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DOUGHERTY . BY APPOINTMENT ONLY , and a phone number.
    “Jeez,” he said. “All the times I been down this street and I never noticed that little place way back in there.”
    “Most people don’t,” she said. “It’s what I like about it.”
    “All the trees and bushes and stuff makes it real hard to see.”
    He lifted his foot from the brake again. As the car began to move forward, the gate bordering the street opened and a shadowy figure stepped out onto the sidewalk.
    Without thinking, Dougherty put a hand on the driver’s shoulder. He stopped again. The figure caught the flash of brake lights. His head swiveled. He stared intently at the cab, but did not move.
    “You expecting company?” Stevie asked.
    “No.”
    “You know him?” he asked, switching off the car’s interior lights.
    She started to say she didn’t when the apparition took a step forward, profiling his features against the security lights of the apartment building next door.
    Her breath came quicker now. She heard it, but couldn’t control herself.
    “Can’t be.”
    “What can’t be?”
    She shook her head in disbelief, as if the sudden movement would improve her vision or, better yet, make the apparition disappear altogether. The figure stopped on the sidewalk, pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jacket and lit one. Now she was sure. The old-fashioned Zippo lighter. The way he posed for a second before extinguishing the flame. Just in case he had an audience. It was him. No doubt about it.
    “Holy shit,” escaped her lips. “I don’t believe it.”
    The visitor cast another long glance at the darkened cab and then started up the street. Walking north along Thirteenth Avenue. She waited a moment, then pulled the door handle and stepped out into the street, nudging the door closed with her hip.
    “Something wrong?” the driver wanted to know.
    She didn’t answer. Just stood in the street watching intently as the dark figure walked away. “I don’t believe it,” she mumbled to herself.
    “You okay?” the driver asked.
    Before she could muster a reply, a movement in her peripheral vision snapped her head around. Someone was moving soundlessly along the sidewalk. Just as her eyes were beginning to focus, the apparition slid behind the massive oak tree and disappeared. She waited…squinting out into the gloom at the spot where he should emerge from behind the tree. Nothing. The silent stroller had stopped. Hiding? She looked at Stevie, who had gotten out of the car and now stood by her side; his attention was riveted on her.
    “Listen, lady…,” he began, “I gotta get going here. I gotta…”
    She tore her eyes from the sidewalk. Jabbed a finger in the direction of the retreating figure. “That’s the guy,” she hissed. “That’s Brian.” With her other hand she pulled down the front of her dress, revealing the cleft between her breasts, covered with tattoos. He squinted in the darkness until he could make out the images and the words that swirled around on her chest. His lips moved as he read the tattooed script until the language embarrassed him and he turned his face away.
    “That’s the guy did this to me. Brian Bohannon. That’s him right there.”
    “You sure?”
    “Like I could ever forget.”
    “I thought you said he moved to France.”
    “He did.”
    “Jesus.” He hesitated and then pulled a cell phone from the dash. “Maybe we oughta call the cops.”
    She thought it over. Shook her head. Got back in the cab. “Every cop in town is downtown at the Weston or back there in the square. They’re not coming up here for a five-year-old assault beef that they never took seriously anyway.”
    “Whata you mean they didn’t take it seriously?”
    She waved a hand in the darkness. “They always treated it like some kind of lover’s quarrel. Like I was just another weirdo who got what was coming to her.”
    “You’re kidding me.”
    “Said I had a marginal lifestyle.”
    “Whata you