Inside Outt

wouldn’t have needed to go inside, when he saw there was a back room that wasn’t visible from the windows. So he would have gone inside to check. Okay, Spoon was a possible.
    He turned and watched the street for a moment, imagining Larison inside with his girlfriend. Juan Cole pops his head in, you spot him, but he doesn’t spot you spotting him. What do you do? You make the decision. You come up with an excuse and get up. You go outside, and…
    He looked around. Not the street facing the entrance. Too busy. You’d make a right, instead, toward what looked like a more residential part of the neighborhood. Yeah, that felt right. And according to Taibbi, it was where they’d found Juan Cole.
    He walked down the cracked sidewalk, Paula just behind him. As soon as he was beyond the light cast through the restaurant window, he was enveloped in darkness. It felt right. So right he was nearly convinced this was exactly how it had gone down.
    The block was short. He passed a rust-colored, two-story apartment building on the right, its windows, like all the others he’d seen in San Jose, barred. Then a windowless wall. The sidewalk curved right onto the cross street, and on instinct, Ben followed it rather than crossing the street, and bam, there it was, he saw exactly what Larison had done. There was a staircase and an entranceway immediately to his right. Larison had ducked into it the second he’d turned the corner. If he had any street sense at all, Juan Cole would have realized what had happened just an instant after turning the corner and seeing that Larison was gone, but in that instant Larison had already stepped out from the shadows and broken open the back of Cole’s head. An instant could be a hell of a long time against a guy like Larison.
    He looked around. Taibbi had said southeast corner, right? That meant across the street. Ben waited for a car to pass, its headlights momentarily cutting through the darkness, then crossed over.
    Yeah, there it was. A corner sewer, the concrete lip eaten away by time and humidity and lack of repair. It would have taken Larison all of five seconds to drag Cole across the street and shove him inside. If Cole hadn’t been a big man, he would have fit easily enough. If he had been big… Ben knelt, took hold of the metal grate, and lifted it. It came free easily.
    Yeah, brain him, take his wallet, wait for any cars to pass, drag him, dump him… he wouldn’t have been gone longer than three minutes. People left for longer than that when they got up to take a leak.
    “I think it was in Spoon,” Ben said, standing up.
    “Where Cole saw Larison?”
    “Yeah.”
    “How do you know?”
    Ben shook his head. “Just a feeling. Let’s go see if anyone in that restaurant recognizes Larison.”
    They walked back to Spoon and went inside. It was lively with laughter and conversation and the sounds of Billy Idol playing through speakers in the ceiling. Yeah, a neighborhood place. The crowd—about twenty men and women, ages ranging from mid-twenties up to maybe fifty—felt like they belonged there, like they were regulars. Just a neighborhood dessert place, good when you’re tired after a night out, but not quite ready for the night to be over.
    The host, a smiling man with a belly and a handlebar mustache, walked over with a couple of menus.
    “¿Cuantas personas?”
he asked. How many?
    Paula smiled and responded in Spanish while she showed her credentials. Ben was able to make out most of it: We’re looking for a regular customer of yours, we’d be grateful if you could help us find him. He’s not in trouble. We just need to ask him a few questions.
    “Your Spanish is very good,” the host said in English, returning her smile and wiping his hands on his apron. “But if you like, maybe English is better?”
    Paula laughed. “Oh, my goodness, thank you for saving me from embarrassing myself. Yes, please, English, if that’s okay.”
    The host’s smile broadened. “All right. How can I help?”
    Ben had to admit this was the right time for Paula to take the lead. When she wasn’t busting balls, there was something so… soft about her. It was disarming. Maybe that’s what she’d meant about people not seeing her coming.
    Paula took out her phone and showed the host a photo of Larison.
    “Sure, I know him,” the man said.
    Ben’s heart kicked up a notch. He wanted to jump in, but reminded himself that Paula was doing fine, better than fine. He kept his mouth