The amount of burglaries a crackhead has to commit on a daily basis depends on how big the habit is. I’ve debriefed guys who were smoking over eight hundred bucks a day. That’s at least three or four solid burglaries a day. My house would be a good hit because of the laptop, the flat-screen, and especially the gun. The laptop is old, so not worth more than fifty bucks on the street. The TV is good for about a buck fifty. The gun, back when I was working—they’d go for three to six hundred on the street, depending on the model. Mine’s a revolver, but a nice one. It should get three bills or more.

But like I’ve said a few times before, it’s easier to control your habit when you’ve got a stash at home. I’m talking cocaine for the most part. But whereas coke is a demon, crack is the devil—once you start smoking you never stop. That’s what most of the guys and gals I debriefed have told me. That’s what separates people like me from them, except when the stash has run out. We gotta get more. I’ve never let myself get to that point.

Wendland opens the store. Wearing the same damn clothing from the last time I saw him. Wouldn’t surprise me if he lied and my flat-screen and laptop are at his home right now. He doesn’t seem like the gun type, so I doubt he has that.

I crack the window and light a smoke. Another humid day, so it’ll be another day of surveillance and burning gasoline.

Not even an hour, four cigarettes, and two bumps later, a black old-model Crown Vic cab pulls up to the curb in front of the location. It matches the description Wendland gave me. I write down the tag number in a notebook.

“Here we go,” I mumble to myself. I especially like when I’m right.

I grab my binos. A tall skinny man shouldering a bulging knapsack slides out of the rear passenger side. Looks a little scraggly to be Biddy—hair not so trim—but maybe he’s had a rough couple of nights. On the other hand, if Wendland was truthful with his description, I don’t think hair would grow that fast, even on a crackhead.