Redemption Street by Reed Farrel Coleman Page A

mug in one swig, I sipped, and the barmaid slammed hers back. I whispered in Molly’s ear: “Don’t sweat it. She’s not my type. I always hated women who could outdrink me. If I were in the market, you’d be first on the list around here.”
    It was shamelessly flirty of me and completely untrue, but other than that it seemed like a good thing to say at the moment. Whether Molly believed it or not was a completely separate issue.
    “How do you drink that stuff?” Molly asked, trying to compose herself. “To me it tastes like expensive Listerine.”
    “It tastes like Listerine to me, too, but I like Listerine.”
    She raised her glass to me.
    We went on like that for a little bit, the way you do at a bar with people you barely know—saying a lot and revealing almost nothing. I even smoked a cigarette, just to show Molly what a party animal I could be. Besides, with the amount of ambient smoke in that place, having a cigarette was like a drowning man drinking a glass of water. After another round with the barmaid and Molly, I suggested Molly and I retreat to a booth. She was happy to do so. I asked the barmaid to wait a few minutes and send over round three.
    When we got settled in, I slid my badge and license across the table to her, making a show of keeping it just between the two of us. Molly was impressed all right. Now she started to look around to make sure we weren’t being watched. The only thing that could have heightened Molly’s sense of adventure would have been the James Bond theme coming out of the jukebox. We had to settle for “Piano Man.” Well, it was nine o’clock on a Saturday.
    “Molly, I need your help.” I was earnest as hell, staring straight into her eyes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more straight with you yesterday, but I needed to get the lay of the land. If you know what I mean.”
    “I think I understand. You didn’t know anybody.”
    “See, I knew you’d understand. Look, I need to ask you some questions about the locals, okay?”
    “Shoot.”
    I asked in a whisper: “Do you know Anton Harder?”
    “His name wasn’t Anton Harder when I knew him,” she confided.
    “He was Robby Higgins then.”
    Molly was impressed. “You knew that? Yup, I knew Robby when we were kids, before—”
    “—the fire,” I completed her sentence. “Before he moved to Pennsylvania with his dad.”
    “Well, if you know all this, why are you asking me?” she wondered, now more pissed off than impressed.
    I waved at the barmaid for our drinks. “I’m sorry, Molly. Tell me about him. I’ll just sit here and listen, cross my heart and hope to die.”
    Molly pretty much confirmed everything Sam had earlier told me about the young Robby Higgins. She did add an interesting detail or two. Apparently, Robby had been an okay student. He was quiet and didn’t take teasing very well—”And he was teased a lot because of his size and all,” Molly said—but got along pretty well with everyone but the class bullies. He had some friends. Molly even made out with him once.
    “He was cuter back then, and I didn’t outweigh him by quite so much.”
    I cringed when she said that. I hoped she hadn’t noticed. People rightly despised pity.
    The thing Molly remembered most was how much Robby changed when his parents split up. He started fighting in school, no longer willing to let taunts go unchallenged. He lost most of the fights, and his grades went south.
    “He got suspended for fighting, and eventually got kicked outta school for setting off a cherry bomb in the teachers’
    lounge,” Molly recounted, shaking her head. “He was really hurting and—”
    I could scarcely believe my ears. This was too good to be true. “He got suspended for what?”
    I tried to hide my smile as Molly repeated what she had said about Robby Higgins’ first venture into arson. I was liking Anton Harder’s younger incarnation more and more for the Fir Grove fire.
    Molly began rambling a bit—she was already