"I'm Silas Crow," he said. "Sit down. You look like you need coffee." Nolan had come prepared for suspicion and possibly anger; an offer of coffee disarmed him more thoroughly than a threat would have.
"I need to know who that man is," Nolan replied, pointing at the photograph. Silas moved an empty chair away from the table with one heavy boot. "And I'm going to tell you what I know. But sit down, because the answer isn't short and it isn't easy."
The waitress approached and set a clean mug in front of Nolan without a word. Her name tag said DOTTIE. She filled the mug, glanced once at Silas, and withdrew with the practiced discretion of someone who had watched difficult news arrive here before.
Silas handed the picture to the man beside him, whose name Nolan would learn was Decker. A pale scar ran from Decker's jaw toward his ear, disappearing beneath his hairline. He studied the image long enough that Nolan became uncomfortable, then passed it to the next biker. The photograph went around the table like a memorial object. Some of the younger men recognized the figure only when an older brother quietly supplied the name; others reacted immediately, with lowered eyes or sudden, troubled stillness.
"That's Elias Vance," Silas said at last. "Your father. He was here when this club was founded, and he was our sergeant-at-arms for years."
Nolan stared at the picture as though the man might become visible in a new way now that he had a name. Elias. Four syllables, a first name and a surname Nolan had spent his whole life carrying without knowing their connection. He repeated the name silently and felt foolishly angry that no one had ever let him say it before.
"Where is he?" Nolan asked. Silas looked toward Decker and back. "We don't know. Elias disappeared twenty-two years ago."
Nolan's stomach tightened. He had been four then, the age of the little boy in the photograph. "My mother told me he left us," he said. "She told me to stop asking because some people just leave." Silas did not contradict her immediately, and the restraint made Nolan listen harder.
"Your mother lived through a time none of us understood properly," Silas said. "I won't tell you what she should have said to you. I don't know what she was afraid of or what she was promised. I can tell you the story we heard, and I can tell you the parts I never believed."
He turned his mug slowly between his hands. "Elias was accused of stealing money from a club fundraiser. A large amount meant for families who'd lost homes in a flood. The books showed a shortage, somebody said they saw him near the account records, and before we could bring him in to answer, he was gone."
"You think my father stole from his own club?" Nolan asked. Silas took his time.
"Some men believed it. Some didn't. I didn't." From farther down the table came a quiet voice.