At noon he left a note on the kitchen table saying he had gone out and would be back before supper. Sarah was resting, and he did not want her to use the strength it would take to object. He carried a bottle of warm water, the canvas pouch, and three dollars tucked into his sock in case he needed the bus. He was wearing a corduroy jacket that had belonged to an older neighbor's son, though the temperature had already climbed high enough to make the pavement shimmer.
Route 99 seemed longer on foot than it ever had through a bus window. Trucks passed in waves of dust and hot exhaust, and the boy stepped carefully around broken glass along the shoulder. At one point a driver honked and shouted something Toby could not make out. He tightened his grip on the pouch and counted telephone poles to keep himself from turning back.
The Rusty Anchor occupied a squat warehouse-like building behind a gravel lot, its sign shaped like an anchor whose paint had nearly vanished. Motorcycles stood in a crooked line outside, some polished, others visibly rebuilt from parts that seemed too old to belong together. A pair of men smoking near the wall looked at Toby and exchanged glances as he crossed the gravel. Neither stopped him, perhaps because neither could believe a child intended to go inside.
He put both hands against the heavy oak door and pushed. Air thick with cigarettes, beer, machine grease, and old wood rushed out to meet him. A ZZ Top song played through a battered jukebox, pool balls cracked together near the back wall, and laughter rose from a booth where several men were bent over cards. Toby stood on the threshold just long enough to draw attention before making himself step forward.
There were more than thirty men in the room, or so it seemed to Toby, whose fear made every shoulder wider and every face harder. Their vests bore the winged death's head and the Bakersfield charter's California markings. Some were older than his grandfather would have been, and some were young enough to be the brothers of boys he knew at school. But no one wore an expression that said children belonged at the Rusty Anchor.
Sal, the bartender, was wiping down the long mahogany counter with a damp cloth. He watched Toby approach and rested both hands on the bar as though steadying himself against an unexpected joke. "You lost, kid?" he asked. "There's a family pizza place back toward town, and I guarantee the people in there like surprises a lot more than we do."
"I'm not lost, sir," Toby managed. His voice came out higher than he wanted, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "I have some antiques I need to sell. They belonged to my dad, and I thought someone here might know what they're worth."