Page 43 of Smoke and Glitter

Now she looks surprised. "He told you?"

"He told me about it over coffee. He made it sound like a someday thing."

"It was." Bex glances toward the back room. "Now he's trying to buy it."

"And the bank said no."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to."

She lets out a breath and sets the pen down.

"There's something old still attached to his name. Company stuff from before Vibes."

"What kind of company stuff?"

Bex goes still, whatever openness was there a second ago closing off.

"That's all I'm telling you."

I hold her eyes for another second, then nod.

"Okay."

Sam comes out of the back room while a regular is calling something to him. He laughs as he crosses toward the other end of the bar, looking nothing like the man who spent the other night cutting limes he didn't need.

I could ask him.

I know exactly what he'd do.

He'd smile. Give me enough. Find something for his hands.

So I don't.

I finish my drink, go home and open my laptop.

The first night, I tell myself I'm only looking.

That lasts about twenty minutes.

The old company isn't difficult to find. Neither is the dissolution paperwork from three years ago. Most of it looks exactly like what you'd expect from two people who intended to shut a business down. Accounts closed. Assets divided. Paperwork filed.

Then I get to the last page.

One signature is missing.

I go back through the filing because there has to be more to the problem than that.

There is one more piece. A judgment tied to the old company is still sitting in the record with both names attached to it. It is the kind of thing that looks small until a lender starts deciding whether unfinished business is a risk they want to inherit.

One unfinished page means the company never finished dying, and the judgment means the old mess is still attached to Sam's name. For a lender looking at another bar, that is enough uncertainty to make Pilsen harder than it needs to be.

I sit back.

Three years, one judgment and one missing signature.

Sam would rather let all of it sit there than call the man whose name belongs on that line.