In most stakeouts, you’re in one of two situations. One, you’re trying to collect information to get a warrant. Or two, you already have that warrant and you’re trying to catch a suspect.

But we weren’t surveilling some drug hole or trying to catch a bunch of license plates on camera to work our way through a network. We were searching for a suspect, but didn’t even know his name.

“Carlos finished his search of the Caprice,” Remy said as I drove.

“And?”

“No secret stash anywhere in the engine.”

“He find anything?” I asked.

“There was a semicircle,” Remy said. “Burned or torn into the carpet in the trunk. It could’ve been there for years.”

“Well, it was worth a shot,” I said.

The sun was starting to fall, but according to the bartender, Isaac McGulden, Tandy’s would be empty still. The early patrons didn’t arrive ’til after seven.

“Let’s go over the basics,” I said as we drove. “Egress and ingress.”

“Ingress is just the front door at this place,” Remy said. “Egress is the front door, plus a fire exit into the alley. And then there’s the manager’s exit. Through the back office and out that rolling door. Locked unless he opens it.”

“Where should we be?” I said, quizzing her.

“You’re gonna hold down the booth inside the door,” she said. “You’re playing drunk and alone.”

“And you?”

“I’m gonna sit halfway between the pool tables and the entrance. Booth by the window. Gattling’s gonna come in an hour and join me.”

I smiled at her. “Me a drunk and you hanging with Gattling like you two are dating. Wonder if we can pull off these scenarios.”

Remy didn’t answer, and I turned off at an exit, pulling into a QuikTrip along the roadside. Told my partner I’d be back in a second.

Inside the convenience store, I grabbed a sixteen-ouncer of apple juice and used the restroom to change into the T-shirt and jacket. I walked back out to the truck, balling up my dress shirt and tossing it on the back seat.

I headed up 914 for another mile until we saw the three storefronts—the package store, the novelty place, and the bar. It was a quarter to seven, and the neon sign was lit, shining a dull orange glow that read Tandy’s in curving scroll on the tin roof.

I pulled the old beater behind the bar and parked. Rapped on the emergency exit like we’d agreed with the barkeep.

A minute later, Isaac McGulden opened the door and waved us in. He’d taken off his Ohio State sweatshirt. Under it was a white cotton T-shirt. His biceps were thick and defined.

“Anyone here?” Remy asked.

“One regular came early. Already drunk and passed out at a table. Pool of drool under his face.”

“Let’s get situated,” I said to Remy, and we moved inside.

Up on the bar, McGulden had a can of potted meat with a plastic fork sticking from it. Redneck caviar, my father would call it.