still it seemed a little too trite. I shook my head.

"Mojito." I ordered.

"See? That's what I'm talking about." The bartender shook his head.

He prepared my drink -- rum, lime, sugar, mint, and soda. It was the most complicated drink I liked. He started by placing the mint, stems and all, in the glass and muddling it with a heavy glass rod. He showed the herb no mercy. Then came the ice, water, and lime. After he stirred in the sugar, he dipped a straw into the mix, pulled it out and tasted it. He shook his head, and added more limejuice. Another taste, and this time he nodded. I didn't recognize him or any of the staff I could see, but turnover at a place like this was bound to be high.

When he appeared to be done, he put a straw in the glass and covered it with his finger. The vacuum held enough of the mix for him to taste. He shook his head and added a little more lime to the mix. He tested it again and handed it over.

"Tell me what you think," he said.

I tasted it. The best way is to drink it from the glass, not though the straw. I inhaled the smell of the mint, as I drank. It was just the right amount of sweet to be pleasant without being cloying. The rum completed the flavor.

"You've done a man's job, sir," I said.

"You're too kind," he said, "Still, it is not my best work, but it will do."

I took my drink and looked for a table against the wall, preferably one with a view of the door. I wasn't able to find a table I wanted so I decided to park myself up against a wall and wait for a bit. I just listened to the music, and took in the scene. The DJ was playing a swing version of Nick Lowe's Half a Boy and Half a Man, which was a bit odd since the original was more easily suited to be a rockabilly tune, but it worked.

I took my time with the drink, savoring the taste of the mint. When this one was done I'd want to switch to something non-alcoholic. This was my second drink of the evening. I needed to stay sharp. If I decided I was done with the job for the night, then I'd have another. Besides it was too good to drink quickly. Much like walking in the old neighborhood, it wasn't a bad way to pass the time. I could feel almost connected, but wasn't required to interact with anyone. Becks was like that as well. She would be content to just fade into the background and just observe.

My eyes scanned the room, working from left-to-right then back right-to-left -- looking for people Becks would know. This was not the kind of place she would have picked for herself -- it was more Wilson's scene. It might be a good place to find her more casual acquaintances. With luck, it would be someone more inclined to help.

People are good at knowing when they are being watched. It puts them on edge, so you do not want the bunnies to know that there is a fox nearby. I kept my head level and pointed forward. I was just another person in the crowd listening to the music. I dropped my lids to conceal the whites. Those would stand out in the dim light of a club, and mark what I was doing.

When there was no more liquid in my glass, and the flavor was gone from the mint, I went back to the bar and ordered a soda. I was forced to find a new spot on the wall, the old one was taken.

From my new vantage point I was able to spot Wilson, Becks' brother. He was wandering from table to table, working the crowd. He has an easy way with people. It's a marvel to watch. Within his circle he was well known, but there was a quality that drew everyone to him. He'd say a few words, pat someone on the shoulder and move on. I think this is when he seemed the happiest. Surrounded by people he knew, and people he could get to know.

He made his way to a table with an empty seat. He kissed the woman sitting there and then joined her. I thought for a moment, I could slip out now, and he'd not know I had been there. I didn't have to do this yet. I took a page out of my notebook and scribbled a quick note. I folded it and then again, and found a waitress. I asked her to buy him a drink and give him the note. She looked at Wilson, and then back at me.

"OK, but I don't think he's your type," she said with a smirk.

She looked a bit like Amy, or at least had Amy's sharp features. She had a tattoo of a tiger on one arm. Perched on her nose were glasses with wingtips and rhinestones.

"Funny," I replied.

I gave her a tip, and she turned and gave the message to Wilson. He took the note, glanced at it and then looked over at me. He said something to the waitress.

"Go on over, hun," she told me, "but I really don't think you're his type."

"It's not like that," I told her. "He thinks I'm a bastard, and he's not wrong."

"Don't be too mean to yourself, hun," she said. "That's what we're here for." She winked.

"Funny," I said again.

I walked over to Wilson's table. He motioned me to sit. He turned to the woman sitting next to him. She was small and thin, with short red-hair, and wearing a brightly colored dress with white gloves. I didn't recall her from the past, but Wilson had an easy way with women. His relationships never seemed to get serious very often, but they never seemed to end poorly either. One would end, and another would seem to start without any real effort.

