LOWELL LOONEY was about eighty years old and looked like he could beat Sean in a hundred-yard dash. He wore an orange T-shirt from Porter's Gym over blue sweats with white piping and spanking-new Reeboks, and he moved around like he'd jump for the highest bottle behind the counter if you asked him to.
"Right there," he said to Sean, pointing at a row of half-pint bottles behind the counter. "Went in through a bottle and stuck right in that wall there."
Sean said, "Scary, huh?"
The old man shrugged. "Scarier than a glass of milk, maybe. Not as scary as some nights around here, though. Some wacko kid put a shotgun in my face ten years ago, had that crazed-dog look in his eyes, kept blinking at the sweat? That was scary, son. The guys who put the bullet in the wall, though, they were pros. Pros I can deal with. They just want the money, they ain't pissed at the world."
"So these two guys...?"
"Come in the back," Lowell Looney said, zipping down to the other end of the counter where a black curtain hung over the storeroom. "There's a door back there leads to the loading dock. I had a kid working part-time for me back then who'd dump the trash, smoke himself a little weed while he was out there. Half the time he'd forget to lock the door when he come back in. Either he was in on it or they watched him enough times to know he was brain-dead. That night, they came in through the unlocked door, fired off the warning round to keep me from reaching for my own gun, and took what they came for."
"How much they hit you for?"
"Six grand."
Sean said, "That's a chunk of change."
"Thursdays," Lowell said, "I used to cash checks. I don't anymore, but back then I was stupid. 'Course, if the thieves had been a little brighter, they would have hit me in the morning before a lot of those checks were cashed." He shrugged. "I said they were pros, just not the smartest pros around, I guess."
"This kid who left the door open," Sean said.
"Marvin Ellis," Lowell said. "Hell, maybe he was involved. I fired him the next day. Thing is, the only reason they would have fired that shot was because they knew I kept a piece under the counter. And it wasn't like that was common knowledge, so it was either Marvin who told 'em, or one of them two used to work here."
"And you told the police that at the time?"
"Oh, sure." The old guy waved his hand at the memory. "They went through my old records, questioned everyone who used to work for me. So they said, anyway. They never arrested no one. You say the same gun was used in another crime?"
"Yeah," Sean said. "Mr. Looney-"
"Lowell, for Christ's sake, please."
"Lowell," Sean said, "you still got those employment records?"