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U.S. Army, then worked for Raytheon and United Technologies Corporation before taking a post with the government.
    The neighborhood where he lived was new and felt oddly uninhabited. The sun had set, but orange-gold afterglows burned through the shedding trees as Jon pulled in. Hebron greeted him at the front door wearing baggy, faded jeans, fuzzy slippers, and an oversized Washington Redskins jersey. Number 8. He was a big man—six-one, 250, Jon guessed. Full face, easy grin, short-cropped curly hair, with age lines on his forehead and around his eyes. It was a face that didn’t reveal much, although Jon sensed that he was a complex man. The last time they had spoken, Gus had been a student of his father’s. He always wore short-sleeved buttoned shirts in those days and grinned a lot but never said much.
    “Come on in, Jonny. Get you a beer?”
    “All right.”
    Jon stood in the doorway and surveyed the living room. The house was elegantly appointed and seemed brand new. Two-story foyer, hardwood floors, a mantled fireplace. A sixty-inch television played C-SPAN on mute. The room was cluttered with a half-dozen beat-up cardboard boxes stuffed with papers, notebooks, and file folders. Two computer monitors sat side by side on an old wooden work table. The chandeliers were set too bright.
    Gus Hebron handed Jon a sixteen-ounce can of Bud Light in a Redskins coolie. He returned to the kitchen and came back with a fruit bowl filled with Chex mix, setting it on the large glass coffee table between them.
    “So, what are you doing with yourself these days, Jonny?”
    “Nothing real exciting.”
    “Yeah.” Hebron grinned. “Still writing, I guess?”
    Jon nodded.
    “And what prompted you to look
me
up?”
    “Trying to find my brother, as I said.”
    Hebron sat on the edge of the sofa, reached for the bowl and popped some of the Chex mix in his mouth, keeping a reserve in his hand. “Why call me?”
    “I have a pretty limited number of options at this point.”
    “Well. The first question I’d ask is whether or not he
wants
to be found. If Charlie doesn’t want to be found, you’re wasting your time looking for him.”
    “I’m not sure if he does or not,” Jon said. Both men sipped their beers, watching each other. Gus’s face became expressionless, but Jon saw that he was still looking at him. “I’m really just seeking some direction. If you needed to find him, who would you go to?”
    “Well. I’d set up an investigation,” Gus said. “I’d have him tracked. And, of course, I could do that, for a price. Why are you so concerned?”
    “Just a hunch. He was supposed to call me this morning. He didn’t.”
    Gus nodded, then moved his jaw from side to side. Something about him wasn’t quite right, Jon sensed, though he couldn’t figure just what it was.
    “Can I ask what the nature of the call was?”
    Jon shrugged.
    “Do you have a number for him? An e-mail?”
    “Nope.”
    “Street address? Any way of reaching him?”
    “No. He contacted me.”
    “What I thought.” He drank his beer. “You two haven’t been particularly close for a while, have you?”
    Jon raised his eyebrows but said nothing, surprised that Gus would know this.
    “Falling out?”
    “I can’t really give you a good reason.”
    “Other than Charlie.”
    “Right.”
    He feigned a laugh. “Well. Look. If you think I’ve got a pipeline to him, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Jon. In fact, to be honest with you, I think the reason I invited you over was because of what
you
might tell me.”
    Jon Mallory frowned. “Really. Does it matter to you?”
    Gus’s face became very serious, an expression Jon hadn’t imagined was in his repertoire. “Your
father
mattered to me. Your family does, sure.” He gazed at his beer can, tilting it for a moment as if reading the letters. “When I worked with your dad, we were part of an exclusive community. Weren’t allowed to discuss the shit we were working on with anyone. A lot of it,