"Dear, would you excuse us for a couple of minutes?" He glanced back at me, "I don't think this will take long."

That didn't sting as much as it might have. I was getting used to the treatment -- this death of a thousand cuts. The woman kissed him, and walked over to the bar. She looked me up and down as she passed, but there weren't any tells. I wouldn't want to play poker against her.

"Wilson," I said. He nodded.

"You're probably right," I said. "This probably won't take long. I have no right to ask you for any help, but I going to just the same."

Wilson was Becks' brother, and she was closer to him than anyone else. They were twins -- with Wilson being the elder by five minutes. He was one of the few constants in her life. I liked him a lot, though we were never very close. I liked him too much to do anything other than just lay my cards on the table. Besides if he caught me in a lie or subterfuge, he had it in his power to make it very hard for me to get to Becks again.

"I don't know how much she told you about what happened," I said.

"I walked in on it," he said. "Whatever in the hell it was. Remember?"

"Yeah" I said. "I doubt my side of the story would change much of anything."

"Not to me," he said.

"The thing is," I said, "that part's fixed in time and there's nothing I can do about it, no matter how much I want. What can be changed is the here and now."

"You're saying you have changed somehow?" He asked.

"I'm back," I said, "and I never thought I ever would be. It doesn't matter how many people tell me they wished I weren't, or how many cuts I've got to endure. I'm back and I've got something I need to do here."

"And what is that?" Wilson asked.

"Becks, " I said.

"Why?" he asked.

"I need to know that she's OK." I said. "I want to talk with her. I want to try and make things right, if I can. If I can't do that, I want to give her a chance to tell me off, and tell me that she never wants to see me. I denied her that part too."

"Don't you think it's a little late for that? Why are you here now?" He asked.

I needed to be honest with Wilson, but what could I say. Roland I was able to push off with a joke, but not Wilson, and there were parts I couldn't tell. I paused to think of how I should put it.

"It was about six months ago," I said. I did the math in my head and realized that was wrong. "No, closer to eight. I was in a train station. It was very late. Someone had left a magazine, so I picked it up. When you travel often, there is never enough to read."

"Not the way you read," he said.

"No, " I agreed. "It was Portland magazine. I have no idea how it got a third of the world away from here, but it did. It was the first time I had seen any news of..."

"Home?" Wilson prodded.

"There was an article on your show," I went on. "The one themed on movement."

Wilson nodded. He was an artist; both of them were. He was the sculptor. Becks was the painter. Wilson was the more successful of the two. He needed no other form of support. He was able to work the gallery art crowd more easily than Becks. He was the social one, and made the contacts and connections needed to be successful. Becks had needed to maintain a day job as a commercial artist, despite the fact that she was at least as talented as her brother.

"I remember it," he said.

"It was a fluff piece," I said, "but I knew you, and I'm not sure if I've ever told you this, but I really like your work"

"Thank you," he said.

"Just the truth," I said. "You've really hit your stride. The pictures I saw of the pair of horses had this amazing sense of motion. It was as though you had plucked them out of a moment in time."

I needed to pull myself back to the point. I was letting myself get sidetracked.

"There was a quote from you that struck a chord," I said. "You said 'the hardest part is when I've finished a piece, and need to start the next one. Facing that fresh block of stone is pretty intimidating, but you just need to just do it or you'll never get anywhere and nothing good will ever happen from it.'"

Wilson nodded.

"That hit home," I said. "I had been gone for years. If I didn't do something now, then nothing would ever change. Look, I don't know if I've the right to be forgiven, but none of us will ever know if I can't ask her."

Wilson had been leaning in close to hear me. He leaned back and lifted his glass. Between the smoke and talking above the music, my throat was rough. Following Wilson's lead, I held the liquid in my mouth to let it soothe as it went down. He appeared to be in debate with himself. I occupied myself with the book of matches from the ashtray.

There was nothing remarkable about them. The logo was just the club's name in red letters. It didn't provide any clues to the club. There was no obvious connection to gambling, or the city. Perhaps it really was the name of the person who owned the place. I've never known. Matches are useful tools, and I always try to have a pack on me. It was a habit. If I didn't put the book down, I would inevitably palm them without thinking.

Eventually one part of Wilson won out over the other, and he nodded to himself. He leaned forward and said, "It's too loud in here, step outside with me."

As we walked out, we passed by the woman he was with at the bar, he said something in her ear, and continued on with me. She smiled at him and nodded. I doubted he had asked me out to challenge me. Wilson wasn't that sort -- he'd always been calm and easygoing. He had a way of letting conflicts slide past him. He was a good counterpoint to Becks.

"It really doesn't matter what I think, you know?" He said as we walked. "I don't have the right to speak for Rebecca. What I can do is tell her that you're back in town. I'll say that you want to talk to her. That's the best I can do."

"That's all I can ask," I said.

"It's up to Rebecca to decide what she wants to do about you." He paused. Wilson was the only one I knew who did not call Becks by the nickname she'd chosen for herself.

"There must be more to it than that," I said.

"Why do you say that?" He asked.

"You could have told me all that back in there." I said. "I don't think you asked me out to brawl, that's not your style."

"I can take care of myself," he said.

"I doubt you've been in a fight since grade school," I told him.

"High school," he corrected.

"So there has to be more to it." I said.

"There is," he stopped for so long I thought he might turn around and go back in the club. "I just don't know if I should tell you."

That worried me. I was the one who needed to crawl out of their hole, everyone else was supposed to be just where I left them, all safe and sound.

"What is it?" I asked.

He spoke slowly, picking his words carefully. "I haven't spoken to Rebecca in a month and a half."

That was a surprise. Becks was closer to Wilson than anyone else. She typically saw him at least once or twice a week. They'd speak on the phone or by email near daily.

"So when I say I'll tell her when I see her next, I mean it," he said, "but I've got no way of knowing when that will be."

"Are you worried?" I asked.

"A bit," he said. "I'm sure you remember how she can be. She's probably in one of her anti-social funks. There's never much warning when they happen."

"Those only last for a couple of weeks," I said.

"Normally," Wilson agreed, "but there have been times before. You know how peevish she gets if you push her when it gets like this."

"Yeah, " I agreed, "but this is longer than anything I remember."

"I'll admit that I'm worried," he said, "and not just because of that. There's something else."

"What?" I asked.

"Maybe it's just a feeling," he said. "She was pretty detached the last time I saw her. She really didn't want to talk about what she was doing. It was like she wanted to keep something from me," he paused, "but I really have no idea.

"Another time you'd be the one I would call when something like this would happen. You used to be a good man. You'd be able to find out what was going on."

"I'm not sure that's true," I said.

"Either way," he said, "things are different now. "Now, I just don't know what to do."

He sighed, slipping his hands into his back pockets as we walked.

"I don't even know if I should have told you this," he said, "but there is no one else I know I can ask."

"What about Ray?" I asked.

"That piece of work?" he said. "No, I don't think so. What she sees in him, I've never fully understood. Weren't you the one who said Rebecca should date grown-ups for a change?"

"Yes," I admitted.

"You weren't wrong," he said.

"So they aren't together now?" I asked.

"As far as I know," he said, "they haven't been together for more than two months." He stopped walking and looked at me.

"I don't quite know what to ask, or how much I want to endorse this return of yours," he said, and pulled one of his hands from his pocket. There was a card in it, "but if you find out anything, would you let me know?"

"Yes, " I said without hesitation. I took the card; it had the address and phone of his studio. I already knew it from my research, but now I had his permission.

Wilson turned to walk back to the club. There was no reason for me to return. I wasn't sure what I should do next. The truth was that I was much further ahead than where I thought I'd be. I just didn't like much of what I had learned. My work for the day was done, so if I went back in to the club, I would probably start drinking for real. I wasn't sure I wanted that. I didn't relish the awkward silence of the walk back with Wilson. He had said everything to me that he wanted. I headed off in the opposite direction.

"Quinn!" He called out after me.

I turned around and looked at him. As different as he was from Becks in personality -- and the obvious gender -- he looked so much like her. Their faces were built the same. About the same height, both of them were shorter than me, but there was more to it than that. They shared any number of little ticks and behaviors. It hurt to look at him.

"I don't know if this helps," he said, "but it wasn't ... what you did that hurt her. That wasn't what upset Rebecca. It was that you left the way you did -- that was what did the damage."

"Thanks," I said, "but I'm not so sure. Either way, it doesn't make the load easier to carry. I don't think anything will."